Grizzly

Dating back to the days of Lewis and Clark's expedition in the first decade of the 1800s to the colorful descriptions of confrontations from pioneers struggling to make it across this country in covered wagons to settle territories across the wide-open and mostly uninhabited West to infamous grizzly hunter "Liver Eating Jeremiah Johnson," the grizzly holds a special place in American history.

In Lewis & Clark, Across The Great Divide, author Carolyn Gilman notes, "Before he had seen a grizzly bear, Lewis scoffed at the Indians' 'formidable account of strength and ferocity of this animal.' He attributed their awe to 'their bows and arrows and the indifferent guns with which the traders furnished them.' He was confident in the power of superior American technology, even after encountering two small grizzlies. He wrote, 'The Indians may well fear this animal…but in the hands of skillful riflemen they are by no means as formidable or dangerous as they have been represented.'"

Notes the author, "That attitude lasted five days. Then the soldiers encountered 'a most tremendous-looking animal, and extremely hard to kill not withstanding he had five balls through his lungs and five others in various parts…'"

While it remains the state animal of Montana and even California, the grizzly's true "base camp" is Alaska. Like the American bald eagle and Alaska itself, the grizzly brings to mind powerful images of the diverse history of our great country and its broad-based wildlife population. It was the appeal of hunting the most elusive big-game animals that attracted me to Hunt Alaska's Eric and Virgil Umpenhauer to set up a hunt in June 2007.

Maybe it was reading the Lewis & Clark journals that fueled my high anticipation of the hunt and that of my hunting partner, Wayne Holt, vice president of Hornady Manufacturing. There was also a second reason we were eager: This hunt would be the first field test of Hornady's new .375 Ruger cartridge and Ruger's Alaskan rifle.

We hooked up in Anchorage and chartered into Unalakleet. From there we flew to a small fishing village. Next, we loaded a boat with hundreds of pounds of gear and embarked on a ride through the ice-choked waters along the Norton Sound shore to our base camp.

Wayne and I are both veteran hunters, but neither one of us had hunted grizzly, so the anticipation of stalking this majestic animal had been building for close to a year. New cartridge, new rifle and hunting grizzlies in one of the most remote regions of Alaska with one of my best friends. Does it get any better than this? What was there not to like? Wayne, ever the hardcore shooter and one who believes in the concept of "in the field" testing and evaluation of bullet and cartridge, couldn't wait to see how the new cartridge performed on one of the most tenacious and toughest game animals this side of Cape buffalo.

"A field test on a big bear was crucial because the .375 Ruger cartridge was being introduced with an all-new bullet design," Wayne noted after we arrived in camp and upacked our gear. "The 300-grain DGX and DGS bullets were developed for African dangerous game, and we tested them on elephant, hippo and crocodile. For dangerous game outside of Africa, we developed a 270-grain SP-RP bullet, and that's what we're using on this grizzly hunt. Lab tests are all well and good, but nothing tells the true story of bullet/cartridge performance like an actual hunt."