Spring bear is finally here, both blk and grizz that both can be baited.  If we don't keep the population down, they end up breaking in our houses, just cause problems; we do have quite a few bear around where I call home. BUggers are eating me outta house and home and my nephew who lives in Anch is coming up nx week aand my daughter is flying home for summer from school in texas; they both have killed over a dozen bears between them, in past years.  so here are a couple trophy cam picts.















Young grizz my nephew got last fall, everyday you shoot a grizz is a good day and we shoot everyone that we see to help the moose to survive. He got it with my 308 SCAR 165 A-FRames & TTSXs mixed up in the magazine. Shot it running up a mntside through spruce at 250-300 yards; good deal. He got it tanned too.

WE hunt with 6.8, 308's and 338 Fed; luv the AR hanging across my chest on snowmachine or 4 wheeler.

Good of you to keep the bear population in check.



Those hides look good.

6.8mm is bear medicine?  I always thought you started @ .30"-06 & worked your way up.

Hammer em.

My daughter used the 6.8 for caribou, bear, and wolves; bear run 20-30 yards let out their bawl.  More grizz have been shot by the ole Indians than everybody else combined; usually with 30-30s. That grizz my nephew got, he hit it in lungs, faltered then collapsed 15 more yards.   308 is plenty enough gun for anything you'll find in Alaska.  Myself, I like the magazine.  When game is moving out,  I always get luckier 3rd or 4th shot.

Help me out here. Doesnt providing all that trash with food in it cause bears to associate it with food?

Very cool pictures OP. Thanks for posting.

As much as I hate backpacking with a bear can, that's why I do it when I have to!

Where did all the trash come from? Was that bait?

Not allowed to use wild fish or meat scraps for bait, sweets work best, dang bear got a sweet tooth.   First, I take it you have never baited bear?  Question seem humorous.  Entire plan is to lower bear populations or they break into houses, caches, fish racks, and they also take 85% of moose calf production, the big one for me.  People around here shoot every bear they see, all year long; they are dangerous pests. I have several friends who have been mauled, have scars from head to foot, now those guys really hate bear.  I just do my patriotic duty to control their numbers.  

My stand is over a mile from my house, but bear travel all the creeks anyway.  You want them in fear of people or people die.  I've had bear crawl in real slow on me like a cat on rabbit in cut hay field, front quarters down, butt high, ears going like crazy; they planned on eating me, blk bear, 150 lbers.  They are pests to be sensible about.

People here along the Yukon eat bear, so I bait and they all the locals get a bear or two for freezer.  Nearest Sams is 400 miles away, our road is open a few months every summer.  People here don't live in cities like you all do. Subsistence hunters, White and Indians alike.

Bear like popcorn, dog food, old vegies, syurp, salad dressing, peanut butter, miricle whip, sweets mostly. Go nuts over old donuts & sweet bread.  I've fed them 2 bags of science diet, 38 bucks apiece, went thrru 7-8 plastic jugs of miricle whip, lots of old chicken from freezer, and on and on, spent over $300 bucks this last week or so. They come in and then we start shooting all the bigger ones, let the 150 lbers alone.  Everybody here likes the bear meat aactually.

We hunt grizzly bear religiously, now they need to be wiped out, but that's pretty tough to accomplish.  We get a few every year.  Kids carry guns to school bus stop for bear protection, grizzly walk out road every May, will kill kids quick.  Not something you play around with.

At end of hunting which usually only lasts a week or two, the bear follow my 4 wheeler trail to my house for a day or two; I put the Plotts on them, bear run off quick. Plotts came from Bavarian hounds, after a couple days they learn to stay away.  

Believe me, if you had the bear around your house I do, you'd be shooting every bear that you see also.  Common sense.

No, I've never baited bear nor hunted. The only times I've encountered them was when they got curious when I was camping.

What caliber do kids carry to school?

Usually, several families build a school bus stop shelter so kids can get outta wind at minus 50; school is never cancelled, kids like school around here. So kid usually take ole military rifles, they are welll iked around here,nowadays has become SKS's, mosins, even wore out ARs. THey leave them at shelter for the walk home; nobody ever steals them; different world around here, just Whites & Indians, no crime.  Guns are second nature in rural Alaska, kids are carrying guns at 7 or 8 years old.  My neighbors boy is 8 and has a 357 revolver on his belt all the time, and he can shoot the pistol too. Like I said different world here and I couldn't live where most people call home, like a prison to me.

Every May, when grizzly walk our dirt road, if they see a kid they think food, why guns for bear protection are accepted.  I have been at schools in rural Ak, where kids bring guns into school and they are put in wall locker for the day and given back when bus comes so the kids can walk to their house safely without getting ate by a bear. Nothing ever is said about fed laws, mostly not enforced in rural areas. If somebody ever started talking about it, people would tell them to feed their own kids to the grizzly bears, no joke and they would probably get the shit kicked outta them.  Very tender subject around here when it comes to bear killing kids.

Locals have always liked military guns, cheap.  Old springfields, M1s, sks, on and on. Indans down river at FT YUkon killed a polar bear a couple years back with a .556 AR, strolling through their village . Bear walking roads, walking between cabins in villages is quite common.  I once taught at a school where we had grizzly bear problems, village dogs always chasin bears outta village.Bears would look kids over on playground, we had a 338 in locked school office behind door, and had to run and get it several times, fire off a round, bear leaves, goes about his business. Local Indians often talk to bear, I myslef didn't like that crap, was ready to shoot them; bear are so unpredictable. Getting ate by bear got to be the worst way to go.  Indians would claim that bear only ate White People, but that's complete bull.  I've seen Indians treed by bear along the road, and have seen Indians that get to stuttering when around bear.

We live in rural ALaska, Anch is different, but people get ate by bear there too.

Fascinating thread, OP.  May I ask what town or city you live near in AK?  I'd just like to look it up on a map.  I dream of visiting Alaska one day.

All river villages pretty much the same, lots of bear everywhere.  Follow the river, watch thta show on dir tv, Yukon Men, but it's really played up some too.

I usually tell people that if Alaska was for you, you'd be here already.  We came here from Western Pa, near Pymatuning (do you know that lake) over 20 years back, haven't ever left. I guess that tells ya we're quite satisfied with our quality of life & surroundings.

Didn't know you kill every bear you see. I guess if it works it works.

What I should have said is we kill every bear we see around people.  I wouldn't kill blk bear a few miles from anybody's cabins, but whenever they show up around houses, SOP is to just shoot them before they do some damage or kill somebody.  Up at Lake George, near Delta Junction, a man was killed by a local bear they had seen for weeks, 150lb 3 year old.Man was out working on his dock, 75 feet from his cabin door and here comes the bear.  It had never bothered the man before, man told his wife to go into cabin get gun just in case.  He started yelling at bear and bear kept coming; then killed man.  When state police showed up, the man's head was chewed off,laying by his leg.  His wife claimed the bear tried breaking her cabin door down to get her too, but me thinks she just freaked. This happened in summer 2013, you can search it on Yahoo I believe.  

The grizzly bear are really increasing in numbers and they decimate the moose population. get 85% of the moose calves every JUne.  Rural people realize pretty quick you have to control the wolves & bear or you will never get a moose in the cache for winter meat.  Wolf hides go for a few hundred, so everybody shoots them when they see them.  Buggers are sharp, you don't get standing shots at wolves. I've had them in my garbage cans at 3 am in the morning, me hanging out window with flashlite on AR poppin off at them.

I guess if we had less wolves &  bear,  we'd have more moose and caribou and that would be better for everybody. If they let the bears expand everywhere back east, there will be problems, people ate, and such.  The balance of nature sounds real pretty, but not reality.. It's boom and bust with the land only producing 10% of the moose that it can sustain with management.  In the end that means, no hunting for the hordes from the city if we feed it all to the wolves & bear; nobody wants that scenario.

I'll post some more picts later this week. Probably kill a grizz by the end of the week if we hunt hard.   I'd really like to get an 800 lber, few and far between. MOst our interior grizz go 400-500 lbs. hungry country up here.

We did get that Cinnamon other morning.  He didn't want to get friendly until I got the right smells into the air, funny thing them bears.  WE are allowed 3 blks & 2 Grizz/year/ family member; so all enjoy doing our patriotic duty and killing them moose eating machine off.  We also debone & grind bear meat. Spent the last few nights from 10 PM until 4 AM riding the road looking for grizz, no luck; but they are around; have killed a few ovre the years but mostly at blueberry time up on summits.   The Cinnamon is getting tanned, we rarely do that anymore but he had nice coat.   All the blks we got last week were boars; unusual. Hope you bear hunters enjoy the picts.

We did get that Cinnamon other morning.  He didn't want to get friendly until I got the right smells into the air, funny thing them bears.  WE are allowed 3 blks & 2 Grizz/year/ family member; so all enjoy doing our patriotic duty and killing them moose eating machine off.  We also debone & grind bear meat. Spent the last few nights from 10 PM until 4 AM riding the road looking for grizz, no luck; but they are around; have killed a few ovre the years but mostly at blueberry time up on summits.   The Cinnamon is getting tanned, we rarely do that anymore but he had nice coat.   All the blks we got last week were boars; unusual. Hope you bear hunters enjoy the picts.

I really feel like that bear should see a urologist. Peeing that much blood can't be healthy.

Awesome thread OP, thanks

Great thread. Thank you sir.

Nephew pict after he got the nice cinnamon.    Also a couple smaller bear still showing up, let them grow up I guess.   We always clean up the garbage once we stop hunting; after all the neighbors got their bear.   Bear notice changes and freak right out if I clean everything up daily. They like smelling who has been there eating and such, other bear ect. So we let everything sit until hunting is over.

I bait and eat bear.  I feed them popcorn and dog food with syrup mixed into it.  

Bears taste like what they are eating so I only hunt in the spring before they get into salmon.  

I keep a very neat bait station.  That much trash would drive me batshit crazy.

What do you do with the skulls? I have skull cleaning bugs and would love to have some bear skulls

Great pictures

Is the date and temperature in your cam pics accurate? Y'all got it made.  Whats the cost for an out of state hunting license?

The GF is trekking to Montana soon, and will be hiking 6 miles in the National Forest w/ 3 kids, 1 other adult, and 2 x grandparents.  Armament so far is a .357" Magnum revolver, a .44" Magnum revolver, & a .458" SOCOM AR.  I have Winchester white box .44" Magnum 240 grn jacketed soft point available @ my LGS.  Is that sufficient for bear if the .458" goes down, or should I be looking for heavier &/or solids?

Fire Ants? Because that what we use here.

great thread ...ya those dam ants ......

They work for anything, skulls, bones, shark jaws.

I love this thread great pics and info...I wish I could hunt bear like that just can't give up on what I started here...awesome work keep it up!!