Where Hunting Happens, Conservation Happens™
In April 1974 a friend and I flew in a Piper Super Cub to the McGrath, Alaska area for a three-week-long grizzly bear hunt. We covered a large area, encountered scores of bears, and settled on a couple of locations where large boars were present. We concentrated our efforts at these places and took two large grizzlies. One of these bears is listed in the current Boone & Crockett records, taken by Curtis C. Classen, McGrath, Alaska, 1974. The skull scored 25-2/16. I also shot a large grizzly, but never entered the skull in the records.
While this area produces large grizzlies, it also offers black bears. So, in spring 1976 I returned, this time to hunt black bear. While on an extended hike over the tundra and bogs, I stumbled across some bones partially frozen in moss and overflow ice. After closer inspection, I determined the remains to be from a grizzly bear.
The skull was smelly, but I knew it was big and worth an effort to keep. So, I brought it out, along with a couple vertebrae. There was meat and hide on the back of the skull, and some teeth were missing. I cleaned the skull and this time judged it to be from a mature brown bear. From that point on, I stored it in my attic.
Almost 30 years later, I was remodeling the attic and came across the skull. I decided to score it and to my surprise it was larger than I thought. After studying the Boone & Crockett boundary descriptions for grizzlies and brown bears, I determined that the skull should be scored as a grizzly. I had it officially measured and was amazed to learn that this was, in fact, the largest grizzly ever recorded. It was quite a find.
"The wildlife and its habitat cannot speak. So we must and we will."
-Theodore Roosevelt