Ever since he'd been a hunter - which is to say for most of his life - Paul Fulknier had wanted to kill an Alaskan brown bear.

Now the West Virginian and his guide stood, frozen in their tracks, as a huge humpbacked male caught their scent. For 10 minutes, the men crouched behind a blown-down pine tree as the bruin stared a hole through them.

"That bear laid down with its head on its paws and looked straight at us," Fulknier recalled. "He'd probably caught a molecule or two of our scent on the breeze - not enough to spook him, but enough to make him try to figure out if any humans were out there, and if so, where they were."

Fortunately for the two men, brown bears' eyesight isn't nearly as keen as their sense of smell. The bear eventually rose to its feet and continued feeding along the edge of the tidal flat.

Fulknier and his guide looked at each other. They wanted to close within 75 yards for a quick-killing shot, the bear was moving away from them, and daylight was fading fast. The two men needed to act quickly, or two years' worth of planning could go for naught.

"I had spent two years planning for that trip," Fulknier said after returning from the May 9-22 adventure. "It had been a lifelong goal to do a brown bear hunt, and it took a long time for us to find the right outfitter."

Fulknier and his wife, Marjorie, chose a "boat hunt," a 12-day cruise through the fjords of southeastern Alaska's Admiralty Island. Paul and friend Frank Beller would do the hunting; Marjorie would enjoy the scenery, take photos and collect seafood.

"I had a field day putting out crab pots and catching Dungeness crabs," she said.

On the trip's second day, near the head of the island's Salmon Bay, they spotted a bear of the size Paul had hoped for. Paul and guide Mike Dobson took a skiff into shallow water and walked half a mile across a tidal flat before they began their stalk. Marjorie stayed with the boat to keep it from stranding on the tide. She watched the stalk through binoculars.

"When that bear winded them, they just happened to be out of my view," she recalled. "I was really starting to get worried when I saw them resume the stalk."

When the bear put its head down to feed, the two men raced to close the gap. They got within 115 yards but could get no closer.

"We were out of cover, out of room and out of options," Paul said. "I couldn't even kneel to get a rest. I took the shot offhand."

Ever since he'd been a hunter - which is to say for most of his life - Paul Fulknier had wanted to kill an Alaskan brown bear.

Now the West Virginian and his guide stood, frozen in their tracks, as a huge humpbacked male caught their scent. For 10 minutes, the men crouched behind a blown-down pine tree as the bruin stared a hole through them.

"That bear laid down with its head on its paws and looked straight at us," Fulknier recalled. "He'd probably caught a molecule or two of our scent on the breeze - not enough to spook him, but enough to make him try to figure out if any humans were out there, and if so, where they were."

Fortunately for the two men, brown bears' eyesight isn't nearly as keen as their sense of smell. The bear eventually rose to its feet and continued feeding along the edge of the tidal flat.

Fulknier and his guide looked at each other. They wanted to close within 75 yards for a quick-killing shot, the bear was moving away from them, and daylight was fading fast. The two men needed to act quickly, or two years' worth of planning could go for naught.

"I had spent two years planning for that trip," Fulknier said after returning from the May 9-22 adventure. "It had been a lifelong goal to do a brown bear hunt, and it took a long time for us to find the right outfitter."

Fulknier and his wife, Marjorie, chose a "boat hunt," a 12-day cruise through the fjords of southeastern Alaska's Admiralty Island. Paul and friend Frank Beller would do the hunting; Marjorie would enjoy the scenery, take photos and collect seafood.

"I had a field day putting out crab pots and catching Dungeness crabs," she said.

On the trip's second day, near the head of the island's Salmon Bay, they spotted a bear of the size Paul had hoped for. Paul and guide Mike Dobson took a skiff into shallow water and walked half a mile across a tidal flat before they began their stalk. Marjorie stayed with the boat to keep it from stranding on the tide. She watched the stalk through binoculars.

"When that bear winded them, they just happened to be out of my view," she recalled. "I was really starting to get worried when I saw them resume the stalk."

When the bear put its head down to feed, the two men raced to close the gap. They got within 115 yards but could get no closer.

"We were out of cover, out of room and out of options," Paul said. "I couldn't even kneel to get a rest. I took the shot offhand."

The bullet from Paul's .340 Weatherby Magnum knocked the bear down, but it stood back up. Three quick follow-up shots put it down for good. The bruin's hide squared at 8 1/2 feet - not a record-breaker, but a solid trophy. Paul had his brown bear.

"I'd killed 13 black bears by that time, but I'd really wanted a brown bear," he said.

Genetically, brown bears and grizzly bears are one and the same. Brown bears' seacoast habitat and rich seafood diet allow them to grow larger than their inland grizzly counterparts.

Four days after Paul took his brown bear, Beller killed one that could easily have been a twin of the first one. "Both of their hides squared exactly the same size," Paul said.

The hunt might have ended there had it not been for a chance encounter on a subsequent sightseeing trip.

"We were on our way up to look at Sawyer Glacier when I saw a real nice bear grazing on the beach. At first we thought it was a brown bear, but I thought it might be a cinnamon-phase black bear. It was. I hadn't planned on shooting a black bear, but I decided on the spot to try to take that one because of its unusual coloring," Paul said.

But before Paul and the guide could fill out the necessary paperwork for a black-bear license, the bruin had disappeared. The party headed up the bay and spent the day at the glacier.

"We returned to where we'd seen the bear and were eating dinner when the guide spotted the bear on the shore. We angled the boat downwind, went ashore and did a very fast stalk," he said. "We closed to within 70 yards and I made the shot. That bear weighed close to 400 pounds, and it had really odd coloration - black on the sides of its head with a cinnamon 'Mohawk' strip running down the middle, and cinnamon on the sides of its body with a black strip down the spine."

Both bear hides now occupy the Fulkniers' freezer, awaiting trips to the taxidermist. Paul and Marjorie called the experience "more than a hunting trip."

"We've taken a lot of game in a lot of places, including Africa," Paul said. "I'd rate this adventure right up there with the best."

Reach John McCoy at johnmc...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1231.