G'day Ian, Tim, Peter, Rob, Paul & Iain,
Heres a quick report with some attached you tube links (not mine).
bunyip wrote:Went to Kamchatyka several years ago, (head up to Alaska and turn left), fly fishing for salmon and scored a 60lb fish, heap of fun but the food was bloody awful, borsch and boiled reindeer meat for 10 days.
The bears were huge and we kept well away, they must have stood about 10' high on their back legs, the upside was there were no snakes.
The food on the cruise ships is all you can eat so it's a bit better than borsch & boiled reindeer meat.
Now I am back from the Alaska cruise, Kamchatyka Russia is on my bucket list. of places to go.
When the tourists asked about the dangers of bears the guides look at the Aussies and say "they are less dangerous than your snakes & spiders.
The brown bears (Grizzly bears) are huge in Alaska, but I only saw them from a distance through the window of a tour bus at Denali National Park.
We took a float plane to Neets bay salmon hatchery from Ketchikan. The bears I saw close up catching Salmon in the streams at Neets Bay were smaller young black bears. The guide told us they were about 2 to 4 years old. They leave their mum usually after the 1st or 2nd year & we didn't see any sow & cubs. The bears we saw were about 20-30 m away.
My photos & videos don't do justice so I will post someone elses' you tube link I found taken in the same location taken a few years ago.
The antics of the bears was about the same as the attached video with the older bears chasing away the younger ones and keeping the best spots for themselves.
The younger ones were also learning how to fish and sometimes slipped off the rocks, fell in the water and came out fishless. It would make a good "funniest home video"
The older ones were so successful at catching salmon that they could be picky and only take the females with row which they prefer as they have more protein.
There was so many salmon swimming upstream that the older bears would throw back the salmon they didn't want for the younger bears to try to catch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXLQ_ur_zm8
Apart from seeing the bears fishing for the salmon, and watching young kids fishing by casting a line from the shore or bridge at Ketchikan then dragging theirm line in with a tail or fin snagged salmon attached (It wasn't fishing it was catching) the biggest highlight was seeing a two teams of hump back whales bubble netting for herring only a few hundred meters away from the cruise ship. There was one team of 8 we were all watching then another team of 4 came alongside and joined them at the same time. So a total of 12 humpbacks bubble netting.
Apparently it is a rare sight.
My photo of the bubblenetting just shows whales gapping mouths as they surfaced and dots on my photos, which were the herring jumping away and the seagulls flying in for left overs, so the attached you tube link is a better view.
I don't think you would want to be too close in a kayak at the same time as the twelve 50 feet long 35 ton whales were breaching & bubble netting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z00G0RxeSP0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8iDcLTD9wQ