Good topic... Brings back memories.

Floating down the American River on the Naknek system on the Aleutian Peninsula in Alaska. We started at the Lake (Hammersley) and drifted down over three days doing some R&D for a lodge. There were bears along the whole way as is normal for a Sockeye stream in that area.

Last day I was fighting a nice Rainbow and got a little behind everyone else. We were floating in personal floats called WaterMasters. Anyways I come around a bend into a densely canopied straight stretch of riffled water about 20 feet wide with high banks and I get this feeling... My hair on my neck stood straight up and I did not want to float through that stretch. I stowed the fly rod and moved the gun to the front apron and slowly walked/floated through the 150 foot long stretch of water. I was scared stiff and felt like at any moment a bear was going to land on me. I knew I was being watched and intuition was telling me things were not ok! I made it through the little stretch of river and back out into an open section of water.

I turned around and looked back into the canopied area and there is a huge sow standing half in the water half on the sloped bank looking down at me! I will never forget that image.

I have no idea how close I was to her but I know it was closer then I wanted to be.
We ended up seeing 100+ bear over the three days but as usual had no problem with them even when camping streamside at night.

I also have a few good stories of clients climbing my back and trying to drown me after a bear non chalantly walks out of the woods near us while fishing. And the time a friend "impersonating" a bear charged me in the high grass of a tributary off the Naknek. I thought I was dead.

But I never did feel threatened by a Grizzly in the eight years I was up in Bristol Bay.

CF