We spent the day flying from Salt Lake City → Seattle → Anchorage, Alaska. We then picked up a rental truck in Anchorage and drove to Homer, Alaska where we rented an Airbnb and stayed the night.

We knew from the beginning that we were only going to have a day and a half or so of good weather before a large multi-day storm would be hitting. That night Erik, Tyler and myself hit one small inlet and Joe, Cody and our cousin Chad hit a larger bay. It wasn’t long before swirly winds and sideways rains hit and we ended up back in the charter boat soaking wet.

After fishing and an incredible meal, we again split up to go look for bears. While Erik, Tyler and myself were on our way to the shore to get dropped off by the skiff boat, a black bear popped out of the thick timber onto the shore just as we were getting dropped off a few hundred yards away. Tyler grabbed his bow and Erik and I got our cameras and we started pursuing this bear that was meandering along the beach. As soon as we made it to within 100 yards of where the bear had been he disappeared back into the timber never to be seen again. A hard hitting storm hit soon after and it was back to the boat.

Meanwhile across the bay Cody, Joe, and Chad had much better fortune than us. Moments before the storm really picked up they spotted a big bear grazing on grass on the side hill just a few hundred yards from where they had hiked into. Our friend Cody spotted the bear, got down prone across his pack, and hammered the bruin with a 180 gr Hornady ELDM out of his 7 PRC. In the video of this hunt, you can see that moments after they shot this bear the winds from this storm really picked up and started dumping rain sideways on them. They got that bear in the nick of time. First bear of the trip down.

Where we had been hunting previously was open ocean, but due to the storm that was hitting we took off in the Misty Fjord to a tucked-away secluded bay that we hoped and anticipated would keep us safe from the storm. As we entered the bay the improved weather was noticed immediately. We knew this would have to be our home for the next few days as this storm raged.

After another incredible meal, we still had 6-7 hours of bear hunting left due to the fact that it doesn’t get dark until almost midnight that time of year. We again split up into groups and Erik, Tyler and myself climbed up on a nice glassing knob looking into beautiful high-country basins and overlooking a good looking shoreline. It didn’t take long to spot bears, and a lot of bears at that. We spent the next few hours looking over 12-15 black bears. Unfortunately, none of them were cruising the shores where we could chase them with our short-range equipment (Erik and Tyler brought bows, and I had a 45-70 lever-action rifle). They were either across the bay from us or at the tops of the mountains.

While wallowing in our lack of good fortune, we heard a couple of shots ring out. During a nice glassing/napping session Cody, Chad, and Joe had a bear feed down to the shore around a hundred yards away from them. Luckily Joe had awakened from his nap in time and let Chad know about the bear. Chad leaned up against a fallen down tree and placed a perfect shot on another bruin. 2 bears in one day - not bad at all.

The storm finally settled down on us in all its glory and the next two days were filled with heavy, unrelenting rain and wind. Not even the safety of our cove saved us from this magnificent storm. While anchored in the bay, the winds were so fierce that the charter boat spun in circles. The rain was dumping so hard that we couldn’t even see the shoreline at times which was only a couple of hundred yards away.

To keep our spirits up during this time we left the bay once to get some black rockfish fishing in, glassed for bears from the charter boat when we had small breaks in the weather, played games, told stories, and enjoyed some amazing homemade meals. We even glassed up a few black bears that came out during those small breaks of weather but they quickly retreated to the timber.