Contributors to this thread:
Roy pretty much built this place for me.
Managed to take advantage of having the place on the Unalakleet River recently, lucked out, and found a B&C class grizzly.
Shot him at 30 yards while floating down the river. Pretty fun way to hunt. We had another bear charge the boat after running off a smaller bear on the same gravel bar.
Wow. A floating bear blind....... that's some next level thinking there Bob.... some world class.... excitement...
Great bear! A Booner grizzly with bow...... might have to be changing your handle here soon.... Congrats!
Congrats on a great bear. Curious why his coat looks so dark or is that consistent with the area?
Yowza!! That's a big bear!! Congratulations!
Wow, congratulations and once again no Kuiu or Sitka. Very well done!
Congrats on that giant griz !!
Can you please share the details of the events leading up to the shot and the recovery? Thanks!
Excellent. Congratulations Bob!
I had been wondering if you were out on your grizz hunt or not. Haven't seen you post in awhile. Big congrats to you Bob, really nice bear! the raft does look like a fun way to hunt.
Really cool Bob. That is an awesome trophy. I think this is extremely weird but, I miss Roy and I never met him. Even in print and video he was larger than life and seemed to be the definition of "salt of the earth."
Great grizzly, Bob! Congratulations!
Unalakleet grizzly bears are really brown bears that get fish all summer long. They are typically dark brown, but I'm told by John Wilson there are also some lighter color bears around. The artificial line that separates brown bears from grizzly bears is just south of the area so these guys are counted as grizzly bears.
By the way, if anyone wants to do this hunt, John Wilson in Unalakleet is the guy to call. He takes only a single bow hunter each summer and he's 100%. PM me for his contact information. Just before I was at the cabin he took Joel Maxfield from Mathews and Joel got a bear too.
I spotted my bear while drifting down river at about 11pm. I signaled by friend Bruce who was rowing the boat. He put us on a drift that brought us by the bear at what I thought was 25 yards. It turned out to be more like 30 yards. Anyway, the bear didn’t even look up. I held my sight pin about 10 inches upstream and it hit him low in the chest. The bear whirled around to see what had bit him and he then saw us on the river and ran off toward the willows and woods. There was about 30 yards of grass before the willows so we could see his departure path. When he hit the willows we could see the brush parting and after a few more yards I saw the brush in one place swaying back and forth.
It looked like I had heart shot him and it looked like he was dead where I last saw the brush swaying back and forth, but it was 11pm and we only had 15 minutes of daylight. We elected to come back in the morning to do the recovery. Doing so, we found him 52 yards from where I shot him. The two of us couldn’t move him so took pictures and skinned him where we found him.
Awesome Job Bob!! Beautiful Bear!
That's a big ass bear! Congrats!
Congrats on another great adventure (and bear) Bob!
Mark
Congratulations on great bear, Bob!
gawd big bear what would a bear like that weigh? 800# ?
Not sure what he weighed, but two of us couldn't do much with him. Weight plus being stiff from sitting over night rendered him pretty much anchored to the spot he was in. After a very close skinning and fleshing of the hide, not including the skull, the hide weighed in at 74 pounds.
Monster bear...Congrats Bob!
Best of Luck, Jeff
Congrats Bob! Heck of a bear.
Question, how did you know how far upstream to hold your pin? Practice, intuition?
Congrats on another great trophy Bob.
Wow, what a freaking monster!! That's cool as hell, bucket list hunt for me for sure. Congrats!
I noticed the photo I posted illustrates how tuf Roy was. Dan Watson and I are all bundled up because it was wet and cold while we worked on the cabin. Roy was working in his flip flops with a light weight shirt on. He was pretty much impervious to the weather.
Well no one is going to accuse you of doing a hero shot to make the bear look bigger. Just look at the size of those feet!
Terry
Congratulations Bob... beautiful bear!!!
Awesome bear !! Bob do you know the guy from the show flying Alaska that flys out of Unalakleet ?? They seem like a real cool family......
Yeah, I had flown with Jim for years doing my work before he sold the business a few years ago. I saw him at the airport when we arrived in Unalakleet. I've never met the daughters, but his wife used to work at the flight service and they are a nice family.
Congrats Bob! That's an incredible animal!
Congrats - what a great hunt!
Congrats on a huge bear Bob!
Beautiful Bear. Congrats. Love that first pic.
FREAKING AWESOME BOB!!! CONGRATS to you!!!
Incredible! Congrats Bob!
I was worried that the infamous blacktail was eaten by a brownie this spring as he has been AWOL. Glad to see that he is still kicking. Congrats on your big grizz. John Wilson is top notch. Highly recommend him.
Congrats Bob, love the camo jacket!
Goodness!!!congrats Bob!!
How cool is that bob. Big time congrats.
Coñgrats Sir - excellent bear and hunt!
So you float along drinkin beer until you see a giant bear?!? JK, that's an awesome hunt!!!
What an adventure congrats Bob.
On shot placement, the smart thing would be to shot at target on the gravel bar in front of the cabin while floating by. Of course, I didn't do the smart thing. I didn't have a target. John Wilson has a ton of experience guiding Bowhunters. He suggested about a foot. At what I figured was 25 yards, I used about ten inches based mostly on intuition. It worked.
I met John several years ago and really like him.
Awesome Bob. I killed one of those "light colored" Unalakleet Bears this spring. What an incredible bear destination.
