6th Prize
Hunting Journal with Weatherby Logo (100 awarded)
John Garthwaite, Delaware
“It was a cold, dark night in my sleeping bag and the anticipation of tomorrow’s grizzly bear hunt was making it hard to sleep. I can hardly believe that I’m actually here in this primitive wilderness.
After months of preparation on the shooting range building confidence in my ability to adapt to unknown and changing hunting situations. I was still bewildered by the challenge of spotting and stalking one of nature’s most elusive and ferocious predators on the North American continent.
My dream hunt started many years ago when I was too young to carry a gun but I’ve always had an unconscious hunting instinct. After many years of walking behind my uncle when he went rabbit hunting, I saved enough to buy a single shot shotgun and I’ve been hunting rabbits, squirrels, pheasants, deer, elk and moose ever since.
Over the years as my hunting experiences have expanded, the one unattainable dream I’ve had was the desire to hunt the ultimate Kodiak grizzly bear. Now, after an arduous day into the back country of Kodiak Island setting up camp, the following morning’s anticipated hunt started in earnest when we spotted a likely subject off in the distance. As we approached our quarry, the elusive bear would disappear for a period only to reappear in another location. After several such encounters and for some uncanny reason it appeared that our bear was somehow stalking us and trying to get behind our position only to reappear in another location.
As we continued stalking and glassing, a shivering thought entered my mind that we might be stalking more than one bear. Could that explain how the bear would reappear somewhere totally unexpected?
This thought had no sooner entered my mind when the wind shifted to my back and the strong odor of wet fur filled my nostrils as a cold bead of sweat trickled down my spine. Simultaneously, I heard the snap of a twig to my back and the hairs on my neck started dancing like fireflies on a summer breeze.
If you have ever been in the immediate vicinity of a ferocious beast like the grizzly bear you would know exactly how my anxiety increased exponentially.
That is when I awoke to the snapping of sticks the quide made building a fire for breakfast.
The one person I’d take on this dream hunt would be a nephew who guided me last year when I harvested a whitetail that scored over 150.”