As I get older, I find myself constantly thinking about the good ol’ days, especially my early hunts.  I have had many wonderful hunting experiences. 

The other evening at a dinner party one of the guests asked if I was still able to hunt.  I quickly responded, “Oh yes, just not doing the real tough ones with long packs and heavy loads.”   Later I was thinking, “Do I really know where to draw the line on tough hunts.”  To make matters worse, this past weekend down at our cabin on the Kenai, my son-in-law Sagen and grandson Nathan were shooting targets with their recurve bows and they asked me to join them.  I got out my old trusty “Bear Kodiak Magnum” recurve and tried to string it.  I tried again and again with no luck.  I had to ask Sagen to string it for me.  I thought, “I’m really over the hill!”  Being the macho guy that I have always tried to be, that was humbling.  It wasn’t like I was going on a hunt with that bow that I haven’t used since the late 70’s.  It was just the fact that even if I wanted to go, I couldn’t because I couldn’t string my bow.  After it was strung, at least I could still shoot it reasonably well.

That little bow brings back so many stories.  My dad got it for me for Christmas in 1964.  Two months before I came to Alaska, 58 years ago.  At only 52 inches in length, it was the shortest bow made back in those days.  Bear made it just for hunting.  Because of its size it was always harder to string.  Of course, now-a-days everyone uses a compound bow and you don’t have to string those.  

I used that bow to harvest two mountain goats, both Billys.  The one I took in ’71 scored 46 P&Y points and was tied for sixth place in the Pope and Young Record Book that year. 

I harvested two Dall rams with it, the biggest scoring 157 P&Y points.  That was the largest ram taken in the ninth record period and was awarded first place honors for that period and ended up in third place overall in the first printed Pope and Young Record Book.

In the mid 70’s I harvested a black bear.  All of those critters were taken under the range of 30 yards.  The closest was the black bear which was somewhere between 6-7 yards, one goat was about 10 yards and the other goat at 12 yards.  I loved to get in close.

That bow was with me on many hunts and to think it still shoots so well after 58 years.  That’s remarkable!  It has so many scars on it from my climbing cliffs and numerous falling rocks.  It still has a small piece of a rock dug into the handgrip.  I had two strings cut by falling rocks while climbing in rock chutes and once had it knocked out of my hand by a fast-moving rock.  I upgraded to a compound in the early 80’s but never killed anything with it.  Then in ’83 I started guiding and basically quit hunting for myself, especially bow hunting.

My bow hunting days may be over but at 79 I’m still always up for a hunt. 

This spring it was too rainy for the scheduled family black bear hunt in the Prince William Sound area so I told my grandson-in-law Nate, who hasn’t taken a black bear yet, that even if it rained, we would hunt the road system on the Kenai Peninsula. 

Nate and I drove down the Seward highway about a week past the prime time to glass the mountain sides.  The alder had budded on most of the lower portions of the southern exposed mountains.  The weather wasn’t the best with rain showers and some low hanging clouds.  We ended up camping at Cooper Lake and sleeping two nights in the back of Nate’s truck.  I have done that a few times!  I hadn’t been to Cooper Lake in the last 50 years.  The access was completely different so we ended up using a small 14’ boat to hunt the lake.  We spotted a sow with a cub and three different lone bears.  On previous hunts Nate has proven to be a great spotter.  He spotted most of the bears on this hunt also.  We ended up attempting a stalk on one of the lone bears but before we got to shore the sound of the motor spooked it and it ran into a big pine/alder thicket.  On the last day the clouds were down and it was raining harder there so we decided to hunt our way back to Anchorage.  As luck would have it, about 5 miles from town Nate spotted a lone black bear at one of the pull-offs.  Not being legal we kept driving!  We are hoping for better luck and weather next year.  Ah, 79 isn’t old!  Besides I’m planning on spending my 80th in sheep camp! 

Good hunting and good luck out there!