Hunter Bags Record Alaska Grizzly - Maybe

ROTHBURY, Mich. - A hunter who shot an Alaskan grizzly bear appears headed for the record books.

According to the official game-hunting record agency, Boone & Crockett, Ted Kurdziel's bear is the biggest ever shot in the world.

But that won't become official until the agency's banquet next summer - that's right: the summer of 1992 - when it remeasures the animal.

Boone & Crockett measures bears by adding the distance from the back of the skull to the front of the teeth and from the width of the skull.

Kurdziel's bear was 27 3/16 inches and will replace two bears that measured 27 1/8 inches. It stood 9-feet-4-inches high and weighed about 800 pounds.

That record was verified last weekend in Traverse City, Mich., by Mitch Rompola, an official scorer for Boone & Crockett.

"It's the largest bear in the world," Kurdziel told the Muskegon Chronicle. "And, until the banquet, I have to sit tight and keep my fingers crossed. Next year is a long way away."

Kurdziel shot the bear during an excursion in April near the Alaskan wilderness town of Koyuk. He had planned to take an animal with his bow, but when the grizzly unexpectedly charged his hunting party, he instantly decided he was more likely to kill the animal with his .300 Magnum rifle.

The bear had been stalking the hunting party.

"That bear was leading us," Kurdziel said, "and if we had continued walking, we would have walked right into him. He set up for us three times and we walked right by him."