Brown Bear Takes a Break

I was with a few others photographing this female brown bear while she was fishing. The silver salmon run hadn’t begun yet at Silver Salmon Creek, but that didn’t stop her from giving it a try.  She caught a starry flounder and then, after a while, a silver salmon.  A larger male bear was also fishing and catching nothing. When she caught the salmon he chased her for several minutes and she was holding onto the fish so hard that one or both ends fell to the ground.  That caused the male to stop.  After the chase she walked toward us.  She kept coming and finally stopped and plopped down not far from our feet.

She had a reputation as a very good fisher.  She also had a rep that wasn’t as nice.  She abandoned her year-old cub not long before this.  We would see it on occasion and hoped and prayed it would make it to and through hibernation.