Grizzly Bear Climbs into Fisherman's Boat

Alaska Fly Fishers Run Furry Gauntlet

I recently went back to Alaska to see my long time fly fishing buddy, Ron. I stayed at one of his guest cabins for 12 days and we fished everyday except one. Upon my arrival he told me that in 30 years of living in Sterling that this year seemed to have an unusual amount of grizzly encounters. Even his dumpster by cabin 6 (my cabin) had several visits from a sow and her 2 cubs in the previous week so I had to ride in a car at night when I visited the main house instead of the 300 yard hike which was considered OK in the daytime. Ron's chicken coop with the radiant heating in the floor had a new electric fence around it to keep bears out. Many of his neighbors saw grizzlies at their homes for the first time ever this summer and there was a jogger killed near the launch ramp at Skilak Lake where we took his boat 3 times to fish the inlet.
The inlet of the lake is the Upper Kenai River and it has Dolly Varden and Rainbows which are caught on egg patterns or beads. I caught a 4 pound Dolly and a 7 pound Rainbow there, but the potential for much bigger fish kept us going back. We anchored the boat by a sand bar each time and wade fished nearby.
The first time there, we saw the blond grizzly which I think was about a 500 pound male. It was my first sighting ever of a grizzly in the wild. I had seen a lot of scat and footprints in my visits and during the 3 years I lived there, but never saw the bears themselves. I have seen them up real close in the back room of their grottoes when I used to work at San Francisco Zoo. This one was a playful bear that had been seen at Skilak daily for several weeks. Ron saw it the week before I got there. One camper heard him breathing on his tent the night before and saw him damage the wiring and gas lines of a boat. He decided to leave after one night's "sleep".