My first sitka blacktail deer hunt in southeast Alaska.
I moved to Alaska from Texas, where I had grown up, married, my wife and I raised three children and I had been a captain for a major airline. When I was fourteen years old I walked into a gun shop and traded a Winchester Model 62 .22 rifle for a new Ruger pistol. No paperwork and no questions asked. Shooting and hunting handguns has been a life long hobby.
While a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division I had been on a pistol team. I was a good shot. However, as I stood on the beach trying to look like an old piling while a brown bear and her three cubs fed on salmon not thirty yards away, the thought "I am a good shot" gave me no comfort.
I was on my first deer hunt in southeast Alaska. Of course, I had a Ruger .44 magnum handgun with a 2X scope mounted on it. Man, was I excited! I felt as if I had wandered into a National Geographic special. No where I had ever hunted compared to this or had prepared me, as I needed to be, for hunting here.
Southeast Alaska consists of an archipelago of forested island mountains. Thousands of streams and rivers create ravines and bays with large tidal mudflats and are the ancestral homes of untold millions of salmon that pour in from the Pacific ocean. sitka blacktail deer, black and brown bear, wolves, coyotes, martin, mink and wolverine can be found, as well as mountain goats, moose and even elk. I feel absolutely blessed to live, hunt and fish here.
It was late fall and the salmon run was coming to an end when I went on that first hunt. I had anchored my boat in Cedar Cove, about an hour from Sitka. Rowing ashore in my skiff, I then carried it to the trees above the high tide line. I was after the stocky little sitka blacktail deer.
I walked along the rocky shoreline toward the grassy mudflat at the head of the bay. The beach was littered with dead salmon. Some half eaten and some with only the brains bitten out. Bear signs were everywhere. Eagles and seagulls screeched their disapproval of my interference.
At the head of the cove I hunted the grass flats and just inside the tree line. Then I followed the river for maybe half a mile. As the sun began to set visibility became limited and with bear signs everywhere I got a little nervous. Did I say these islands abounded with deer? Well, not here and not now. I decided to head back to the boat.
It was high tide by the time I got back to the grassy flat and the beach had narrowed to about fifteen feet. I was about a quarter mile from the skiff when, before I had time to blink, a bear was standing on the beach thirty yards in front of me. I froze! Another bear jumped out of the tree line and started scuffling with the first one! Then a third bear joined the frolic. They were the size of an average black bear. Now I heard growling and limbs breaking inside the tree line! All three bears stopped their antics and looked in the direction of the noise. I thought these three were nice sized bears, until a few seconds later Momma stepped out. I had never been this close to a brown bear before. BIG! That's the word I would use. BIG! And, oh yes, did I mention SCARED! That's another word I would use. I was SCARED!
To my good fortune I had the wind. Momma immediately looked at my skiff for a minute or so, then turned to her cubs and scolded them severely. It was obvious she didn't approve of them charging onto the open beack as they had. The cubs recovered their composure and began to feed on the dead salmon while continuing to rough house as kids do. Momma nervously stood guard.
Meanwhile as I continued to make like a piling, my heart was pounding, my hands shook and my mind raced! Nothing to do but wait it out. I began to mentally prepare for the shot in case she charged. However, the more I thought about it the more I realized that the little pop gun in my holster was not going to stop big Momma before she got to me. Oh, she may die from a well placed shot, but I wouldn't be around to brag about it.
She became more and more agitated! Finally, never once looking in my direction, she roughly herded her cubs back into the forest. I stood still for another five minutes and with my .44 magnum at the ready, eased past where they had entered the tree line, then beat feet for my skiff.
I canceled my next days hunt and took my revolver to the local gun shop in Sitka. Walking in I laid it on the counter. Al, who owned the store glanced down at it and asked what he could do for me. I said I'd like to trade it for a large caliber rifle. "Oh", he said, "had a run in with a bear, huh."
I walked out with a .375 H&H. It's designed for large dangerous African game. Never the less it's my rifle of choice for the little one hundred pound sitka blacktails of southeast Alaska.
With an Alaskan brown bear only a few yards away and nothing between you but daylight, no matter what rifle you're carrying, yer gonna wish ya had a bigger gun.
