Next up, I caught this young grizzly bear next to the road as I was heading home from sighting in my new sheep hunting rifle. This bear ended up getting into trouble and had a few human encounters and the bear was killed by Fish & Game. It was really irritating for a lot of people, including Rose and I, because this bear was just a 2 year old trying to figure out life in an area amongst people. People pushed this bears' limits by getting too close to get pictures and getting in it's space. People threw out bags of fish near the road along with other things, attracting it to where people frequent. This bear was only doing what bears do and was killed because of people being stupid.
This weekend Rose and I went up to the Denali Highway where we camped and fished for 4 days. It was a great time and we really enjoyed the solitude of being up there nearly alone. The area was just emerging from winter and the lakes still had ice on them. Yet we still managed to catch quite a few hungry grayling. The camp ground we stayed in was newly revamped and expanded, it was really nice. I guess we were the first ones to use our camp spot. The camp host was an old timer from Michigan who will be there all the way through September, really a nice guy. We were headed out fishing and asked if he wanted a grayling or two if we caught any. He gladly accepted and when we brought him two fish on a forked stick, he was overly excited and went right to cooking them. It was a great trip, oh and we discovered how to make smores even better! I had the idea of slathering a layer of creamy peanut butter on. I mean, what's better than peanut butter and chocolate? Well I guess adding melted marshmallow and graham cracker, that's what!
Tonight I got my bear skull back from my friend and taxidermist. It's a pretty interesting bear come to find out. When I picked it up, my friend was saying that it looked like a really old bear and was anxious to hear from Fish & Game how old it was. To determine age, a small tooth is extracted and sent in, then the slice it and put a dye on it and can count rings just like a cross-section of a tree. On top of that, the bear has a large depressed skull fracture on the side of it's head behind it's right eye. It looks like it's somewhat recent but hard to tell. It's partially healed yet the bone seems to have remodeled and formed a depression and there's a bit of a hole into the brain cavity. So very interesting.
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