New Wooly Sport, wondering where to hunt with it?

[Whelenator]

I just spent exactly 2 hours reading the search results of several searches I did on river hunting brown bears. My brother and I have been trying to do a brown bear hunt now for the better part of 8 years. his work, my deployments, etc. anyway, I just got a new job and won't have a lot of vacation time this fall. I also just got a 2007 Wooldridge Sport and would like to utilize it to hunt browns with my brother sometime this fall. One thing scares the heck out of me. Going in late and having the water disappear on us from the cold temps. Yikes. I can think of all sorts of bad stuff that could result from that. Can anyone recommend a couple river systems we could hunt for maybe a week and see bears? Not 10 footers, just plenty of bears?? Maybe a wolf? how about the Su? How far can a guy go up that in a jet boat? I mean a fairly heavy 20 foot outboard jet with a lot of food and crap on it?? I also like the thought of trying to come into one of the rvers down near Cordova as the locals down there came right out and asked me and another buddy in 2006 to "please come back down here and kill some of these bears". We didn't see anything that weekend but a couple old tracks. My wife and I ran into a big bruiser in 2007 after a moose calf and I couldn't take the shot. Saw another on one of the river beds, I forget now which one. Anyone ever have a jet boat down in Cordova?? Any other recommended rivers we can try? I would of course go run the river to see how it is and check for critters. Thoughts?

 

[Water_Gremlin]

I would suggest planning your hunt differently. Do not necessarily focus on bears, plan a moose hunt and hope for an opportunity to shoot a bear. Let's go calling this Sunday and yack about fall hunting.

 

[BRWNBR]

so many guys in here with boats, doubtfull their gonna drop ideas for a hunt in places they plan on being already this fall. internet research is one of these things thats kinda ruined alot of hunting and been a topic of large debate over the last several years.
My advice to you, is pick and area and contact the fish and game biologist that works it, ask about fish, access, bear numbers, inside tips anything like that. In doing so you might actually get information about an area it isn't someones "leftover" spot.

 

[Whelenator]

Thanks for the replies guys. BRWNBR, considering your name, I wouldn't expect you to tell me much. And I wasn't asking for gps coordinates of ya'lls bears. I merely wanted some suggestions for some of the river systems that would be a good place for us to go.
Yeah Gremlin, a moose hunt would be ok, but we really want to go for bears, and if we see a moose, well he is a secondary find.
i hadn't thought of using the biologists for boat hunting though, thanks for that suggestion.

 

[BRWNBR]

not telling ya much cause i don't have specifics on bears that are accesable with boats, other than the upper skwenta and maybe tribs off the big sue. but boat hunting is like road hunting in some places, just mentioning that some guys might not give you a river to check cause they'll likely be there.
bio's are a great underused sorce of info..also check with the fish bio on run timing and which rivers have late run salmon and so on, sometimes you can find something you might not be able to hunt from a boat, but the boat can get you to where you can hunt on foot.
best of luck

 

[Whelenator]

BRWNBR, thanks for mentioning this. I say "boat hunting", but of course, we would be hunting beaches, sand bars, thickets, berry hillsides, glassing knolls, etc, etc. I doubt road hunting out of a boat would be very effective anyhow, especially since I am a greenhorn boater! I can see myself hitting a huge bar about the time I was pointing at a brown bear up the way. Rather not. My brother and I have been really trying to get together a good bear hunt for years, but schedules have just been awful for the both of us. I guess if we are on a boat, blind, or hillside come fall anything we do will be grand.

 

[Old John]

you don't seem to be interested in moose, but if you pass a moose camp that has a moose hanging up, you might ask them if you could check out the gut pile..../John