Bear On

I had just finished the preflight check when my friends John and Angie pulled up next to my airplane. Their little pickup was stacked to the height of the cab with totes full of gear. They are road campers, obviously not used to packing light for a fly-in trip. I removed three of the plane’s six seats and stacked boxes to the top of the cabin. Surprisingly everything actually fit in my Cherokee Six.

A call to flight service for an update on the latest weather confirmed the forecast I had received earlier that morning. The conditions through the pass were marginal, but improving. Weather can be the biggest challenge to flying a small plane in Alaska. Our tall mountains often exceed the height a plane can climb to and require us to fly through narrow mountain passes that can at times have low clouds, high winds and severe turbulence.

Our destination was the Newhalen River, 320 miles southwest of Anchorage, near the village of Iliamna. In past years the river has offered some of the best Red Salmon fishing in Alaska. I remember the first time I saw the Newhalen it appeared shallow enough to walk across, but upon closer inspection the bottom was moving. The river was thick with fish! That was ten years ago, and recently the runs had not returned in such strength. Last year the Department of Fish and Game had closed the river to sport fishing because of the low return.

Our two-hour flight from Anchorage’s Merrill field took us down the west side of Cook Inlet past the many oil wells that dot the water, then through beautiful Lake Clark Pass, with glaciers snaking up side valleys like giant highways and moose or an occasional bear on the sand bars below us. At the west end of the pass is the nearly fifty-mile-long Lake Clark. Halfway down the lake is the small community of Port Alsworth, the first sign of civilization we had seen in the last hour of flying.

At the end of Lake Clark the clouds were getting dark and the rain started. Fifteen miles from the airstrip the ceiling and visibility were getting close to the legal flight minimums and I wondered if, after almost two hours in the air, we would have to turn around and backtrack for home. A radio call to the airport confirmed that conditions at the landing strip were within limits, and we flew on.

As I maneuvered for landing it was like flying through a waterfall. Torrential rain beat on the aluminum skin of the airplane, creating a roar that could be heard even with headsets on. Rain blurred the windshield on final approach. I could barely make out the gravel landing strip, and it was difficult to judge our height. I slowed the descent rate and lowered the airplane a little at a time, feeling for the wheels to touch. Finally the tires gently kissed the ground. Another successful flight through Alaska’s challenging weather.

As we taxied into the parking area, I was surprised to see only one airplane in the giant lot. On past visits there were so many aircraft I had to pull my low wing plane under two high wingers to get a place to tie down. The slow salmon run had certainly reduced the popularity of this destination.

The rain turned to a drizzle as we set up camp in a treed area near the airplane. The huge load of gear gave us all the comforts you could expect in the wilderness, including a large tarp covered area. There were pots, pans and utensils to stock a small kitchen. A heater to keep us warm, and dry our clothes; wet from the nearly constant rain. A big cooler full of food and beer that would later be used, we hoped, to take home our fish. The one thing I would regret not having was a video camera.

The river was about a mile walk down a dirt road from our camp. In past years when anglers flocked to this place, some locals had operated an impromptu taxi service, offering fishermen rides in the back of their pickups for a dollar each way. This year we were on our own. The walk to the river was comparatively easy. Coming back carrying a couple of large salmon was a bit more arduous. It’s just as well the limit was two fish per day, as opposed to the six you were previously allowed to keep.

We fished at a place called “the falls,” actually rapids about two miles upstream from where the Newhalen empties into the huge Lake Iliamna. There were about a dozen people fishing in the area as we slogged along a swampy trail that led from the dirt road down to the river.
I saw the first bear of our trip as we were unpacking our tackle. It was a large Brownie watching us from the brush a hundred yards up the bank. I pointed it out to John and Angie. We checked that our shotguns were nearby and loaded.

I always carry my Mossberg pistol grip shotgun loaded with a “cracker” round that will explode with a loud cracking sound designed to scare off a bear, followed by two rounds of double ought buck, then five slugs. Every Alaskan who travels in bear country has their own theory on the best weapon and loads. I prefer the shotgun, but carry a .44 on my hip as well. I would hate to have to shoot a bear, but it would be foolhardy to travel in bear country unarmed.

Bears are a normal sight along the Newhalen and they can be dangerous. A few years ago a brown bear mauled a German guest at an Iliamna lodge, though some locals say it just knocked down rather than mauled the tourist. Whatever the case, in the weeks after the incident, several bears were illegally killed. The shooter was never identified; however, speculation was that a lodge owner, concerned over the bad publicity a bear mauling would generate, had done it. I later learned that our bear was a cub of one of the bears that had been killed.

We kept a watch on the bear as we fished until it wandered back into the brush. When I next saw the bear, it was entering the water downstream from us. There were four fishermen in waders, chest deep in the water, just below the rapids and about twenty feet apart. The bear swam out between two of them and went under the water. With the noise of the running water and the fishermen watching their lines drifting in the current, they didn’t hear or see the bear until it surfaced with a fish in it’s mouth a few feet from them! You could see their alarm as they moved away as much as possible without getting into water too deep for their waders.
The bears of Iliamna, as with most bears, are after fish, not fishermen. However, they may let the fishermen do the work for them. There was a yellow, almost golden colored bear with a cub in the area. The trail from the river up to the road was the only route without going through swamp boughs and thick brush. When a fisherman was headed up the trail carrying a visible fish, the mother bear and cub would sit in the middle of the trail leaving no way around. The only way to get the bear to move was to throw a fish as far as possible away from the trail. The “toll” bear, with cub in tow, would go after the fish, leaving the way clear for the fishermen to scurry on past.

It was our third day on the Newhalen. We had seen bears in the area every day and had become as accustomed to seeing them as they were to us. John was fishing in an area of calm water just out of the rapids when I heard him yell, “Bear on!” As I looked in his direction, the big brown bear we had seen the first day was coming out of the water with a fish in its mouth, just an arms length away from John!

As John had been reeling in a fighting, flipping salmon, the bear had come out of the brush behind him, waded in, and grabbed his fish as it got near shore. The bear headed back toward the bushes, fish in mouth, as John gave a strong tug on his fishing pole trying to break the line, pull the hook free or, god forbid, get the fish back! The bear’s head was jerked back toward him as he pulled. The bear jerked his head in the opposite direction causing the drag on John’s reel to sing with the outgoing line. John pulled again with a similar return jerk from the bear. John, realizing he was on the losing end of this tug-of-war, pulled his knife and cut the line, freeing the fish and bear to go their own way. I am sure a video of the encounter would have brought me a few bucks from the Animal Channel.

It was time to leave the fish for the bears, and go back to civilization. On our last walk back from the river before flying home, the rain finally stopped and the sun came out. The bugs came out too. No-see-ums swarmed us. With every breath they were in our noses and mouths. I have head nets, but they were back in the airplane and our bug repellent had no effect on these nasty things. As I walked, swatting at the nearly invisible pests, I wondered how the early prospectors that explored Alaska had kept from being driven insane by them.

Piloting the plane back through Lake Clark Pass towards Anchorage, my thoughts turned to next year’s trip to the Newhalen, and what kind of video camera I would buy when I got home. I wonder if I could get John and the bear to repeat that scene. I’ll bet the bear would be willing, but I don’t know about John.

Some of my other stories: Mining Fish, Stolen Nuggets