Hi friends,

We geared up for and adventure up Sharatin Bay, located on the North West side of Kodiak Island. This is an area that is thick with Kodiak Brown Bears. There are salmon streams that feed the bay. Where these salmon go up the river to spawn is where you will find bears feeding and getting ready for their winter hibernation. Bears can eat a lot of fish. Especially when they have cubs to feed. It is the sow Bear’s job to teach her cubs how to fish. In the spring they start out eating the grass shoots and they dig for roots. When they first come out of hibernation they get on a mountain side and will dig up the grass shoots that are coming up. Then when the grass start to grow they graze on that. In the meantime they are on the hunt for one of their favorite meals of Moose calves and newborn Bambi Deer. I consider Bears walking, eating machines. the Coastal Brown bears will kill and eat a Moose. After the moose is killed they will bury it and guard it and keep eating on it until it is devoured. It could take up to a week for a bear to do this. On the ocean beaches whales wash up and the bears feed on them too.

During the summer the bears feed on what they can find until the berries start to ripen, which is in July. July through August and September they are eating wild Salmon berries and blueberries. The firs salmon run is Pink Salmon, Sockeye, and Chum Salmon. When they start to come in to the streams to spawn is when the bears start fishing. The next salmon run is the fall run of Silvers. They start the middle of August and run till October. In some areas they run in to late November with Steelhead. The bears use this time to put on the fat they need to make it through the winter hibernation. This typically happens in December. If there is an open fish creek they will stay out and feed on it until it freezes. They hibernate for 4 months and come out in April.

Lostcoast George glassing for bears

We had a nice trip to Shartin Bay and found salmon streams and a bear feeding den. The bears feed on the salmon and then go bed down near the stream. We did not find silvers, just spawned out Pink Salmon and a few Chum salmon. We did see one lonely silver, but it is definitely not a silver stream. The area was trampled down from all of the bears. We saw all kinds of tracks and sign.. skat that is. The area actaully smelled like a barn. There were carcasses everywhere.

Humpies from Hell

We decided to get out of there just in time! A bear got woken up and came out of his den… we luckily were close to the boat and got out of there just in time! This bear was not too happy about someone intruding on his feeing area.

Bear Encounter

Well, that is the way it is when you live in the wilds of Alaska. Bears are going to be territoral and we respect them. I hope you all enjoyed this post and hope you have a great day!

Take care from Jill Davis of the Lost Coast!

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