Snipershirt
Lil-Rokslider
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2013
- Messages
- 228
As I sit here and write this hovered over a plate of bear tenderloin, by far one of my favorite meals, I take a moment to reflect on the events of the past two days of the 2014 Spring Bear hunting season.
It was the Friday before Memorial Day weekend and after almost a month of hunting we had come up empty handed thus far. While we didn’t know it at the time, the next two days were going to be busy and action packed.
My son 7 year old son Brennan and I were heading out to check our bear baits and hoping our season would finally turn on. After over an hour of driving, we finally arrived at our first bait, only to find it untouched which to say the least was very disappointing. Our baits had been in well over a month and still no signs of any bear. I remember Brennan telling me, “dad, wouldn’t it be cool if all of the other baits had bear on them?” Funny, because as down as I was feeling, his comments made me chuckle.
As we approached our second bait, it appeared our luck was beginning to change. I immediately noticed the trail camera was knocked off of the tree and the barrel was just about empty. Finally, it appeared we had some action. We didn’t stick around too long as we still had two other baits to check that evening.
Arriving at our third bait, later named “Deadfall”, it looked as if a fire-team of bear had ransacked the area. The barrel had been ripped from the tree and all of the logs were tossed throughout the area. Upon checking the trail camera, we immediately saw pictures of a beautiful cinnamon phase colored bear, a smaller back bear as well as another large boar. We eagerly raced to our fourth and final bait, finding it in disarray as well.
We decided to head back down to Deadfall, as it was a great area for a ground blind and of course the thought of that color-phased bear had me intrigued. We quickly set up and climbed in for whatever the night would bring. It was just after 5 p.m. as Brennan broke out his snacks, headphones and IPAD and I started reading my copy of Tony Russ’s Alaskan Sheep Hunting book. About two hours later, my thoughts of scaling sheep infested country above 4, 000 feet, were interrupted by the sight of a huge black bear coming in to the right of the bait. Instantly noticing how small his ears appeared, I got Brennan up and on the .308. The bear locked in on the camo mound, void on his previous trips and began to slowly back up. At 25 yards and quartering away, it was now or never. The shot rang out, anchoring the big bruin where he stood. The look of joy and amazement came at me and for a second I saw myself, years earlier. I refocused on where the bear was and the bear appeared to be trying to stand. Grabbing the rifle, I quickly made a follow up shot, hitting him in the neck and putting him down for good. The next five minutes were filled with hugs, knuckles, high-fives and shaky knees. A few minutes later, we were standing beside over 6 feet of muscle and black hide.
The following day, we picked up our good friend and hunting partner, Jimmy and headed back out to our sights. After re-baiting each of them, we dropped Jimmy off at “Skid-marks” our furthest bait. Before leaving him, Brennan began to haggle Jimmy, as any “experienced” bear hunter would do and just before parting, we told Jimmy that we would not come and pick him up until he had a bear on the ground. We wished him luck and sped down to our ground blind with visions of cinnamon still in our heads.
That night was much similar to the night before and around 6:30pm, I caught movement to my left and instantly saw the big cinnamon bear making his way in to the bait. It took me a few seconds to realize I wasn’t dreaming and looked over to tell Brennan the bear was coming in. There was a small blind spot where I lost the bear but readied my PSE bow and set-up for a shot, as I knew he was coming. At 18 yards, I came to full-draw, gave a small grunt and sent the Easton Axis arrow on its way hitting the bear low, burying the arrow to the fletching. I watched the bear run about 25 yards and lost sight of it in the under brush. Seconds later, I heard three loud, death moans and knew exactly what that meant. Before I could put my bow down, Brennan was in my lap with his arms around me neck. We were both shaking, rejoicing and high-fiving yet again. A short prayer followed and then we waited about 30 minutes before taking off after blood. It didn’t take long and we found the expired bear no more than 30 yards from where it was when I released the arrow and later realized I had made a perfect heart shot.
After getting my bear taken care of, it was barely 8:00pm and still plenty of time for Jimmy to get a bear. Brennan and I ate, hung out and goofed off waiting for a text from Jimmy with some kind of news. Around 9:30pm, Brennan yelled at me saying Jimmy was calling and wanted us to come get him. I instantly knew he had shot his first black bear so we set off in his direction.
We pulled up to Skid-marks and found Jimmy still sitting on stand with a huge, irreplaceable grin on his face. Knees still shaking, he did his best to descend from his perch and met us below. As he replayed the scenario, it was clear he had made a perfect shot on his bear and a short blood trail proved the same.
Our hunt started a mere 26 hours earlier and we were clearly blessed with three fine bear and three “first.” Having taken numerous bear with archery equipment, this was my first cinnamon bear, my son Brennan’s first bear as well as Jimmy’s first bear. Driving out around midnight, we were three tired, happy and hungry hunters heading for home, replaying each shot and memory over and over again.
It was the Friday before Memorial Day weekend and after almost a month of hunting we had come up empty handed thus far. While we didn’t know it at the time, the next two days were going to be busy and action packed.
My son 7 year old son Brennan and I were heading out to check our bear baits and hoping our season would finally turn on. After over an hour of driving, we finally arrived at our first bait, only to find it untouched which to say the least was very disappointing. Our baits had been in well over a month and still no signs of any bear. I remember Brennan telling me, “dad, wouldn’t it be cool if all of the other baits had bear on them?” Funny, because as down as I was feeling, his comments made me chuckle.
As we approached our second bait, it appeared our luck was beginning to change. I immediately noticed the trail camera was knocked off of the tree and the barrel was just about empty. Finally, it appeared we had some action. We didn’t stick around too long as we still had two other baits to check that evening.
Arriving at our third bait, later named “Deadfall”, it looked as if a fire-team of bear had ransacked the area. The barrel had been ripped from the tree and all of the logs were tossed throughout the area. Upon checking the trail camera, we immediately saw pictures of a beautiful cinnamon phase colored bear, a smaller back bear as well as another large boar. We eagerly raced to our fourth and final bait, finding it in disarray as well.
We decided to head back down to Deadfall, as it was a great area for a ground blind and of course the thought of that color-phased bear had me intrigued. We quickly set up and climbed in for whatever the night would bring. It was just after 5 p.m. as Brennan broke out his snacks, headphones and IPAD and I started reading my copy of Tony Russ’s Alaskan Sheep Hunting book. About two hours later, my thoughts of scaling sheep infested country above 4, 000 feet, were interrupted by the sight of a huge black bear coming in to the right of the bait. Instantly noticing how small his ears appeared, I got Brennan up and on the .308. The bear locked in on the camo mound, void on his previous trips and began to slowly back up. At 25 yards and quartering away, it was now or never. The shot rang out, anchoring the big bruin where he stood. The look of joy and amazement came at me and for a second I saw myself, years earlier. I refocused on where the bear was and the bear appeared to be trying to stand. Grabbing the rifle, I quickly made a follow up shot, hitting him in the neck and putting him down for good. The next five minutes were filled with hugs, knuckles, high-fives and shaky knees. A few minutes later, we were standing beside over 6 feet of muscle and black hide.
The following day, we picked up our good friend and hunting partner, Jimmy and headed back out to our sights. After re-baiting each of them, we dropped Jimmy off at “Skid-marks” our furthest bait. Before leaving him, Brennan began to haggle Jimmy, as any “experienced” bear hunter would do and just before parting, we told Jimmy that we would not come and pick him up until he had a bear on the ground. We wished him luck and sped down to our ground blind with visions of cinnamon still in our heads.
That night was much similar to the night before and around 6:30pm, I caught movement to my left and instantly saw the big cinnamon bear making his way in to the bait. It took me a few seconds to realize I wasn’t dreaming and looked over to tell Brennan the bear was coming in. There was a small blind spot where I lost the bear but readied my PSE bow and set-up for a shot, as I knew he was coming. At 18 yards, I came to full-draw, gave a small grunt and sent the Easton Axis arrow on its way hitting the bear low, burying the arrow to the fletching. I watched the bear run about 25 yards and lost sight of it in the under brush. Seconds later, I heard three loud, death moans and knew exactly what that meant. Before I could put my bow down, Brennan was in my lap with his arms around me neck. We were both shaking, rejoicing and high-fiving yet again. A short prayer followed and then we waited about 30 minutes before taking off after blood. It didn’t take long and we found the expired bear no more than 30 yards from where it was when I released the arrow and later realized I had made a perfect heart shot.
After getting my bear taken care of, it was barely 8:00pm and still plenty of time for Jimmy to get a bear. Brennan and I ate, hung out and goofed off waiting for a text from Jimmy with some kind of news. Around 9:30pm, Brennan yelled at me saying Jimmy was calling and wanted us to come get him. I instantly knew he had shot his first black bear so we set off in his direction.
We pulled up to Skid-marks and found Jimmy still sitting on stand with a huge, irreplaceable grin on his face. Knees still shaking, he did his best to descend from his perch and met us below. As he replayed the scenario, it was clear he had made a perfect shot on his bear and a short blood trail proved the same.
Our hunt started a mere 26 hours earlier and we were clearly blessed with three fine bear and three “first.” Having taken numerous bear with archery equipment, this was my first cinnamon bear, my son Brennan’s first bear as well as Jimmy’s first bear. Driving out around midnight, we were three tired, happy and hungry hunters heading for home, replaying each shot and memory over and over again.
