My trip starts in Fairbanks where I meet my guide, Stan Parkerson and his hunting buddy Tom. The plan is for Stan to fly his super-cub to a remote airstrip at the edge of a religious commune near the mountain system we will be hunting. Tom and I will drive there to meet up with him and he will fly me in from there. We loaded up the car as Stan took off in the cub.

Stan and his Supercub

We didn't wait long at the airstrip before the drone of the cub was heard coming from the mountains. A short time later I was loaded up, sandwiched between gear, in the tiny plane. As usual, the flight was fun. We buzzed around the area a bit, getting a good look at the surrounding mountains and making note of the various game seen by air including caribou and sheep. The fifteen-minute bush flight was over as we landed on a remote airstrip on the side of the Johnson River.

Flying up the Johnson River

The rest of the day was spent unpacking and setting up. I strung my recurve and practiced a bit. Alaska law does not allow same-day airborne hunting so for the remainder of the day the bow stayed in camp. We had a great, comfortable base camp which I will refer to as the "plane camp" since the cub was parked next to the tent. The tent was a roomy, sturdy one made by Cabelas called the Denali Extreme. There was a stove, and cots, to make the visits between spike camps as comfortable as possible.

After dinner we walked upriver to look for bear sign. We spotted a few caribou that had moved down from the snowy high country to look for food and safety in the river bottoms. According to the biologist, we had arrived a week before the caribou would begin the calving process - which would hopefully draw in grizzlies. Our mile long trip did not reveal any bear sign but the abundance of game seen from the riverbanks was encouraging. Where there's prey there's predators. Despite the fact that it was still light out - we hit the sack at midnight in preparation for our long hunt ahead.

Caribou seen close to camp

 

Some things you should know about this hunt When I contacted Stan Parkerson about an interior grizzly hunt he was reluctant to book me because he had just picked up this new guide-use area for grizzlies and it had not been scouted. He made no bones about understanding the country or the bear-habits in this area. I appreciated Stan's honesty and candor and was intrigued with the notion of taking a bigger role in the hunt by working with Stan to learn the area and finding the bears. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) had increased grizzly bear hunting opportunities in this unit so all indications pointed to a good population. I booked with Stan knowing the uncertainties and understanding the risks. The Plan The plan was to find the caribou that would be calving on a high mountain plateau and follow them around. Hopefully the bears would be out of their dens and on the search for food. The hunt will be a spot & Stalk type of hunt, covering several miles each day in search of bear sign. Once found, we would set up a spike camp and hunt hard in that area. This was not going to be an easy hunt. Spring Grizzlies are perhaps the most difficult animal to hunt in Alaska. Unlike brown bears and coastal grizzlies, we were hunting interior (mountain) grizzlies that do not have the concentrated food sources like salmon streams to make them easier to locate. Also, during the springtime, the bears do not have the berry crops to keep them planted in one area. These bears are much harder to find and tend to be leaner and meaner than their big coastal cousins.