On the Hunt for Heart-Stopping Adventure

Posted on Feb 21, 2017 Topic : Men's Christian Living

In this thrilling excerpt from My Dream Hunt in Alaska, avid outdoorsman Steve Chapman recalls his once-in-a-lifetime encounter with an impressive thousand-pound, nine-foot brown bear in the rugged Alaskan wilderness.

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Instantly I stopped repositioning my behind on the narrow, sharp, rock ledge. I’d hunted long enough to know that if someone alerted me that an animal was in view and I needed to move to see it, I had to turn my head like a shadow on a sundial to not give my presence away.

With my eyes as far right in their sockets as they would go, I started turning my head. It took only a couple of inches before I could see the huge bear coming out of the dark area under the trees just as I’d imagined. In that moment, I couldn’t have recalled my name, where I was born, or where I lived. My mind was swirling with excitement, and I had to force myself to think clearly.

At that point, I had no idea whether the big boar would leave the grassy spot he was nosing and continue down the beach toward me. I wondered, Will he make it as far as that old car tire the tide had pushed all the way to the grass line? Will he wind me and run? Will he simply decide his belly is full and wander out of sight into the dense timber? His unhurried lingering made the seconds pass like hours.

Then things turned in our favor.

The bear continued my way, but he stayed up high, near the edge of the thick grass. I had him in my scope starting at the 150-yard mark and raised my head to watch him with my naked eye a few times. I desperately wanted to take in the raw, unmagnified sight of such a mountainous creature. He looked heavy up close in the scope, but even outside the lenses he was massive. As he slowly lumbered along, his unusually wide head swung side-to-side. I could see how a last-resort, straight-on shot could be effective.

When he was about ten yards from the tire, I put my eye back to the scope. It was obvious that he was going to walk within the preferred range of a hundred yards or less. A lot of hunters talk about how their hearts wildly race when the moment of truth arrives, but I honestly couldn’t feel mine beating. I think it had paused. I didn’t feel anything except the trigger under my finger.

The bear was coming in, but there was an angle problem. He was to my left, and if he kept walking straight ahead, the shot angle would be like he was at ten o’clock in front of me…but on the other side of a two-lane highway. Not good. And if he kept going, he didn’t have to walk far to disappear behind the even bigger rocks in the outcropping that were off my left shoulder. If that happened I’d have to move my upper body and gun around to take an off-hand shot. I was sure the movement and noise would spook him because of how close he’d be. The only hope left was that he would turn broadside, preferably somewhere close to the old tire.

Ten seconds later, the brown nearly stepped on the tire, stopped, put his nose to it for a second, and then looked up and around. For just a brief moment he looked in my direction, and I could see his dark eyes through the scope. It was sobering to think that the incredibly strong body behind those eyes was not in a movie, not in a picture, not in my fantasy. He was standing there at a distance he could easily close within seconds if he wanted to.

Though I was basically safe where I sat on the rocks, it was still a test of my willingness to wait for a sure shot. It was as if all the potential dangers involved with bear hunting and the dread of things going wrong were funneling into my emotions. I had to shake my thoughts to resist shooting. I fought to regain full focus on the crosshairs that I had placed behind the bear’s shoulder. The angle was still not good, but patience and waiting paid off.

For a reason known only to the bear and the One who made it, the boar took a step to the right and then another. He paused and looked around. A couple more short steps slightly to the right, and he’d be totally broadside. Like a laser, I stared at his left shoulder through the center of the crosshairs.

Suddenly, everything necessary to make my dream come true gathered in one dime-sized spot on the planet...