flintlock, flint lock, grizzly bear, black powder flintlock hunting for grizzly bear, grizzly bear hunting with flint 

Home ~ Brown Bear ~ Grizzly Bear ~ Caribou ~ Rates ~ Hunt Contract ~ Q & A, Packing ~ Trophies

The challenge of hunting the dangerous grizzly bear armed
with a .54 caliber flintlock rifle and a .58 caliber flintlock pistol.

By Dan D. Hartzler

As we crept across the open tundra toward the resting bruin, he was yawning. At 140 yards we sat down and the silver-tipped bear sat up on his front legs. He had a smooth even color, tiny ears, a long thick neck, a square head, and the massive shoulders of a boar. I aimed at his chest as the sparks from my flint hammer lit up the pan; the barrel thundered. He turned a tight circle, biting at his chest. Roaring, he made another circle and looked at the large cloud of white smoke over our heads. With his head down, he began to charge. I had played two aces and still had two aces left. I remembered Johnny Horton singing North to Alaska, Go North the Rush is On, and my goodness, here came the rush and it wasn’t a gold rush.

In the Arctic Circle, 45 miles north of Anaktuvuk Pass and 75 miles from the Arctic Ocean, my guide, Curt Harrison, and I were on a high hill glassing the willows along the Anaktuvuk River. A 50-inch bull moose and a cow were spooked. Running through the willows for several hundred yards, they stopped twice before resuming to feed on the branch shoots. Before long, a dark colored grizzly came running out the far side of the willows. Standing on its hind legs, pausing and looking back, it resumed the run. We immediately started to stalk. Crossing the river containing arctic grayling, we went to one of the tributaries where there was arctic char and we crawled in some tall willows to ambush him on the rocky flats. The bear completely eluded us, so after several hours, we reclimbed the mossy tussock of stump tundra to the hill.

From the small mountain ridge, Curt’s binoculars picked up a blob which had not been there before, about 500 yards beyond where we had last seen the frightened dark bear. He got out his spotting scope and thought the blob was a complete set of bull moose antlers. It had stopped snowing and the bottom appeared dark while the top was shiny. I looked through the spotting scope and agreed that is what it appeared to be. A short time later, upon reglassing this area, which was over a mile away, he said the configuration had changed, and it was either a fuzzy rock or a bear.

Off of the ridge we came, crossing the river with our hip boots nearly taking water, over the rocky flats, through the seven foot willows into the open tundra. In the wet bogs we tried to step on the top of the stump clumps so our boots didn’t slosh. My lighter was in my hand and I was constantly flicking as the flame revealed the wind direction. I placed the 5-1/2 inch brass butt of my smokepole into several paw tracks in the sand which were made by an adult bear.

I thought about the four aces I had dealt myself and hoped I only had to use a few to win. My first ace was the outfitter. Keith Casteel, a renowned longrifle maker, had highly recommended  Dennis Reiner of Arctic North Guides. I had hunted for grizzly the previous year in British Columbia and had turned down five juvenile bear. You need a reliable outfitter who has a good area and a high success rate. Master Guide Dennis Reiner has been guiding in the same area for 30 years and has a success rate of 98 percent. He takes about 35 hunters per fall for sheep, moose, caribou, or grizzly. After talking with two of his references and hearing Dennis say, "he had mature bear and would take a flintlock frontend stuffer," I was convinced. The real kicker was when he said, "at the end of your 10-day hunt, if you haven’t taken you bear, you can stay until you get him."

My second trump card was impressed upon me by my hunting buddy, Bradley Vosburgh, owner of the Brownstone Trading Company. I am a traditional longrifle hunter who has always used a patched .54 caliber round ball. The ball has exited on antelope, whitetail, and mule deer. It has not gone through my caribou, moose, elk, or black bears. With a muzzleloader, even a well directed hit on big game, will seldom bring them immediately down. I have gotten only three running whitetail deer that didn’t travel. One shot just below the antlers, and two in the spinal column. Bradley insisted, "you need a heavier bullet for the fearsome old Ephraim." He was even afraid of a head shot because of the exhibition in the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C., of grizzly bear skulls. I practiced with 50 rounds of Lyman and Hornady conical style bullets. I settled on the premium Hornady Great Plains Bullet for the first shot. This is a hollow base, hollow point, 425 grains in weight, and I was firing 130 grains of FFg blackpowder. The muzzle velocity at 50 yards is equal to a modern day .30-30. The trajectory of this bullet at 150 yards drops six inches and at 200 yards drops 17 inches. While my first shot would be at shorter ranges, I wanted to know where the rifle shot at greater distances just in case I needed to apply a finishing shot to a wounded bear that retreated. Bradley had cast some .54 caliber Minie bullets and filed down the base so that they could be loaded quickly without a bullet starter for a fast second shot. These did not fit the bore as closely and did not group nearly as well as the Hornady’s, but I could reload, reprime and fire in only 22 seconds. Even though one chooses to hunt with a primitive weapon does not mean one should settle for primitive performances.

My third ace was my Oregon guide who was backing me up with a 300 Winchester. Curt was a superb woodsman who had hunted with a percussion .45 caliber muzzleloading rifle and had taken four deer and an elk. He knew well my limitations and was trying to get me as close as possible. Several days before he had nailed an arctic cross fox that was just starting to turn white with the onset of winter, so I was confident with him backing me with this Winchester.

My last ace was an original .58 caliber flintlock pistol housed in a large 11-inch holster on my left hip. It was made by Philip Creamer near my home in Maryland before 1805 when he went to the American bottoms in Illinois, just across from St. Louis. He was a superb craftsman; there was a proverb in olden times to be "as sure as a Creamer lock." I had been practicing at home at 30 yards with three different loads: round balls, BB’s, and conicals. I settled on the same .549 diameter, hollow point, Great Plains Hornady conical bullet, heavily patched in front of 70 grains of FFFg blackpowder. She was primed before the first stalk and just rechecked. With all my planning, I had what I considered to be a pat hand, but could still be beaten and was still vulnerable.

The bear I had just shot was probably the adult bruin that had frightened the moose and caused the darker bear to flee. A grizzly’s only adversary besides man is a larger grizzly in the wilderness. With two cards played, I endeavored to reload my 44-inch barrel longrifle and prime the pan. With my lips on the muzzle I blew down the barrel to clear any sparks and emptied the rubber quick charge of powder into the barrel followed by the filed Minie bullet. As I drew the long ramrod to ram it home, the beautiful silver-tipped bear made two circles and was charging with its mouth open and head down. He had already covered 60 yards of the 140 and time was running out. Reaching across my body with my right hand, I drew the Creamer pistol; before I could cock the hammer, the bear stumbled and piled up. Looking to my left at Curt (it is always important to keep the guide on the left so that the exhaust from the touch hole does not burn them), his rifle was up and his knuckles were white. When hunting big game, it is important to deal yourself a good hand. As Kenny Rogers sang, you gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ’em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.

TOP

Home ~ Brown Bear ~ Grizzly Bear ~ Caribou ~ Rates ~  Hunt Contract  ~   Q & A, Packing ~  Trophies