Spawning salmon splashed in the creek as moonlight waxed and waned through drifting clouds. A silver fog stole slowly across frosty ground to further confound our world of vague shadows and suspicious sounds.
In time came the heavy breathing of a huge brown bear. He had silently approached to stand vigilantly cautious in the dim of night. He was close behind, possibly within lunging range, but perhaps unaware of our presence. If we checked our own breathing and did not rustle clothing by turning heads to see, he would hopefully step into view.
When the bear finally exhaled a deliberately long sigh of breath, I knew it was a stalemate. I understood that precisely then he had turned to silently backtrack and live another night — a delicious but bittersweet moment for me and my client, crouched in the dark with a deadly secret deep in our hearts … and two more loose in our hands.
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Editor’s note: Albert Cooksie Gilliam Jr. of Haines, Alaska, is an Alaska Master Guide with more than 25 years of guiding experience. He recently finished guiding for brown bears, with his 2015 clients going seven-for-seven on bruins and billy goats to-date. Moon-bear hunts (taking bears at night) are legal in Alaska, provided the hunters do not use artificial light or electronic light-enhancing optics.
The client with him in this dispatch saw seven brown bears, and passed on three of them, including two large, dark-colored boars, (such as the moon bear pictured here), the night before this story took place. He shot a smaller blond bear the following night because he was comfortable with the 40 yard moon-shot and preferred the color of the bear.
Gilliam is now preparing for more mountain goat hunts this season. For information on his guiding service, visit alaskabearandgoathunting.com. Read more from Gilliam here.