Pocatello woman slays huge Alaskan brown bear

Pocatello resident Shelly Sayer is a cool customer behind the trigger — even when her rifle scope is trained on an Alaskan brown bear that weighs more than half a ton.

The chief executive officer of Premier Technology in Blackfoot returned last week from a week-long hunt on Kodiak Island off the coast of Alaska with her husband, Doug. And after three grueling hunts searching for a trophy grizzly, she didn’t come home empty-handed this time.

Three quick and accurate 300-grain bullets from her .375 H&H on a Remington 700 Safari had killed a massive bear at about 80 yards. Inspection of her kill confirmed what Shelly, Doug and their guide, Cole Kramer, had already suspected. The 9-foot, 8-inch long bear with a 28 and 3/16 skull had been guarding a kill in the alder thicket where he was holed up.

That kill was another large male grizzly, about 8 and a half feet long.

“You could see where he killed him and dragged him down the hill,” Shelly said.

The bear that Shelly tagged was laying on top of the other bear’s body and feeding on the remains when they completed their stalk to a hillside above the larger bear. The smaller bear’s head could be seen in the alders just a couple feet away.

It took loud growls from the guide to lure the large bear away from his meat stash and pave the way for a clean shot.

The first shot would have been enough to kill the grizzly because it smashed into the bear’s chest. But two more shots were made to ensure the bruin was completely dead.

“It’s kind of intimidating to walk up on it,” Shelly said.

Shelly has confidence in her marksmanship because she is a seasoned big game hunter. Last year she reached the 700 Club for sheep hunters having killed a Dall, stone, desert and bighorn sheep with total measurements over 700 inches. She killed a stone ram in British Columbia that measured 41 and 1/2 inches and a Dall in Alaska that was 44 and 1/2 inches last fall.

Although sheep hunting has been her passion, Shelly said hunting a trophy grizzly is even harder, and “It’s scary.”

The Pocatello couple flew to Anchorage, Alaska, and then on to Kodiak Island. Gear for a drop camp had been deposited by a Beaver airplane at a sight about three miles from an inland lake on the island. The Sayers, their guide and another wrangler flew to that lake and then hiked along a small river to the gear.

Moving across vast expanses of tundra littered with thick alders is tough sledding. And rain was something that occurred frequently.

“It was cold, wet and miserable,” Shelly said.

The hunting party found high ground near camp where they could glass the nearby valley and mountain range for signs of big bears using binoculars and spotting scopes. Since the surrounding terrain looked like a giant camouflage blanket with bears about the same color, hours were spent just looking.

Several bears were spotted at distances of more than two miles. But each was studied carefully before making a commitment to slog through the tundra to get close enough for a shot. Making a stalk was a full-day commitment, according to Shelly.

An attempted all-day stalk on one large bear was unsuccessful because the bear was on the move and wouldn’t let Shelly close the distance.

The next day they spotted the big bear Shelly did eventually kill.

“There were three different dens on the hillside that formed a triangle,” Shelly said.

The bear would move occasionally from one den to the other, but tended to stay put on one spot in the thick alders. At the time they didn’t know he was guarding the remains of the other dead grizzly.

Determined to get into range, Shelly, Doug, the guide and the packer trekked about three miles to close the gap between the bear and their spotting position on a hill. It was not easy going.

“You have to put your brain in your pocket and just keep walking,” Shelly said.

Once the group was in position to determine the bear was a trophy, it took a series of grunts and growls from Kramer to coax the animal out of the thick brush.

“He was coming out to fight,” Doug said.

“I just stayed on the bear and listened to the guide,” Shelly said. “That was my job at that point.”

The first crack of the rifle proved she was on target.

Doug said it took all four of them to roll the big bear over and more than three hours to skin it. When they made it back to camp, they had to pack up all the gear and float back down the river to the Pacific Ocean, where a float plane picked them up.

The next adventure for Shelly and Doug will be an Alaskan moose hunt this fall. And it will be competition between the two of them to score the largest bull.

Doug killed a large brown bear five years ago, but Shelly’s recent grizzly may be a little larger.

“I was looking for a big one,” Shelly confessed. “I wanted to get as good of one as Doug.”

Visitors to the Sayer home will get a chance to judge the outcome. Both complete bear hides with heads will share a wall in their game room.

“Mine will probably end up out in the garage,” Doug said with a smile.

This article was originally published in the Idaho State Journal. It is used here with permission.