Interesting story in the Anchorage Daily News:

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/wildlife ... 5524c.html

We used to have bears bug us when I was in Illiamna...got some video of them grabbing fish on lines and taking off with them...
Sounds like it's getting way out of hand up there though!!
JH

Mostly old hat to me except that we fish mostly from our boats and let the fuzzy ones fish from the bank.

Take a look at my website www.alaskaeagletours.com and look at the photo page then bear pictures to see lots of them.

Nice pics Shane...I make it policy never to tangle with something that has tits this big:

The only thing dumber than a fisherman with fish teeming in a creek is a hundred of them.

One with a gun and another willing to risk an aggravated assault makes a really nice little touch to a quiet evening of fishing.

Sorry, but this ain't fishing.

MTV

MTV's right. Having recently witnesed "combat fishing", the only comment eligible for the picture Zane showed is "natural selection" Out of principle, I have yet to do this. I went to the Willow river the other night and was watching the masses do their best to "catch" a fish. It amounted to little more than snagging and the exchanges, while nothing like described in the paper the other evening, were not the sort one would expect of people enjoying themselves and the fishing. Quality of life? Pursuit of happiness? The skill of fishing? It was greed, ugly and exposed. That's not fishing Oh, and I seem to have misplaced my soap box here somewhere........

There was an even worse photo in today's paper:



Am I the only one that thought that Trooper Wilkinson had his priorities in the correct order for that crowd:

"And I'd hate to see any bears come to harm. I'd hate to see any people come to harm."

I'd rather eat store-bought salmon than ever consider dealing with that crap. Is this what people come to Alaska for, to be threatened by a wingnut shooting guns in the air and playing tug-of-war with a large omnivore over your lunchbag?

I was talking to a 35 year resident the other day who was telling me - in detail - how the entire Kenai peninsula has really gone downhill recently. I don't have anything to compare it to being a relatively new resident of the state, but I knew when I experienced 4th of July on the Exit Glacier road last year near Seward that I would never again visit the area without an assault rifle to defend against the gang members and other assorted lovely camp neighbors.

Zane, sounds like there must be some interesting history back there somewhere.

We try to let the bears have their space "the bank" and we move out to let them fish when the show up. I have seen all the same sort of stuff as in the article down on the river where people and bears mix freely. I sencerely believe that the bears are the more intelegent species most of the time.

Shane