type2bowhunter
Lil-Rokslider
My 2022 bear hunting season began with 6 or 7 unsuccessful days. I knew that I needed to get deeper into the backcountry in order to find more bears. Away from the backpackers, mountain bikers, dirt bikers, and trail runners. Like all hunters, we knew that the further from people we could get the better chance we’d have of finding a big bear.
My hunting buddy Steve, and I use bicycles when we hunt. We’ve got steel-framed touring bikes that can hold a lot of weight. These allow us to get into the backcountry of our local National Forest in Southern California. The spot we had chosen to look for black bears was going to be about a 20 mile bike ride up a mountain with about 4000 feet of elevation gain. We assumed this would take us about 6 hours (spoiler: it took us much longer) and we would arrive at our camp site sometime in the afternoon of our first day, Friday. 6 miles into our ride we hit mud. A lot of mud. Mud that made the bicycles useless. We didn’t let it deter us and we put the bikes in a bush and loaded up our packs and hiked the rest of the way, about 14-15 miles. We got in late but we did see a lot of bear tracks in the snow around 5600 feet. We set up a camera hoping to get lucky and went to sleep. The next morning, Saturday, Steve and I didn’t have anything on the camera and we saw no fresh sign. We packed up and kept hiking another 2 or 3 miles to our original destination. Once there we set up camp, made lunch, and headed directly to the spots we had weeks ago saved on our OnX.
We dipped off this saddle towards a creek and a spring that we knew were there from our e-scouting. We were quietly descending into this narrow draw in the side of the mountain. The draw was dotted with mature oak trees that provided great shade and also great shooting lanes and cover. We were very quickly seeing sign. I was walking about 40 yards ahead of Steve on the trail when I scanned to my right and there is a black bear, a big one, 38 yards from me.
I don’t have a shot and I’m unable to move, it appears that she’s got her eye on Steve. After what felt like 5 minutes but was probably closer to 30 seconds, she spooked and ran off. I tried to get her to come back with my predator call, but it didn’t work. When Steve caught up to me, I asked him what happened. He was 24 yards away and in that moment, he realized that he couldn’t shoot the bear. He couldn’t shoot because he had to leave the next day, Sunday, to get back to town in order to catch a flight. And because we didn’t have our bikes with us, he knew that if he shot and killed that bear, that he would have to cancel his trip in order to deal with everything that comes with harvesting a bear. I understood his point and was slightly impressed with his discipline, I was also slightly disappointed, we had been hunting hard that season and that could have been our chance.
We continued down the trail and no less than 3 minutes later, ahead of us and to the left is a different bear, a much bigger bear. This bear is light brown and looks like a grizzly! We can’t believe our eyes. He is 95 yards away and I immediately go into stalk mode. Fortunately, he is right behind a fallen log and when he puts his head down to feed I am able to move in on him. I get to 36 yards and I’ve got a perfect shot. The log is covering the bottom half of the bear but I can see his back and his vitals. If I just send an arrow 3 inches over that log, bullseye. I draw back and I’ve got my pin right where it needs to be. And BAM! My bow goes off and it scares me. I somehow managed to punch my back tension release, scare myself and flinch. The arrow goes high and left and hits a tree right behind the bear. He is startled, but not scared. He begins to move away from me and to the left, he is ascending this steep bank that is littered with oak trees. I begin to stalk in after him, occasionally blowing on the predator call. To my surprise it’s working. The bear is still moving away from me but he turns his head a few times to see what the noise is. The bank is getting steeper and steeper and finally the bear comes to a ledge where he turns around and looks back down the hill he just ascended. He is again 36 yards from me, but this time steep uphill. He is looking to my right and I’ve got a less than desirable quartering to shot. But if I take a big step out from behind my cover I can get a better angle and make the shot. I take my step and draw simultaneously, and for the first time, the bear sees me. He turns and looks right at me. I’m now looking through my site right at him, I’ve got my pin on the center of his chest, and I pull.
The shot felt good and the sound on impact was unforgettable. The bear ran to my right and up and away from me. Within a few seconds the death moans began. That’s a sound I won’t soon forget. Steve caught up to me and we were giddy, we went and got my first arrow and had a good laugh about how stupid I am. We went back to where I hit the bear and saw a lot of blood, and just 20 yards up the hill there he was, dead. One of the first things Steve said was “I can’t believe what you just did to us.” That was funny. Because he was right, we were in for a lot of work. The shot took place at 1:45pm and by 8pm we had the bear quartered and capped and we hiked it the half a mile back up to our camp. Obviously, we had no choice here but to hike this big boy the 15-16 miles back to our bikes. We stashed all of our gear in trash bags and hid them in some trees and filled our packs with meat, head and hide. These packs were 100+ pounds each, they were so heavy that we couldn’t put them on by ourselves. We had to help each other each time. We left at 11pm. We got to our bikes at 3pm the next day, Sunday. No sleep, just walking with the heaviest packs imaginable, pure misery. We were broken. Steve and I both have run 100 mile races, we’ve run up 14ers, we’ve done some hard things. The time on feet and the weight of this bear made this a whole different kind of suffering. We finally made it back to the truck after about 30 hours after the shot, around 8pm the following day.
To make the story even better, the following month our area of Southern California saw record rainfall. The first 10 days of January 2023 our area had double the rainfall of all of 2022. Steve and I had planned to go get our gear but the weather kept delaying the mission. Finally, 30 days after the kill, we were able to make it out there to retrieve our gear. We also had a trail cam on the carcass and we picked up what looks to be another trophy-caliber black bear.
Today I received the green score of the skull from my taxidermist, he measured him at 20 4/16". Just barely good enough for Boone & Crockett. I have an official measurement scheduled for 30 days from now, lets hope for no shrinkage. ("I was in the pool! I was in the pool!")
If you've read this story, thanks for doing so. It was truly an incredible experience and without a doubt the hardest thing I've ever done. And even if no one reads this, writing it has been very cathartic for me.
My hunting buddy Steve, and I use bicycles when we hunt. We’ve got steel-framed touring bikes that can hold a lot of weight. These allow us to get into the backcountry of our local National Forest in Southern California. The spot we had chosen to look for black bears was going to be about a 20 mile bike ride up a mountain with about 4000 feet of elevation gain. We assumed this would take us about 6 hours (spoiler: it took us much longer) and we would arrive at our camp site sometime in the afternoon of our first day, Friday. 6 miles into our ride we hit mud. A lot of mud. Mud that made the bicycles useless. We didn’t let it deter us and we put the bikes in a bush and loaded up our packs and hiked the rest of the way, about 14-15 miles. We got in late but we did see a lot of bear tracks in the snow around 5600 feet. We set up a camera hoping to get lucky and went to sleep. The next morning, Saturday, Steve and I didn’t have anything on the camera and we saw no fresh sign. We packed up and kept hiking another 2 or 3 miles to our original destination. Once there we set up camp, made lunch, and headed directly to the spots we had weeks ago saved on our OnX.
We dipped off this saddle towards a creek and a spring that we knew were there from our e-scouting. We were quietly descending into this narrow draw in the side of the mountain. The draw was dotted with mature oak trees that provided great shade and also great shooting lanes and cover. We were very quickly seeing sign. I was walking about 40 yards ahead of Steve on the trail when I scanned to my right and there is a black bear, a big one, 38 yards from me.
I don’t have a shot and I’m unable to move, it appears that she’s got her eye on Steve. After what felt like 5 minutes but was probably closer to 30 seconds, she spooked and ran off. I tried to get her to come back with my predator call, but it didn’t work. When Steve caught up to me, I asked him what happened. He was 24 yards away and in that moment, he realized that he couldn’t shoot the bear. He couldn’t shoot because he had to leave the next day, Sunday, to get back to town in order to catch a flight. And because we didn’t have our bikes with us, he knew that if he shot and killed that bear, that he would have to cancel his trip in order to deal with everything that comes with harvesting a bear. I understood his point and was slightly impressed with his discipline, I was also slightly disappointed, we had been hunting hard that season and that could have been our chance.
We continued down the trail and no less than 3 minutes later, ahead of us and to the left is a different bear, a much bigger bear. This bear is light brown and looks like a grizzly! We can’t believe our eyes. He is 95 yards away and I immediately go into stalk mode. Fortunately, he is right behind a fallen log and when he puts his head down to feed I am able to move in on him. I get to 36 yards and I’ve got a perfect shot. The log is covering the bottom half of the bear but I can see his back and his vitals. If I just send an arrow 3 inches over that log, bullseye. I draw back and I’ve got my pin right where it needs to be. And BAM! My bow goes off and it scares me. I somehow managed to punch my back tension release, scare myself and flinch. The arrow goes high and left and hits a tree right behind the bear. He is startled, but not scared. He begins to move away from me and to the left, he is ascending this steep bank that is littered with oak trees. I begin to stalk in after him, occasionally blowing on the predator call. To my surprise it’s working. The bear is still moving away from me but he turns his head a few times to see what the noise is. The bank is getting steeper and steeper and finally the bear comes to a ledge where he turns around and looks back down the hill he just ascended. He is again 36 yards from me, but this time steep uphill. He is looking to my right and I’ve got a less than desirable quartering to shot. But if I take a big step out from behind my cover I can get a better angle and make the shot. I take my step and draw simultaneously, and for the first time, the bear sees me. He turns and looks right at me. I’m now looking through my site right at him, I’ve got my pin on the center of his chest, and I pull.
The shot felt good and the sound on impact was unforgettable. The bear ran to my right and up and away from me. Within a few seconds the death moans began. That’s a sound I won’t soon forget. Steve caught up to me and we were giddy, we went and got my first arrow and had a good laugh about how stupid I am. We went back to where I hit the bear and saw a lot of blood, and just 20 yards up the hill there he was, dead. One of the first things Steve said was “I can’t believe what you just did to us.” That was funny. Because he was right, we were in for a lot of work. The shot took place at 1:45pm and by 8pm we had the bear quartered and capped and we hiked it the half a mile back up to our camp. Obviously, we had no choice here but to hike this big boy the 15-16 miles back to our bikes. We stashed all of our gear in trash bags and hid them in some trees and filled our packs with meat, head and hide. These packs were 100+ pounds each, they were so heavy that we couldn’t put them on by ourselves. We had to help each other each time. We left at 11pm. We got to our bikes at 3pm the next day, Sunday. No sleep, just walking with the heaviest packs imaginable, pure misery. We were broken. Steve and I both have run 100 mile races, we’ve run up 14ers, we’ve done some hard things. The time on feet and the weight of this bear made this a whole different kind of suffering. We finally made it back to the truck after about 30 hours after the shot, around 8pm the following day.
To make the story even better, the following month our area of Southern California saw record rainfall. The first 10 days of January 2023 our area had double the rainfall of all of 2022. Steve and I had planned to go get our gear but the weather kept delaying the mission. Finally, 30 days after the kill, we were able to make it out there to retrieve our gear. We also had a trail cam on the carcass and we picked up what looks to be another trophy-caliber black bear.
Today I received the green score of the skull from my taxidermist, he measured him at 20 4/16". Just barely good enough for Boone & Crockett. I have an official measurement scheduled for 30 days from now, lets hope for no shrinkage. ("I was in the pool! I was in the pool!")
If you've read this story, thanks for doing so. It was truly an incredible experience and without a doubt the hardest thing I've ever done. And even if no one reads this, writing it has been very cathartic for me.
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