Bear's around Ketchikan, Alaska

I've drawn a black bear tag for the area around Ketchikan, Alaska. I've never been on the island. My neighbor worked in a Bank in Ketchikan for a few years and tells me they saw bear regularly but he's not a hunter so can't offer much advice. Would anyone be able to share any bear hunting information about the island.

Thank you very much.
DC

LAST EDITED ON Mar-07-14 AT 11:22PM (MST)[p]LAST EDITED ON Mar-07-14 AT 11:08?PM (MST)

LAST EDITED ON Mar-07-14 AT 11:02?PM (MST)

Are you hunting by boat, dropped off by a float plane or by truck? Are you staying at a hunting lodge, a hotel or camping? Spring or fall? Got to have more detail to help you better.
I've hunted Ketchikan, Mitkof, Kuiu and Prince Of Wales islands for black bear but only in the spring.

Let's say your hunting by vehicle. Pretty much all you have is Revella road which goes east at Ward cove and branches out into old growth. There's few openings to spot and you might see some bears along the roadsides or up by the lake. The bears aren't usually that high in the early spring though. You could go on South or North Tongass Hwy, which follow the coast, but there are a lot of houses along the way.

Renting a boat is your best bet. Go north up the inner passage to Clover passage. Motor along slowly and watch the shorelines from about 2-300 yards out. Keep an eye on the islands out from the shores too, (I can't remember their names). Look for rocks about the size of a lunchbox or a bit bigger. They like to roll these over while looking for the little black crabs hiding underneath. Follow the shore up to Moser and Naha bays. There's a lot of tidal flats up there which are good for bears at low tide. Be careful anchoring out from the shallow flats. If the tide is still going out you'll beach your boat. It's a great time sitting on the muddy shore waiting for the tide to come back. Learn how to indian-anchor your boat, (google it), or always leave someone in the boat. Get a copy of the tide tables at nearly any store in Ketchikan and use it to plan your hunts. When you see a bear, motor down wind and let the hunter off so he can stalk back towards the bear. Even though it's legal, don't try to shoot a bear from the boat. It doesn't work well. I guarantee you don't want a wounded bear disappearing into the wall of brush/forest above the shoreline. Put a bullet through his shoulders and anchor him on the beach.
If you go south of Ketchikan, try George inlet and Carroll inlet. You can spot both sides of the coves at the same time.

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. I'll help you all I can.

P.S. If you stay in a hotel in Ketchikan, be sure to stay in the Gillmore Hotel. It's classy and you'll love the feather-tick beds!

LAST EDITED ON Mar-08-14 AT 05:39PM (MST)[p]Sorry, double clicked the message.

DC

Lonebow, thank you very much. I should have at least said I was hunting in the spring. We'll be there May 17th and leave on May 23. We'll have a 16' aluminum boat and a truck rented from a bed and breakfast business. There will be three hunters. So I guess we can hunt out of either, truck or boat.

Questions:
Will the boars be rubbed this late in the season?

Can we hunt the small islands you mentioned, with a Ketchikan permit?

I'm assuming, when we are hunting from the boat, bears are more likely out along the shoreline at certain times of day. Is there a better time of day to hunt or it's pretty much tide dependent?

You mentioned staying about 200/300 yards from the shoreline with the boat. Is it practical to anchor a half mile off the shore and use optics to scanner greater quantities of shoreline from one location?

Is the end of May a windy time in Ketchikan, as a general rule?

Do you have a preference on the rain coats and pants you use?

Have you found a particular way or brand of oil to protect your rifle from salt water?

Would never attempt a shot from a boat, can't shoot all that well from a dead rest let alone an roller coaster ;-). Regarding going ashore after a bear has been spotted, is the low tide shore muddy or sandy/rocky. Is walking from the boat into cover a difficult walk in the mud?

Is patrolling the area in front stream/river mouths any more productive than other sections of the shoreline?

I understand the rock rolling/crab hunting comment, what about the grassy slough shorelines, as a general rule, do these areas hold bears? Can you walk through these grassy sloughs at low tide?

Our plan is to leave one person in the boat, while the other two go ashore however I will learn how to indian-anchor the boat, as you've suggested.

What besides life jackets, anchor, rope, rifles, bullets and knifes do you recommend we carry in the boat? Do you take anything for shelter, if for some reason, you need to spend the night out?

Have you learned any "watch out for" things that a first timer should know ahead of time. What about, "what ever else you do, do this" sort of things?

Thanks again Lonebow, for offering the information you've provided. Entering an unfamiliar environment is always a little or a lot unnerving for me and a coastal bear hunt is about as unfamiliar as it gets, coming from a dry land, desert dweller like me. This will be an adventure for us old country boys. Win, lose or draw.

DC

-I doubt they'll be rubbed. Here's the bears my son and I shot about that time on Kuiu in 2012.



-Yes those islands are in your unit.

- Not so much certain times of the day as whether or not there is a low tide. The tide changes about every 6 hours so you get two high and two low tides every 24 hours. My tide tables say you'll have a low tide in your area at 10:07AM and 10:24PM on the 23rd on may this year. The bears still hit the beaches at high tide but not as much. High tide is a great time to get some fishing done and eat a lunch.

- You're not going to scare the bears if you're out a couple hundred yards and you can cover a lot more shore if you motor up and down the coast. Don't be afraid to cover the same country even if you just passed there a half hour ago. They come out at intermittent times. You might see nothing one time and on the second pass you'll see five bears.

- No. Any time "could" be windy but if it's like the island I live on it's usually Dec-Feb.

- Yes. I use high-dollar sh!t, (Sitka, Russell and Kuiu) but I live here. While boat hunting you won't need anything all that durable but you'll still need some good gear. Any rain gear you'd use to hunt mulies in the rain will probably be good.

- I use Remoil spray because it gets under your barrel and action better than wipes. Rain isn't going to hurt your gun but salt water spray with rust your stainless rifle before you get back to the dock. I promise. You MUST have something waterproof to stow your guns in while you're in the boat. Even a garbage bag that's taped shut is better than nothing.

- The shore is anything from gravel to boulders. Very little mud except back in the bays where the grass flats are. Stay close to the the trees and try to stay above the kelp line. The kind of kelp around there pops when you step on it. I've done this many times and honestly, if the wind doesn't switch or the bear doesn't go back into the trees, it'll be one of the easiest stalks you've ever done. I usually hunt with a longbow so my margin for error inside 25 yards is way greater. Thinking back, I probably could have shot 80% of the bears I've stalked if I'd have had a rifle.

- Only during salmon runs. Chum are first but I think you'll be too early for that.

- They can be pretty muddy sometimes but fortunately bears don't wade through the mud too often. They generally stay along the higher part of the flats. The flats can gravel or sand too.

- Good idea to leave someone in the boat. To indian anchor, tie a long rope to the FRONT of your anchor with the back of the anchor tied to your boat. Now set the anchor on the bow of the boat and shove your boat out as far as you can while letting out the long rope. Once you boat gets out there a ways, yank the anchor off the bow and into the water. Now your boat is anchored out past low tide. When you come back, drag the anchor in along with your boat.

- All the stuff you said but most important is a way to keep dry and several ways to make a fire if you're stranded. The boat will probably come with a VHF radio. Channel 16 is the coast guard.

I'm going hiking so when I get back I'll answer the other questions.

LAST EDITED ON Mar-08-14 AT 06:42PM (MST)[p]Really, really appreciate your time and insight. Looking forward to more. Thanks for sharing the photos of your bears. Any idea what they weighed, both look large to me, big heads especially.

Another MM member thought the bear on Ketchikan were a lot more picked over than on Prince of Wales and other islands. Have you found that to be the case? If the bears run smaller, maybe we shouldn't spend a lot of time passing smaller bears hoping for a larger on, if they're aren't many available. Of course, the larger we can find the better, but sometimes I've end up hunting for something that doesn't live there on these "out of town trips".


DC

LAST EDITED ON Mar-09-14 AT 00:01AM (MST)[p]LAST EDITED ON Mar-08-14 AT 09:28?PM (MST)

Our bears are closer in size than they look in the pictures. Mine is 6'3" and Shaun's is 6'0" nose-to-tail. For some reason his looks quite a bit smaller than mine. I have no idea what they weighed but good lord they were hard to drag and move into position to photograph and skin. Even in the spring they had a lot of fat on them which is typical of bears that forage along the sea shore.

Anyway... I took this picture on our hike a few minutes ago. I live smack dab in the middle of country that people pay thousands of dollars to visit and hunt. I love my life!


Alright, things to make sure you have...
- A GPS. You'll probably have one because we hunters usually have one anyway. It's also fun to check out all the places on BingMaps when you get home. Turn it on when you leave the dock and mark it as a waypoint. My son and I were boating back from a remote island and a storm kicked in. We had to go really slow because of the waves. Then the fog rolled in and it started to get dark. We had at least another 1/2 mile and I couldn't see 20 feet. Shaun got his GPS out and guided me right to the dock. It saved our butts that night. Alaska has more coastline than all the rest of the U.S. put together and all the coastline looks simalar down in that area. Even on clear days you can get twisted around.
- Bring something windproof to wear. Your rain gear will work for that. You'll stay WAY warmer with something that keeps the wind from robbing your heat.
- "Wool works, cotton kills" You don't need to have wool on but it sure keeps you warm even when you're drenched. You can buy the expensive, hoity-toity crap that I wear but honestly you don't need it. Just stay away from cotton, even your socks.
- Do whatever you can to drop your bear on the beach. Bust him through the shoulders and drop him on the spot. There's nothing wrong with a backup buddy putting a few rounds in him if he heads for the trees either.
I have a pretty sturdy set of nuts when it comes to tracking wounded bears but I get shrinkage in the thick, nasty growth that grows on the edge of the sea. You'll see what I mean when you get there. You can't see under, over or through that stuff. I tracked a wounded bear into the growth and it was one foot at a time. The wet moss sucks up the blood and all you have for tracking spoor is scuff marks on the mossy logs and ground. At one point I was tracking by wiping my hands over the moss and checking to see if I had blood on them. Sh!t gets real bad real fast when a wounded bear, who has nothing to lose, charges for his last time. I've been there and it's mayhem times ten.
- Please don't kid yourself and bring a shotgun for self defense. Use your rifle with your scope at low power. Bear spray works great for charging bears unless it's wounded. I guarantee it won't have any effect on a bear that's hell-bent on killing you kind of death charge. Besides, having a couple of frantic hunters spraying bear spray at a bear AND each other probably doesn't help things.
- In your unit you have to bring out all the meat, hide with claws attached and the skull. You have to check it in and get the hide and skull measured and tagged. You can throw your meat in the dumpster after it's checked in but I'd take as much of it home as you can afford. I've donated bear meat to shelters in Ketchikan, Prince of Wales, Kodiak and Petersburg. Download the form off the AF&G website and fill out the top and bottom. You keep one half and the meat recipient keeps the other with the meat. Now everybody's happy and nothing went to waste. Bear meat is really good if you cook it in a crock pot or bottle it. The steaks on some bears are really good, on others, not so much. I kept a bunch of grizzly meat last year and I couldn't stand to eat it so I bottled it for my dogs.
- The Ketchikan area gets more pressure that POW because it's a fairly big city and a popular place for Washington and Oregon hunter to go. I haven't hunted farther from Ketchikan than the places I told you about but I'd imagine you'd see more bears farther away than where I went. POW has more bears because it's more remote and harder to get to. POW has a LOT of bears. Kuiu, in my opinion, is the king of black bears in that area. Good lord I've seen some big bears there! I stalked to within 30 yards of a 7'6" blackie in 2011. The wind changed before I could get an arrow in him. I wished so bad I had a rifle.
Kuiu has no towns or villages and is hard to get to without a long boat ride or an expensive float plane. I know a cheap and easy way to hunt Kuiu but I'm not going to post it here. If you get a tag someday PM me and I'll fill you in.
- One last thing, keep an eye on the weather and don't go out without being prepared to stay the night. Don't worry about food or water too much. Just make sure you have several ways to make a fire and something to get under to stay dry. You can stow a tarp/visqueen and fire starters in a fairly small package too. It rains 63% of the days of the year where I live. Stay dry and warm and you'll make it through any storm.

Thanks again Longbow, your information is exactly what I need and appreciate. I'm getting pumped to go, as much to see the country and experience a vastly different environment and hunting adventure. Putting a tag on a bear will, in fact, be a bonus, which is a much different expectation than I had for other "out of town" hunts I've been on. I guess the fact that we're going up without much more than a "wing and a pray" is allowing me to be total comfortable with the out come, as long as everyone comes home safe and has enjoyed themselves.


The GPS, the wool, the wind, shooting and tracking, the fire starters and cover suggestions are all valuable information for me. I'll prepare accordingly.

I'm not the least bit interested in crawling into a rain forest thicket after a wounded bear. I've spent a little time out on the west coast of Vancouver Island, in that rain forest, it's hands and knees and bottomless moss pits, no thanks. Board side, double shoulder shots or pass! I get it, big time.

I do appreciate the amazing country in which you live. We too, live in magical country, but very different from yours but none the less, I understand what you mean when you say you "love your life" there. We live in the greatest county in the world and are so blessed to have the freedom and the opportunities to enjoy it's diverse bounties.

I'll stay in touch, please do the same. I will, I promise, report back to you, our adventure.

DC

2lumpy, it sounds like a great adventure. Be sure to have hip boots for landing and launching from the beach. I've never hunted SE Alaska but fished some along the salt water at the mouth of a creek. Good luck.

Eel

Hip boots will be on board. Thanks for the advice. Wish I had your knowledge of the ocean and it's ways, eel. I feel like a 5 year old on this first day of kindergarten.

We'll try to go at it slow and cautious, ego's on lock down.

DC

""Lonebow, thank you very much. I should have at least said I was hunting in the spring. We'll be there May 17th and leave on May 23. We'll have a 16' aluminum boat and a truck rented from a bed and breakfast business. There will be three hunters. So I guess we can hunt out of either, truck or boat.""


AhhhHmmmmm!!! ONLY 3 hunters?!?!?! What about the other two that are coming with you?!?! LOL!!!

So I guess Me and Dad will be on our own! hahaha

Anyway...good info and we are super excited! Cant wait for it to get here!

Did you get a bear? What B/B did you use? Was the skiff a good option?
Phantom