I Ignored My Gut Feeling and Went Hunting with Buddies Anyway. Then a Bear Almost Killed Me

This story, “Premonition Bear,” appeared in the January 1993 issue of Outdoor Life.

Duane Christensen felt uneasy as he drove to Anchorage, Alaska. He had, in fact, been feeling uneasy for two weeks. “This is crazy,” he thought. “Seven old friends getting together to hunt deer, and I don’t want to go! I have never not wanted to go hunting.”

At Bill Burgess’ home, where some of the hunters were meeting before the flight to
Kodiak Island, the apprehnsion mounted. Duane couldn’t put his finger on it. Nor
could he put it out of his mind. Finally, he tried to put it into words. “I don’t think I should go on this hunt,” he said.

His friends were astonished. “Why?” they asked.

“Well, maybe I can’t really afford it,” Duane said.

He knew he was kidding himself. Finances had never gotten in the way of a hunt before. He had always made do somehow. But the vague premonition wouldn’t leave. He called his wife, Lori, back at Fair­banks. She knew about his misgivings. “I’m can­celing out,” he said. “Thought I’d let you know I’m driving back.”

Lori knew of her husband’s love for hunting. She thought that later on he’d regret not going. Unselfishly, Lori convinced Duane that he ought to make the trip. The misgivings were only his imagination.

The next day, Duane and his compan­ions flew to Kodiak. They chartered plane flights to Uganik Lake, got a small cabin and pitched a wall tent to ac­commodate their extra numbers.

It was the last Saturday in October, a bright, beautiful day. Duane, Bill and an­ other friend did a little hunting that after­ noon, and Bill shot a deer. Duane puzzled over why he wasn’t having fun. Ordinari­ly, hunting Sitka blacktails on Kodiak Is­land with his buddies made him feel on top of the world.

Everyone went his own way on Sunday. Deer density is high on Kodiak, so hunt­ing was easy. A couple of the island’s 2,000 enormous brown bears also were seen, but at long distance. Bill got his second deer, and hurt his bum knee while packing out the animal. He vowed to make shorter ex­cursions from then on, but planned to shoot two more blacktails. (Limits are generous.)

Duane killed a deer, but his customary enthusiasm for the hunt still eluded him.

On Monday morning, Duane and Bill took the skiff to the far side of the lake. Working their way up to a pass, they en­countered a sow brown bear with cubs, but there was no trouble. Duane didn’t ex­pect any, either. He’d grown up where brown bears are abundant, on Chichagof Island, in southeastern coastal Alaska. He learned to hunt around bears during his early years. Even when he’d finally been false-charged by a grizzly up at Coldfoot in the Brooks Range, he’d waved, yelled and stopped the sow at 15 feet.

At 38, from long experience, Duane was conditioned to believe that bears are not a serious threat, if you know what you’re doing. Treat them with great re­ spect. Make noise. Show them you’re a human. Avoid them, if possible, especially sows with cubs.

After Duane and Bill separated to hunt their own chosen places, Bill encountered another bear. Though not feeling in dan­ger, he climbed a tree to avoid even the possibility of a confrontation. Soon after­ward, while still perched on a limb, he shot a big buck under his tree. And short­ly after that, a second bear wandered out into the open 80 or 90 yards away. Though he still didn’t feel threatened, Bill nevertheless was relieved when he had dragged his buck down to the beach.

Meanwhile, Duane, who also has a bad knee, strained the old injury, adding phys­ical pain to his feeling of foreboding.

On Tuesday, Steve Adamczak shot a deer in terrain where dragging was diffi­cult, so he boned out the meat and packed it to camp. Noticing that his knife was missing, he went back Wednesday morn­ing to retrieve it at the kill site. The car­cass was gone, the grass and weeds were licked clean of blood, and the knife was buried under debris.

That afternoon, Steve stalked slowly into a hillside clearing, looking and listen­ing carefully for deer. Suddenly, he heard something jump back in the bushes. His eyes darted in that direction, looking for the deer he had visions of, but instead what he saw was an 800-pound brown bear running straight at him. Steve was startled, but hoped that the bear would stop in­ stead of crossing an alder-studded swale that somewhat blocked its way. When the bear didn’t even slow, Steve was alarmed. At 30 yards, Steve fired a warning shot into the dirt with his .270 Winchester. The bear pulled up at 25 yards, then stood, swinging its head from side to side and growling.

Steve growled back. It was as if his throat wouldn’t do anything else. The hunter was horrified, knowing that growl­ing a challenge was exactly the wrong thing to do. He stepped backward, trying to add distance, realizing that the chances of aiming at, firing at and dropping a close-up charging brown with a .270 are slim at best.

To Steve’s amazement, the bear sud­denly dropped to all fours and stepped backward – five or 10 yards into the alders and willows. But then the brown started to follow the brush-line cover to get down­ wind and figure out what the hunter was. Feeling like an entree on a menu, Steve again decided on a course of action that invites attack. He ran – straight downhill through the brush in the direction of safer country. On brief stops to listen, he could hear the bear coming through the brush. The bear followed Steve for more than a half-mile. Fortunately, the bear must have been more curious than angry or hungry, because it could have overtaken the hunter at any time.

Back at camp that night, recounting the experience sparked serious discussion of increased bear movement. Nearly every­ one who had taken deer had noticed the disappearance of gut piles by the next day. From distant bear sightings early in the hunt, activity had escalated to what ap­peared to be close-up and conscious bear participation in the daily deer harvest.

The group decided that no one would hunt alone for the remainder of their week on the island. Duane agreed with the precaution, but felt no greater fear of bears than he had before. What continued to bother him was the strange feeling of impending disaster.

Both being slowed by gimpy knees, Du­ane and Bill paired for the Thursday hunt. That morning, one deer was shot and field-dressed about 1 1/4 miles from the cabin. The men hunted a little farther, stopped to eat lunch, then decided to in­vestigate a small hill before turning back to drag out their deer. Duane walked around one side, Bill the other. Bill killed another deer, and heard a bear woof immediately after his two shots. It was difficult to tell the di­rection, and impossible to gauge the distance. Duane heard the shooting and hurried around to help. Bill was uphill from Duane, so it was convenient to direct Duane to the kill from the vantage point. He could also stand guard should the bear emerge. Duane dragged the deer out of a band of alders and into a large grassy meadow so that nothing could sneak up unseen during the field-dressing process.

Joining Duane, Bill mentioned hearing the bear.

“Well, in that case,” Duane said, “maybe I’ll walk a little distance away and stand watch.”

“Why not watch from above the band of alders?” Bill suggested. “That’s only about 40 yards away, and you might get a chance at another deer.”

Duane had barely squeezed through the thick alder bushes when he saw a deer walking toward him. After the shot, the deer ran another 40 yards, leaving a good blood trail. Duane angled through a sec­ond band of alders and came out right where the blacktail lay on the lower grassy edge of the hill’s bald knob.

Bill heard the shot and watched until Duane found his deer. Knowing that his partner would be about 80 yards away, he returned to field-dressing. Seconds later he heard a threatening roar. Bill dropped his knife, grabbed his rifle and jumped back. If a bear was coming, he didn’t want to be close to the deer. Seeing no bear, he glanced up toward his buddy. And there was a sow charging Duane. The bear was out of sight behind the alders before Bill could shoulder his rifle.

Duane was bent over his own deer when the bear roared. He, too, jumped up, holding his rifle in his left hand. He immediately saw the brown, and waved and yelled so that the sow would identify him as a human. The bear was now 35 yards away and showing no hesitation in her charge. Duane swung the rifle around to his right hand, fully intending to fire a warning shot. But in the quick moment it took to get his finger on the trigger, the bear had closed to 15 feet. This was no false charge. There wasn’t even time to shoulder the gun. Looking into the bear’s eyes, Duane fired instinctively from the hip. The bear didn’t flinch.

Duane stiffened against the impact and tried to shove the rifle muzzle into the bear’s mouth when she leaped. He missed. The sow hit the barrel with her chin, the force of her momentum knocking Duane on his back. But Duane’s grip on the rifle was so tight that the muzzle stayed jammed under the bear’s chin. The brown stood looking down at Duane, her head rolling from side to side against the gun’s muzzle as she tried to get her jaws off the barrel and at the man.

There was time for one thought. “Bill will shoot, and it will all be over.” But Bill could see only obscured movement be­hind the alders. He couldn’t distinguish features. Shooting was too risky. Duane’s hope of a quick resolution ended when the bear swatted the rifle out of his hands so fast he couldn’t tell which paw she had used. He thought the gun had been knocked downhill, but it had flown uphill.

Duane was almost as fast. Before the bear’s teeth could reach him, he spun onto his belly to protect his vulnerable underside. He managed to get his left hand around to somewhat de­fend his head and neck.

The sow bit into the back of Duane’s right thigh, picked him up and shook. Almost as quickly, she dropped him. She bit again, this time in the right buttock, and with more ferocity than be­ fore. Once more the bear shook Duane, but never did she raise her head high enough for Bill to see a safe target. Bill could only see brown movement and hear roaring. Again, the bear dropped Duane.

It’s doubtful that Duane’s bulk – even at 6 feet 3 inches, 235 pounds – was difficult for the bear to raise and shake, but un­known to Duane, he had shot the sow be­hind the right eye, not far from the hinge of her jaw. The 225-grain handload had not penetrated the skull, but had probably torn through jaw muscles and ranged into the neck. Perhaps it was painful for the bear to grip and shake. Whatever the cause, the sow changed tactics. She reared up, then pounced down onto Duane’s low­er back, raking outward with her claws.

Bill saw the bear’s head and shoulders bob above the alders, but the sow dropped before he could raise his rifle. The bear re­peated the raking pounce a little higher up Duane’s back. Again the head was up and gone too quickly for a shot.

Bill was ready when the bear’s head bobbed up the third time. Although he was shooting a .270, which can’t be considered an effective brown bear caliber, Bill’s fa­miliarity with his Winchester Model 70 Featherweight had made him a very effec­tive offhand shot-even at 80 yards. The head came up broadside, facing to Bill’s left, and Bill sought the bear’s ear with the crosshairs. He pulled the trigger when the bear paused momentarily between coming up and going down. The impact of the bullet drove the head away, spinning the bear in a full circle before she crumpled to the ground five or six feet from Duane.

Duane turned his head, looking for his rifle. He couldn’t see it. The bear seemed dead – there were no sounds of breathing. And then the breathing resumed – very raspy, but breath­ing. Duane’s eyes shot back to the bear. She seemed to be looking straight at him. Duane averted his eyes to avoid a direct challenging stare that might motivate the sow. But he couldn’t hold back a yell. “She’s breathing, Bill! Hurry!”

Bill was rapidly moving uphill in a slightly circuitous route that would bring him into the open a respectable distance from the bear.

When Bill had another open shot at the sow, she was not moving. But he took no chances. He shot the bear through the head three more times with his .270, then got Duane’s .338 Winchester Magnum and shot her through the shoulders.

“Duane?”

“Yeah?”

“If you can move, crawl out from under that bush so I can look you over.”

Duane crawled out. A claw slash near Duane’s belt line was the deepest and most dangerous. The claw had stopped just short of cutting the intestinal liner. Bill knifed off Duane’s undershirt and bound the wound. Gashes and tears were seeping, but not bleeding heavily. No air from the body cavity was coming out of any of the cuts. Perhaps nothing vital had been punc­tured. But there was no way that Bill, at 5 feet 10 inches, 170 pounds, could carry a man the size of Duane. “Can you stand?”

Duane got up. Encouraged by his part­ner’s rational responses and ability to move, Bill started Duane down the easiest route – a bear trail – to the lake. Two oth­er companions who had been hunting 1,000 yards away joined them. They helped Duane while Bill scouted ahead as a precaution against other bears.

Just before they got to the lake, a plane landed to deliver hunters to a guide’s camp. what luck! Instant rescue! But the plane took off again before the men could reach the shore.

Duane was transported by skiff to camp, where Bill boiled water and cleaned the wounds. Bill used Vaseline-soaked bandages so that they wouldn’t stick to the flesh. Unfortunately, the group had brought along no bleach or oth­er disinfectant, and bacteria from the mouth of a bear is a serious threat.

As is so often the case, planes flying over couldn’t be summoned. Bill is a pi­lot himself, so he took great care to discharge flares when the planes would be within range and the sun wouldn’t be in the pilots’ eyes. But it was no use.

Two days later, the charter pilot flew in for the scheduled pickup. Duane was subsequently flown to Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, where Dr. William Wennen stitched up five feet of rips and cuts.

Will the group hunt deer on Kodiak Is­land again?

“We have a hunt already planned,” Bill said. “You don’t quit driving because you have an accident. You become more care­ful. Our experience will change the way we hunt, of course, and we hope our story will help others avoid further bear maulings.

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“We will hunt in pairs. One will field­ dress in the open while the other guards from 30 or 40 yards away. Standing to­gether could get two hunters wiped out in one charge. And we won’t repeat the mis­take of getting 80 yards apart and dividing our attention during field-dressing. A ra­dio device to signal planes is a must, and someone needs to develop a list of first-aid supplies that are adequate for bear bites. We need to be better prepared.”

Duane Christensen also had one more comment: Never again will he ignore a persistent premonition under dangerous circumstances.

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