In mid-Might of 2025, my son Bear Newcomb and I headed to southeast Alaska to hunt with my pal and clothing store David Benitz. I’ve beforehand hunted for mountain goats and in addition went wolf trapping with David. He’s an unbelievable Alaskan bowhunter, trapper, business fisherman, and he’s been an clothing store for many of his life. To not point out, he’s only a nice man.
Southeast Alaska is dwelling to a few of the greatest black bear searching on this planet as a result of the area boasts a few of the highest densities of black bears within the US. The way in which I prefer to hunt them within the spring is boat-based. Southeast Alaska experiences large tide swings. So when the tides are low, the bears come onto the shore to eat grasses, blue mussels, crabs, carrion, mainly no matter they’ll scavenge.
David has a 48-foot fishing boat referred to as the Sandpiper, which has residing quarters and a kitchen. We set out on the Sandpiper on this journey, and it served as our bear camp for eight days. The large boat additionally carried a skiff with a 60-horse motor. We’d anchor in a secluded cove protected against the climate and take the skiff out day-after-day to hunt from.
Concentrating on black bears on the shore makes for a glassing-heavy hunt. About noon, we’d depart on the skiff and glass for eight to 10 hours, nonstop. The image-stabilizing tech in Sig Saur’s ZULU6 binos made lengthy glassing classes tolerable for this journey. The boat is all the time shifting, and people optics are game-changers whenever you’re glued to the glass for hours on finish, swaying on the ocean.
The unique concept of this hunt was for Bear and me to each hunt with primitive bows that he made with Osage orange. However whereas we have been en path to Alaska, I remembered that it’s important to full a bowhunter training course to bowhunt in The Final Frontier. I’d taken the course years in the past, however Bear didn’t. Not having the ability to legally bowhunt was fairly devastating for him—he actually needed to check out his bows within the Land of the Midnight Solar. Fortunately, Janis Putelis despatched him a Sig Cross rifle in time for the hunt.
Whereas I used to be in a position to hunt with one in every of Bear’s primitive bows, he needed to hunt with a firearm, which ended up being a little bit of a blessing in disguise. The stalks for getting near bears have been actually tough on this journey—no less than for me.
I knew that I didn’t wish to shoot a bear past 10 yards. One motive being that my private accuracy with the bow I used to be capturing was restricted, and I did not really feel comfy capturing past that. Additionally, the power of a primitive bow is considerably lower than a compound.
Since he was searching with a rifle, Bear determined to carry out for a giant one. In the meantime, I deliberate to take the primary bear that introduced the most effective alternative.
On day two, after one of many wettest springs in southeast Alaska historical past (it rained for about 18 days straight), we lastly received a couple of good days of climate. Later that day, Bear shot a giant boar that was cementum annuli aged (tooth-aged) at 15 years outdated. He shot this unbelievable animal at about 50-60 yards on the seaside in good circumstances.
After taking his bear again to the Sandpiper and placing it within the freezer, I used to be left with six days to punch my tag with the stick bow. That proved to be extremely tough.
I went on a complete of 21 stalks. A lot of these have been inside 40 yards, and some occurred inside 30 yards. On one explicit hunt, I even stalked as shut as six or seven yards from a reasonably large bear. At one level he turned broadside at 12 yards, however I used to be adamant about not capturing previous 10, so I caught to my weapons on that. I didn’t wish to wound a bear, however satirically, that’s what I ended up doing.
I wounded a bear at 10 yards. It was heartbreaking. I hit its shoulder, and the broadhead barely penetrated to the shaft of the arrow. The arrow broke off, however we regarded and regarded for the bear. We even got here again the subsequent day to proceed our search, however we couldn’t discover it.
Two weeks later, on the Alaska Sport and Fish verify station (the place we checked Bear’s bear), a man from Texas introduced within the bear with my broadhead within the shoulder, which they shot with a rifle. Fortunately, they stated the bear appeared completely superb on the time.
Southeast Alaska is an unbelievable place—it’s unique, harmful, lovely, wet, and harsh. There’s no place prefer it on earth, particularly for black bear searching. My son and I had a spectacular expertise; it was his first time in Alaska, and I believe it actually broadened his horizons.
To observe this hunt of MeatEater’s 12 in ‘26 movie collection, click on right here.
