Do not waste your money.
Mike Oden is a salesman and he will tell you what you want to hear. I spoke personally with Mike Oden multiple times asking him if a seven day hunt was sufficient to get a shot at a coastal grizzly. He said "yes."
From this conversation, the three of us hunters were very disappointed that we didn't even get an opportunity at a bear at the end of our trip. I personally didn't even see a grizzly. When we expressed our thoughts to Mike Oden, he responded "that's hunting".
Three of us hunted together and, like I said, I didn't even see a grizzly. My fellow hunters did see a sow with a cub approximately 3 miles out just under the snow line with very good binoculars. This is when we realized we were hunting interior bears, not coastal, unlike the description. The two hunters that I was with had black bear tags. They did not see a black bear their entire trip.
On the second day, we all awoke ready to hunt but the blinds weren't ready. My buddy and I sat on a rock until 4pm waiting for guides to set them up. So losing the majority of the second day has now turned this 6-day hunt into a 5-day hunt.
When we finally took our raft to our hunting spot, blinds were set up at a stream that dumped into the lake we were camping at, an island about 2 miles below. There were four blinds set up total, all about 150 yards from each other on this stream in a straight line. We were surrounded by thousands of miles of wildness in Alaska and four hunters were placed all within 500 yards of one another. I couldn't believe it. If a bear would have come to my left, the hunter next to me and I would have been shooting at the same bear. Same on my right side, because I was one of the two hunters that were placed in the middle of the line.
The next day, I told the head of camp, a native of Alaska in his 60s, that I wasn't sitting in the blind again. Just to give you a picture, the head of camp was seen running his fingers through the sand on a track and smelling his fingers to see if the track was fresh. It was laughable and pathetic.
I spent the rest of my hunt with my guide looking for sign on foot and cruising the shoreline via the raft in Alaska. My "guide" was from Montana and had never been at this camp before. With only one week experience at a different camp in Alaska the year before, I quickly began to realize that these guides were more like "companions". Another "guide" was from Minnesota and this was his first time at the camp, too. The next "guide" was a nurse from Anchorage who likes taking vacation and guiding in the Alaskan wilderness. These gentlemen were very nice and will be good guides once they learn the area. However, they were not much more helpful than I was when navigating and finding places to hunt in a limited time frame.
If you're silly enough to book this hunt, make sure Mike quotes you on the flight in to the camp. 3 hunters were charged $3,720 per person to fly for 45 minutes.
The only positive things I can say about this hunt was the food was good and the guide from Montana will be great once he learns the area. They made this trip a little more tolerable.
I would not book this hunt again and I recommend you don't either. This hunting trip is more like a camping trip with a gun. read more
