Nice Picture!

Death Grip

From Alaska Magazine April 2011 page 44 By Brian McCombie

Matthew Sutton had just shot a Sitka doe, about 1800 feet up a mountain side overlooking Viekoda Bay, on Kodiak Island, Alaska. It was Sunday, October 26, 2008, around noon, sunny crisp and clear, Sutton’s friend Bill Bush was hunting near by,

Using two-way radios, they decided Sutton would field dress his doe while Bush continued hunting. When Sutton heading down-slope with his kill, Bush would parallel him. At the shore, they’d load Sutton’s deer into their Zodiac inflatable boat.

A half-hour later, Sutton began dragging his doe through the tall brown grasses and scrubby alder stands. Brush was making his way down, too, a good hundred yards or better off to the side. Both Sutton, 31 at the time, and Bush, then 60, were experienced hunters with plenty of time a field in Alaska. They’d bumped into there share of bears – blacks, grizzlies and Kodiaks browns – but they also knew that bear attacks were rare in this part of Kodiak. So Sutton and Bush were aware and alert - but not scared.

Sutton was closing in on the shore when he heard a growling and snapping branches behind him. “I looked back and saw this bear head coming out of the brush,” Sutton says.

The Kodiak brown was maybe 25 yards away, its head bigger around than a basketball. I t was technically a cub, though not of the cute and cuddly variety. Two or three years old, the bear stood 3 feet a the shoulder, with 250 pounds of muscle and bone packed into a 6 foot frame. Sutton kept his cool. He spoke in a calm voice as he dropped the doe and backed away, figuring the bear wanted the fresh killed meat.

The bear roared, and then leapt at Sutton.

“I thought it was just a bluff charge,” says Sutton. “It took maybe a second, and it closed the distance about half way. Then it jumped once more – came right though the air – and it was on me.”…

All the bear could do before the bear slammed into him was spin away. That quick twist of his body is probably what he’s alive today.

“I felt instant pressure on the back of my neck,” Sutton remembers. He was lifted of the ground, feet dangling in the air like a kitten hoisted by its mother. Beyond scared, he channeled his Air Forced survival training to keep calm. Don’t resist, he told himself, even as he was being tossed and twisted. Play dead. You’ll be okay.

“I could feel branches whip across my face. Then I’m lying on the ground, face down. There’s a paw on my back, holding me down, and another paw is clawing at me. “I could hear the sound of the bear’s teeth clacking and his woofing. I wasn’t sure if he was done with me or not”

Tossed aside, Sutton saw the bear standing near the deer carcass as a second cub of approximately the same size approached. Then, beyond the second bear, he caught sight of a huge swatch of brown fur moving through the alders.

“L saw the sow come in,” Sutton says. “OH, man, I freaked out. The size of her was just enormous – like eight or nine feet long.”

The bears sparred over the doe carcass. Sutton didn’t know the extent of his wounds, just that he was torn and punctured in many places. That was bad enough, but how was he going to avoid being the second course, once they were finished with the carcass? Panic took hold.

“I got up and started yelling and waving my arms. One cub leaped across the deer carcass, grabbing me and started shaking me like a rag doll.”

He ended up on this back, a heavy paw in his chest.

I reached up to punch it in the face to do something. I didn’t know what.”

The bear bit down onto his left hand, but suddenly withdrew. Sutton thinks it’s teeth glanced off his wedding ring…

Lesson learned Sutton lay still as the bears alternately fought over and feasted on the deer not 10 feet away, ripping away flesh, cracking bones, and woofing at each other. Through this clamor, he heard his friend Bill Bush yelling for him. Bush was close, which made the bears very nervous, they scooped earth over the deer and disappeared….

Close Quote

Now I am thinking. Someone finds a nice Black-tail doe way back in the woods on a heavily bear infested island. Is the right thing to do:

A- Shot it, gut it out, and then drag its bleeding carcass three miles back to camp where you hang it out side your cabin before going to bed.
B- Shot it, gut it out, cut it up and put the fresh meet in your back packs and then walk the three miles through the deep, dark, woods back to the cabin where you stow the 60 pounds of fresh meet in side with you before you go to bed.
C-Shot it and wait for the bears to come to dinner when they hear the dinner bell and then run like crazy for three miles, through the, deep, dark, tangled, woods.
D- Take a nice picture and then go quietly back to the cabin through the Yettie infested woods.

Nice Picture!