Michael
mr chad lachance what are you doing my friend
uh i'm at my toyota sponsoring dealership getting my check work done okay
well are you are you good to talk for a minute i have something very important to tell you
uh oh
today is august the 10th
okay yeah do you know what the sportsman's news pro membership sweepstakes does on august the 10th
uh i haven't been watching bud so i honestly don't know what goes on august the 10th well
you know we give we do a big giveaway the 10th the 20th and the 30th every month right
oh okay
yeah and you know what the drawing was today i don't know i honestly don't know it's a kodiak
island brown bear hunt worth 30 thousand dollars really yes could you guess whose name we drew
who did don't tell me you drew me yeah mr chad lachance you are the lucky
winner going to larson bay lodge on kodiak island 2018 to shoot a whopper brown bear
are you kidding me
you kind of have an audience in the office going on right now and i'm actually rick
i am i am recording this as we speak because this is like one of the biggest drawings of the year
and oh my god are you kidding me seriously are you kidding
i am i'm not kidding you man we don't joke about stuff like that this is a this is
one of the biggest trips of the year the only one bigger was the the the sheep hunt
buddy dude i'm literally shaking i am
oh my gosh dude are you kidding me this is awesome yeah you'll actually get to
see the drawing here probably in a in a few hours so including this conversation yeah
holy shmoley
dude you just made my whole year
oh dude that's just going to be epic
hey guys chad lachance calling in from kodiak city alaska yes i'm on kodiak island i never
thought i'd find myself here uh off on the great kodiak bear hunt i'm pretty excited about this
whole thing uh fixing to get on a float plane and fly out to the southern half of the island here in
kodiak island and chase the world's biggest bears so it's gonna be quite an adventure but real quick
a lot of people have asked me well how'd you how do you afford a trip like this or how did you get
it well it came from the from the sportsman's news magazine through their pro membership sweepstakes
it's a straight sweepstakes it's a contest and i won that i won it about a year ago and i spent the
whole year prepping for it whether it be my rifle my clothing conditioning everything else getting
ready for this hunt well now it's finally here so we flew onto kodiak island last night flew from
denver to seattle to anchorage to kodiak yesterday and then now i'm getting on a float plane to fly
up to the lake from here and go go hunt so gonna be a great trip trip of a lifetime i'm really
excited about it guys and hunting in alaska for a for a bear that could weigh pushing 1500 pounds
and stand 10 feet tall so gonna be quite the adventure guys so uh stay tuned hopefully we'll
have some really good content when we get back maybe go check out the sweepstakes yourself the
pro membership sweepstakes maybe you'll get lucky and win something as well and uh it's been an
adventure this far i don't see it getting any less of an adventure from here on out so stay tuned
the flight from kodiak city to camp is done via float plane it takes less than an hour
to arrive at camp and we immediately started seeing bears on the shorelines
as well as a giant atop a nearby mountain unfortunately you can't fly and hunt for
brown bears on the same day in alaska for reasons of fair chase hunting so we spent
the afternoon as observers waiting for the green flag the next morning
well larson bay lodge is a lodge on the southwest side of kodiak island
real fortunate to grown up there my father my grandfather my great grandfather from larson bay
in the surrounding area the advantage of this hunt is being able to cover so much more area by boat
and hunting the shoreline not spreading our scent all over the area and being able to have a variety
of bears to look at and then we we find the right one and we we spot find it and then stalk it
all right guys first morning kodiak island biggest bears in the world we saw seven of them yesterday
uh we weren't allowed to hunt yesterday we even saw a giant
but uh we're gonna get after him now we're headed down the river uh to say i'm excited
would be a bit of an understatement
i'm tj over at larson bay lodge
kodiak bear guide
we're going to do our best to put them on there as far as i'm concerned he's the man for the day
tj has been guiding this area most of the fall with fishermen and knows that there's a huge bore
living along the river and eating fish which is our target the monster brewing from the day before
was only a few miles above the valley floor and just above our current location
and he may have given up his perch on the hill to come fill his belly with salmon we hadn't
been settled into our observation area very long when tj spotted movement about a mile down river
it was a resident sow with three cubs which tj had watched most of the summer we observed them for
the better part of an hour heading our direction but when they crossed the river and started
walking right at us we became very cautious of a mother brown bear's protective nature at 60 yards
she was getting a little close for comfort and we made movement to let her know we were there
day one ended without a shot opportunity at a worthy bore but we had seen a lot of movement
on the opposite side of the lake in one area that had numerous bears fishing in the late afternoon
tj decided that we would be best suited to spend our second day in this area
we had been at our observation point for a couple of hours when we saw our first bear
and then our second and then our third this was another big sow with nearly full grown cubs
we enjoyed the show and stayed tucked in behind the tree
but the sow saw something out of place and headed our direction we yelled at her and
waved our arms and the look of anger on her face was as intimidating as you can imagine
the nerves had just settled from our last close encounter when we saw a shooter
he was well over a mile away and slowly working the shoreline
but definitely headed our direction he had a huge head and his ears look like they were coming out
of the sides which is what you're looking for in a trophy brown bear he'd close the gap to us
at about a half a mile when he landed his last fish and disappeared into the brush
this is totally a different bear but very close to the same area
he isn't spending as much time fishing as the other one and more on a mission at a mile and
a half they can cover this ground in a pretty short period of time if they don't get distracted
this big boar is definitely a shooter and although he is close enough to chad and tj
for a shot they don't have the wide open field of view that i have from my location
chad had stood up and walked 30 yards down the shoreline to stretch his legs and warm up
and he spotted a bear in the water he wasn't sure how big he was but he was already in rifle range
when he had gotten out of the water jt scoured the thick grass and chad steadied his rifle on
sticks waiting for another close encounter with a possible shooter it only took this guy a few
minutes to finish his fish and was headed back to the water he could see the top of his back
through the grass at less than 50 yards chad's breathing got heavy and the adrenaline poured
through his veins he finally popped out at 50 yards however he wasn't worth this prestigious tag
the nerves hadn't even calmed when chad looked through his binos and saw the big bear from
day two out in the water here we were three days later and after many close encounters
we are finally looking at the bear chad really wanted once again
a mile of shoreline stood between us and his trophy the wind was in our favor and we had
multiple days of knowledge on the topography of the shoreline as well as wind issues that
moving closer would create the best plan would be to sit in our current position
and hope that he wouldn't get distracted and come all the way within rifle range
there we go
crushed him crushed him hit him again hit him again
you're unloaded right
oh my god yes it's clear i'm clear i'm all clear guys I just tanked
an absolute ten
that is a whopper
kodiak brown bear michael demming
i saw the whole thing
pro membership sweepstakes 375 mag double tap they saw the whole thing yeah nice drowning expo
360 yards across this bay i have i have been close to blowing a couple of these in the last
couple days i no let's get a square you did blow a couple days i didn't take any shots
i didn't feel really good about
and this is the bear since we first saw him three days ago that i really wanted and uh
that's as good as it gets right there buddy oh my gosh people
beautiful bear that bear is a tank bro i've never beautiful beautiful never experienced anything
like that guys i am telling you my man tj i looked up i was like is that a bear in
the water in front of the rock and he goes yeah that's a bear and i look dead up and deming's like
he's got no ears yeah his ears are on the side of his head oh my god congratulations
360 yards good for you yeah i seen him out there is it the
one that bedded up over there no it's the spot bear oh it is
it's that giant it's that one we watched the other day
good for you
look at that jeez
i've never seen anything like that oh my god
oh dude are you kidding me what's that six or seven are you kidding me oh my god
biggest sow i've ever seen
holy cow
here's his last fish now you gotta pull him
well great trip here in kodiak island with my good buddy chad lachance you know you
spend a whole week in the cabin with somebody you learn a lot about them we had a great time
guys a world-class fisherman and now a very accomplished bear hunter thanks to kodiak
and larson bay lodge mike carlson runs a great operation mike just flew out of here and i just
committed that we're gonna give this trip away three years from now he's booked three years out
so we got this thing on the hook three years from now 2021. somebody's going to be coming make sure
you sign up at pro membership sweepstakes.com get your chance to win thanks for joining us on this
episode of sportsman's news television tune in next week we'll have another good show for you