Friday, July 30, 2010
Bear of an adventure
Loren Bruffey and son Loren Jr. of Botetourt County recently traveled to Russia on a memorable hunting trip.
Photos courtesy of the Bruffeys
The cabins at the Russian hunting camp weren't fancy, but they were palatial compared to the accommodations the Bruffeys stayed in while traveling to the camp.
Loren Bruffey Jr. fulfilled a longtime goal by killing this massive brown bear during a May hunting trip to Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula with his father, with whom he has been hunting for more than 35 years.
Mark Taylor is outdoors editor at The Roanoke Times.
mark.taylor
@roanoke.com
981-3395
Mark Taylor
Outdoors coverage
- Notebook: Outer Banks beach-driving plan kicks up sand
- Outdoors commentary: Many Sunday hunting cons
- Winter tourneys invite fishermen out in the cold
- Visit our Outdoors page
The Wild Life blog
The bear appeared quickly, a huge and hulking brown mass standing out in stark contrast against the snowy Russian landscape.
Loren Bruffey Jr. raised his rifle and aimed.
Bruffey and his father had traveled several thousand miles to the Kamchatka Peninsula to fulfill a longtime goal of hunting brown bears, among the most coveted trophies for some big-game hunters.
This was their first morning of hunting, but while the hunt itself was transpiring quickly, the adventure already had been a long one.
In fact, it had been decades in the making.
Starting young
On a recent muggy morning the men sat in Loren Jr.'s office at Cardinal Rubber and Seal, Inc., the family's business in Southeast Roanoke.
"I remember my first hunt with dad," 44-year-old Loren Jr. said, smiling. "I was 8 and we were on the farm. It was pouring rain and I was wearing a garbage bag for a rain jacket."
The elder Bruffey, who is 69 and sharp as a tack, smiled.
"You shot a small buck that morning," his son continued. "We were there by the big oak tree."
The two were inseparable in the woods from that point on.
"He would raise hell if I left him," Loren Sr. said, laughing.
The Bruffeys still hunt a lot on the family's property in Botetourt County, and that's where Loren Jr. is teaching the ways of the woods to his son, 15-year-old Loren III.
But about 12 years ago they decided to start hunting out of state.
"Eventually you learn your land so well it becomes less of a challenge," Loren Jr. said.
They started with do-it-yourself elk-hunting trips in the West, with only moderate success.
Next came a fully outfitted elk hunt in Utah, during which both men killed trophy bulls.
Other trips included a jaunt to Newfoundland for caribou and moose, and a couple of trips to Africa.
"It's a good way to spend my inheritance," Loren Jr. said, chuckling.
The trips also included a disastrous Alaskan adventure with a terrible guide.
"That was a nightmare," Loren Jr. recalled of the trip, during which the guide's technique of washing dishes was to put them on the floor to let the camp dog lick them.
Getting to Russia
Despite their Alaska fiasco, the men were considering going back to the state to hunt brown bears but were spooked by the cost, which they said could run up to $30,000 per hunter.
Then at an outdoors expo, Loren Jr. hooked up with Russ Smith Hunting Worldwide, which was offering bear hunting trips to Russia for less than half of that.
More than a year in advance they paid their deposit for a May 2010 hunt and waited for details from the outfitter.
Two weeks prior to the planned hunt they finally got word that the trip was a go.
They hurried to get plane tickets and on May 6 were on their way to Moscow.
Visiting hunters aren't rare in Russia, but the men still faced uncomfortable scrutiny at the Moscow airport.
"We had a Russian interpreter helping us and even he was sweating bullets," Loren Jr. said.
Finally the men were sent on their way.
The trip to the camp took an additional two days, with more flying and a long bus ride.
One night the men stayed in a "no star" motel. Another they bunked in what was once a prison.
After a final hop on an old helicopter the men arrived at the camp, which they said was quite well-appointed, especially compared to the dive motel and the gulag.
The food, on the other hand, wasn't too special.
"They eat a lot of potatoes," Loren Jr. said.
"And they drink a lot of vodka," his father added.
"They start pretty much right after breakfast," said Loren Jr., who said he doesn't drink. "But it ain't but 40 proof so I guess it's not too hard on you."
Going for bears
Hunting is tightly managed in the region, with authorities rotating open regions year to year. The area the men were hunting hadn't been opened for five years.
Only a small number of tags, just enough to keep the bear population in check, are issued each year.
The hunting technique was unlike anything the men had done.
Because the snow was still 5 feet deep the only way to get around was by snowmobile. The guides would drive while the hunters rode on a towed sled, sitting in an automobile seat that had been bolted to the sled.
"It beat the hell out of you," Loren Jr. said.
A couple of hours into their first morning's hunting, Loren Jr. and his guide encountered a set of tracks from a large bear. They followed the tracks and eventually caught up with the bear.
"The negative to me was there was not a lot of challenge," he said of the hunt itself. "But with the depth of the snow and the terrain, there was no other way."
Bruffey made his shot count and his bear went down. It measured right at 10 feet tall, and weighed an estimated 1,100 pounds.
His dad was also having an interesting hunt.
He and his guide had followed tracks to a den.
"The guide started pulling bark off a tree," Loren Sr. recalled. "He rolled it up into a torch, lit it and threw it into the den.
"That bear came out of there like a bazooka."
The bear was too small so Loren Jr. held off.
"They tell you not to move," he said. "Well, the guide moved and that bear charged him."
The guide, who was carrying a fully automatic AK-47 opened fire, wounding the bear, which Loren Sr. then dispatched with his hunting rifle.
The guide used a camp tag on the bear and Loren Sr. got to keep hunting.
The next day he killed his own 10-footer.
Life in camp
The bears in the Kamchatka Peninsula are inedible because of mercury poisoning, but the Bruffeys did eat some meat from the paws, a tradition that is supposed to bring good luck.
It wasn't tasty.
"It smells like salmon and tastes like salmon," Loren Jr. said. "I think the only thing over there that doesn't taste like salmon is the booze."
Among the things the men did to pass time in camp after filling their tags was taking an ice-fishing trip to a lake 20 miles away. The snowmobile trip took two hours.
"We caught three little fish," Loren Jr. said, shaking his head and smiling.
The trip back to the states was another fiasco, with more trouble with Russian customs agents and confusion at New York's JFK airport about what to do with the bears. (The carcasses were held in cold storage at the airport for a month before being shipped to Roanoke.)
The Bruffeys aren't sure where they'll go next. They may even take a year off.
But they know they'll be off eventually on another trip.
"For me these hunts aren't only about the kill," Loren Jr. said. "It's about the adventure."
One they plan to keep going for many more years.
