It's a big day. The Alaska hunting permit draw results for fall 2025 and spring 2026 just dropped. My son and I struck out, but my lucky SOB brother in law got a Kodiak brown bear tag for next spring.
For him to hunt brown bears, since he lives out of state, he is legally required to either hire a licensed guide (>$15k) or be accompanied by an Alaskan relative. That would be me. It should be an epic trip. I better start working out.
Awesome. Good luck!
You lucky bastard.
Hopefully he shoots better this time. The last time we went bear hunting, it took 12 shots and I came within 10 yards of getting mauled.
What caliber round would one use to take down a brown bear?
Last time he used a 300 win mag, it was a little marginal. The .338 win mag is pretty popular as is 375 H&H and 45-70.
Damn, still took 12 bullets of .300!?
Not exactly, there was poor shooting by both him and I. He had the 300 win mag, I had a .243 (because I was caribou hunting) and a 10mm pistol. He shot it once from 300 yards and then it started running away. We both laid down and started firing our rifles. He fired 4 more times, 2 missed. I hit it 3 times with my rifle. At that point it was down and we walked up to it. When we 10 yards away, it got up and came at us aggressively, it had a broken front leg, so it wasn't coming fast. It snapped off 3 shots with my 10mm. Two hit the head, but not brain, one missed and it kept coming, undeterred. My partner used his last rifle round to dispatch it.
I think I have him talked into buying a 375 H&H for this trip. I'm considered bringing a 12 gauge pump loaded with slugs.
That’ll be a trip packed with wicked memories. I guess you’re a lucky SOB as well to get to accompany him!
I’m not sure how your draw rates are but in BC it’s been tough for my group and I to get any meaningful draws. 5 years of striking out under my belt.
Best of luck! 🤙
Will you keep us posted on the progress? I wonder what do you need to consider, do, prepare, which rifle will you use and so on…
My BIL has been calling and talking to the short list of people who know anything about hunting this unit, and we have a plan. We are going in early May because the weather should be better, the lakes should be thawed and the one guy that is allowed to guide hunters there will have pulled out for the season. He only will be guiding two hunters, we have the only other tag, so we'll have ~40 square miles of wilderness to ourselves.
We'll charter a Cessna 185 on floats out of Kodiak (city) to fly us to a small lake on the edge of the unit. They can land on the lake, but it isn't long enough to take off with a load, so we'll bring pack rafts. It's a three mile hike to a 20 mile long river that leads to the ocean where we can get picked up in a bay by another float plane. We'll float the river at a slow pace and try to find a 9'+ bear. We'll fly fish for steelhead and dolly varden if time allows.
#hunting
