2020 BC Colour Phase Black Bear Story

On June 4th I decided to finally get out for a serious attempt at hunting black bears. It was a Thursday and I had decided to take the Friday off as well. Right after work I grabbed my gear and my wife joined me. I second guessed bringing my winch thinking I probably won't need it but grabbed it because you never know. We got into the bear zone and were slowly cruising dirt roads. It was a beautiful sunny night with a low number of mosquitos.

We parked the truck and decided to walk the rest of the way to the cut block. I glassed for a few minutes and didn’t see anything so we headed back to the truck. As I was unloading my rifle at the truck my wife said “hey there's something walking down there, I think it’s a fox.” So I walked around the truck and saw what was a nice colour phase bear walking about 50 yards in the timber parallel to us down the steep bank. By the colour I could see why she thought it was a red fox at first. We went after it as it was headed for the cut block. But in my mind I knew I wanted a bigger bear than I had shot last year. As I'm looking and trying to field judge this bear through my binos I was on the fence. It was a beautiful bear but I did want to hold out for a big one. It was also surprising how unconcerned this bear was with our presence. He was more interested in the grass he was aggressively chowing down on. With all this time on my hands and no sign of the bear being spooked or leaving I decided to give my hunting buddies who couldn’t come along a call. We had a quick chat about this bear and as soon as they received the text picture, I got their input. “Gorgeous bear-kill em.” It was kinda fun to have them part of the hunt, it just felt right! But yes a little unorthodox.
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I realized they were right. How often do you come across a beautiful colour phase black bear? As soon as the decision was made in my mind to take this bear the adrenaline started flowing and my heart was pumping. The video camera went to record, the wind was good, the bear was slowly feeding, safety was off. All we had to do was wait for the bear to turn broadside. As he turned I picked my spot just on the crease behind his shoulder. Slowly exhaling I squeezed the trigger. POW! The bear quickly spun while biting at his shoulder and took off running down the steep bank. As he started slowing down I had to give him a follow up shot right through his front shoulder which knocked him down and sent him rolling. BEAR DOWN! We congratulated each other with a couple high fives.







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After giving him 20 minutes, we went to retrieve him. I got my hands on him and was pleasantly surprised. I had definitely misjudged him, being bigger than I had originally thought. We snapped a few pictures with this Boar and then went to work. I wanted to turn his hide into a rug. But being in a race against the sun setting I had to get him to the truck and do a good job on him at home. Unfortunately, the bear was about 150 yards from the truck and down the steep hillside. I knew my winch wouldn’t reach. I had to get my truck closer but the rest of the road was deactivated. It was just one berm in middle of the road, if I could get my truck around it I'd be laughing. With my truck in 4x4 I swung around the berm, the bank side of the road was fairly soft dirt. The weight of my truck was too much and it started to let go. I immediately stopped and drove forward, then back again trying to recover. There my truck stayed completely off the road. I was stuck and the steep angle had me very nervous of the truck rolling. I couldn’t believe I got myself into this.

From a high to a low, the stress started to build. I had a plan. Thank goodness I had brought the winch. With the winch going full tilt and the truck in 4low we got it back onto the road without a scratch. Phheew! Now we could focus on the bear. But we were going to have to hand bomb him up to the road. I grabbed the strap we used to hook onto the tree, and wrapped it around the bear so my wife and I each had a loop to hold onto. 2 feet at a time we lugged him up to the road. From the time I pulled the trigger to getting him in the box of the truck was a 2.5-hour ordeal. Once home I carefully skinned him out while my wife deboned all the meat. I finished at 3:30am. Over the weekend I fleshed and salted the hide. Nose to tail I measured him at 6ft. He’s now at the tannery and I can't wait to get him back! https://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...unds&crop=fillhttps://hosting.photobucket.com/imag...unds&crop=fill

Side notes: Looking back I think I should of aimed right on the shoulder to try and anchor him. They are tough. I was using my tikka 30-06 with 165gr barnes tsx bullets. Always bring a winch if you have one, you never know when you might be in a pickle. I will also bring a lot more rope to be able to recover animals and not have to get the truck in sketchy spots. Also if you are still looking for a bear this season don’t give up. I shot my first bear last year on this exact day- happy anniversary to me lol. Then my buddy and I got his bear on June 24th. I hope you guys found this entertaining and maybe even learned something. Happy hunting!

Beautiful colour bear! Congrats!

Hmmm great write up..thanks for bringing us along..very pretty bear indeed..I'm very preference a to the colored phases of the black bear.
thank you
Congradulations
Srupp

Congratulations. Very nice bear

good story nice bear.