Читать книгу Never Cry Halibut. and Other Alaska Hunting and Fishing Tales онлайн

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A year later, having yet to harvest any Alaskan big game, my dad and his friend Joe skiffed across Stephens Passage to Admiralty Island for a fall deer hunt. Having heard stories of brown bears and frustrated with a gun that barely worked, he’d upgraded to a .338 Magnum. They anchored the boat offshore and carried a raft over popping seaweed and slick rocks. Ravens spoke their ancient language from spruce boughs, and eagles stared mutely out to sea. Higher on the beach in a sandy section, my dad knelt and studied large tracks unlike anything he’d seen. Brown bears. He knew this island, at a hundred miles long and twenty miles wide, was said to have the densest concentration of coastal grizzly bears in the world. Fresh deer tracks, tiny in comparison, wended along the high tide line. After agreeing on a return time, Dad pushed through the guard timber and stood on a well-worn bear trail paralleling the beach. Squinting into the sodden forest, he checked his rifle, took a breath, and walked into the dark maze.