Bowsite.com

Around ‘95 Ted Nugent came out with the spirit of the wild record with a song named Fred Bear. The song immediately became my bow hunting theme song and I jammed it every time I drove to the land to hunt. It pumped me up and I felt it brought me good luck.

Well at the end of the song Fred Bear challenges young thrill seekers to travel to the Northwest Territories to bow hunt grizzly, brown and polar bear .....it will cleanse the soul.

In my 30’s this became my dream hunt. Now 25 years later I’m booked in June with Jonah. Brown bear with the bow.

A couple days ago Jonah was answering some of my questions (he’s been awesome btw, I picked the right outfitter for sure) and I asked him if I need a hand gun. He said - he never goes into bear country without one. I didn’t see this coming

I’m happy to report the cleansing has begun.

Hope you kill the bear of your dreams, JG!

My wife and I went through concealed carry class and I bought 3 9mm handguns. Really haven’t shot them much since the class. My buddies think I should take their 10mm. I’ve never shot a hand gun that big. To be honest, I’ve never carried a hand gun on me

I’m thinking of just bringing the 9mm glock with hollow points and stick close to the guide (who has a gun and knows how to use it)

I have some reloads from the gun range with solid tips. I’d guess finding bullets might be tough right now?

I really don’t know much at all about hand guns or bullets. Any help would be appreciated

Took 3 sits but I was blessed with an old bear. Jonah measured it 27” skull and 9’4” square

Everyone in camp had shot at a brown bear when I left. Three more still hunting

Fred Bear was right. It cleanses your soul. I almost fell out of the stand after the shot I was shaking so bad. Seriously my teeth were chattering. Nothing else can give me this feeling

Thanks uncle Ted for your song and a huge hat tip to Jonah Alaskan outfitters.

I can’t imagine the fight that caused this. It will be an interesting part of the story of this bear. He’s also covered in huge scars

This hunt was little about me, the only thing I did was put in the butt time in the stand and listened to him and made the shot he coached to

Jonah pulled chips after my hunt. This bear was new. He had never had seen this bear before the day after I shot. The target bear he wanted me to shoot came in the following day after I shot mine.

I’m a big fan of Jonah and really am appreciative of the time he took coaching me

I second Bou's question. Did guys just make bad shots on the bears or squander the opportunity with too much movement?

I took a Blacky with Stickflinger's a few years back. His lower passenger side tooth was blown off and his jaw was broken in 2 places. It had started to heal and he was healthy. Best guess is that he tangled with the wrong Moose calf and momma gave him a swift kick to the kisser.

Would love to see more pics from your hunt!!

Jonah was absolutely awesome. I was in awe with his personal trophy’s at his house and his family. First night I slept in his hanger and he spent a lot of time with me answering questions and getting to know each other. He went through trail camera pictures showing me my target bear and where to shoot.

The arrow pointer is where he told me to hit the bear. I did. Mine went about 60 yards

The bear I shot was a new one. Not on film. This one showed up the night after I shout mine at like 1130pm- broad daylight

He drilled it in my head to stay 6” back from the arm

I was one of the shoulder guys this year... Bear came in 4 hours after being on stand first night and gave me all the opportunity in the world to shoot him, I was in a ground blind and it was plenty daylight. While at full draw, I found the crease/shoulder and consciously moved back to the lungs as Jonah said shoot them anywhere but the shoulder... So, once settled, I released and arrow hit right where I was aiming, but only got 6" of penetration. My bear was quartering away and only thing I can think is he was quartering away much more than I thought, so I would've had to get further off the shoulder. I was shooting a 2" Sevr at Jonah's recommendation for expandables. My total arrow weigh is 475 grains.

I hunted for 6 more nights that averaged 17 hour sits without another brown coming into the bait and then shot a black bear on my last night. Jonah was great and my brown was also a new bear on the bait and a 9' bear according to Jonah.

Here are some more pictures. I’m gonna do the skull and a rug. His arm pits are worn and completely scarred up but that rug will tell the story

The biggest challenge we had was crossing the river. Our camp was directly across the river about 1 mile away. The first trip across took us 2 hours. After that we learned how to run the braids and got it down to 30-45min. I think we had 8 braids to cross. Our new way required a lot more walking but it was an firm sand bars and we could drag the raft in the water instead of over the sandbars. When you went in the water you’d hit this silk soft spots and sink down to your knees. The water was cloudy and there was no way of seeing the soft spots

The food was plentiful and very good. I was taken care of

My guide Dan was very well organized and focused on getting me a bear. He took spectacular care of my needs. Thankfully he was tough. Man packing out that hide and head would have been impossible for me

This is up river towards the glacier

Funny story. Jonah was going to fly it home to help us. We tried getting the head into the belly pan of his plane. It wouldn’t fit. Jonah laughed and said this doesn’t happen very often. Thus my guide skinned the head and we left if for jonah on a snow pile

It was a long day. We got up like 4pm and didn’t get to camp till 2pm the following day. I’ll never forget that 22 hours