We’re on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska…serious Salmon fishing. Our guide is “Smokin Joe.” Smokin Joe is just what you’d expect in a Fishing Guide from Alaska. He is identical to Popeye in just about every way. At one point during the trip, we’re doing a “fly in” to a remote part of Alaska for some Coho Salmon fishing. Joe sets us up with all the poles, waders, and gear; drives us to the small seaplane and waves good bye. On the way over he gave us some tips about what to do since we’ll be in a very remote area. No roads, no hiking trails…no nothing. Grizzly Bears were his main topic.
(Quick sidebar: At Sequoia National Park (Absolutely Amazing Place) last year I sat through a bear presentation given by the Park Rangers. It was mostly about Black Bears, which are small when compared to Grizzlies. If you happen to run into a Black Bear the idea is to make yourself seem as large as possible and scream at them and make as much noise as you can. They should go away. If you happen to get the Stink Eye from one of them…run for your life.
Grizzly Bears are a completely different story. First and very important: Do Not, I repeat Do Not try to run away. Grizzly Bears can run upwards of 45 MPH. I think the guy who won the 100-meter dash at the last Olympics was clocked at a top speed of 25 MPH. Do the math. So the question is, what do you do? The plan of action with a Grizzly Bear (you’re going to like this) is to lie as still as possible, and let him graze on you hoping that he’ll either get bored or have his fill. Then he’ll eventually bury you someplace as a future meal and wander off. Once the coast is clear, if you still have legs, you run for help. I’m listening to this presentation and thinking to myself, “Oh Come On, I don’t know about you, but I have problems lying still if someone pokes me in the side.” I might have a problem executing this plan if a massive hairy animal with huge teeth is noshing on me.)
But years earlier, before I was imparted with this wisdom, there was Smokin Joe providing guidance. Joe says to us, “Look, whatever fish you catch, make sure you put them in these large black plastic bags. You don’t want the Grizzlies smelling them (they have pretty good noses it turns out). He says if they do chase you, don’t try to run away. He says whatever you do, don’t run around a tree. He told us a story about some guy who tried that last year and got into a game of “ring around the rosey” that went bad. I’m listening but not really. I’ve been in Alaska for three days and have not seen hide or hair of a bear, let alone a big one, so I’m just not buying it. We’re about half way to our fishing site and the pilot of the sea plane points down to a large brown object running in the huge marshy area below us. It’s a Grizzly Bear. He zooms the plane down almost as if he’s strafing the bear, which gets us very close and kicks the bear into high gear. At one point it almost seemed like the bear was just about keeping up with the speed of the plane. So now I’m thinking to myself, “God that thing is really motoring, and he’s probably really pissed right now. I sure hope we travel a good distance before we set down”…which we did.
The plane lands a good distance from where we’re supposed to fish. We suit up, grab our equipment and head out. We run into classic “Combat Fishing.” As much as we’re in the middle of nowhere, every other Fisherman who wants Coho Salmon is at this fishing spot. The Coho are trying to swim from the lake up the river and its insanity. There are shoulder to shoulder fishermen, casting like madmen and very few rules. We’re the last group to arrive and also the last group to leave. For a long while its just the 5 of us. We come up with a great idea. Instead of listening to Smokin Joe (what the hell does he know) we form a small well of water off one of the river streams and place our Salmon in the water…to keep them fresh. Who’s smarter than us?
The quick answer is: at a minimum Smokin Joe. All of a sudden out of the woods comes a good size Grizzly Bear. We all go racing into the water as deep as we can with our waders on trying not to fall (its very cold…remember it's Alaska). The bear walks over to our kettle of fish, picks out the largest one and walks off into the woods. So now we’ve learned our lesson, we pack up our fish in the plastic bags and we’re doing some last minute fishing waiting for our plane to come back. With that we see in the distance what looks to be a very large Grizzly Bear. It’s walking the same path we walked to get from the plane to the fishing spot. The bear’s a ways off, so no need to panic…yet. Then the party ended abruptly. I’ll make a long story shorter: A Very Very Large Bear rolls into our fishing hole, she’s got two cubs with her and she’s not happy to see us still there. (We weren’t aware that our reservation had expired). She did not go after our bags of fish. The Grizzly instead went fishing the old fashion way. She’s jumping, almost charging at the Salmon as they’re approaching the mouth of the river. As she’s doing this she’s getting closer and closer to us in the water…pushing us deeper and deeper into the lake. It was almost as if she was telling us to back off, or you’re next. Now we’re slipping on rocks because they’re covered in algae and slime (since no fool has every had to walk that deep into the lake). We’ve got waders full of cold water, actually by this point I was standing in a comfortable pool of luke warm water. (When I get back Smokin Joe will have no choice but to burn these waders.)
Finally, the Grizzly and her cubs head up into the tree and brush covered mountains…in the same direction as the path we need to travel to get to the sea plane…which has now arrived. The pilot is standing on one of the floatation devices waving to us to come over. We scream at him to drive the plan closer to us so we can avoid running into the bear. He refuses telling us the water is too shallow. At this point we explain to the pilot in no uncertain terms what our situation is. There might have been some expletives mixed in there. Much to our amazement he didn’t seem to be concerned with our safety.
Now we’ve been standing in the water for a while…even I’m cold. We can hear these animals up in the mountains grunting and talking like bears, we just can figure out where they are. I can’t tell you how many times we spoke the words, “Do you think we should just make a run for it?” We’re at a point now where we’re all sizing each other up thinking, “Ya know, I don’t really have to run as fast as a bear, I just have to be the 4th fastest out of the 5 of us.” Finally someone yells, “GO!!!” and we all took off. We pick up our bags of fish and race panic stricken into the woods as if a swarm of bees were chasing us. We’re half way to the plane and the plastic bags holding our fish break. Tons of Salmon go sliding back into the lake. (It’s one of those moments where in the middle of shear mayhem, everyone looks at each other and had the same thought, “You’ve got to be freaking kidding me!” We put our sanity aside for a couple of seconds, reach our hands down into the water and try to salvage a couple of fish. As we’re approaching the plane bizarre thoughts start running through your mind. You’re imagining you and the Grizzly triangulating on the plane and it’s a race to see who can get there first. You maybe at 20mph or the Grizzly with speed that seems to be able to keep up with a Twin-Engine Cessna. We get on the plane with all body parts, next to no fish, but we take off.
We get back to the mainland and Joe is waiting to pick us up. Smokin Joe is not the kind of guy you want to disrespect in any way. So naturally we completely lie to him about what happened. Tomorrow, out into the Pacific for Halibut.
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