Well, I'll preface this by apologizing in advance as my story won't be as elaborate or detailed as some of the others I love reading on here. I'd also like to point out luck was really on my side here! so much so that I Started this season helping two of my hunting buddies scout and hunt for their first bears, When they kept asking why I wasn't hunting for mine first then help them, I joked that I was going to get mine on May the 4th, since the "force" will be with me.. (I really just still had some fall bear in the freezer but I wanted to have some fun with it) fast forward to the end of may, and we polished off the last of our fall bear at home here... so the hunt was on!
From my limited bear hunting experience, I have quickly learned success comes to those who sleep in and don't rush what so ever, So I picked up my hunting partner just before 2PM we fueled up (OUCH) grabbed snow for the cooler, and hit the road,
Over the next 5 hours we explored a couple different WMU's in zone 3 through all types of terrain trying to get some sign we could work and hopefully connect with a nice plump bear for the freezer. after several hours of driving and a handful of fruitless hikes into drainages and valleys we came to a spot in the road more than the length of my truck that was completely washed out with a nice 15-20' drop beneath it... so needless to say that stopped us in our tracks, and didn't allow us to finish our route that we had pre planned which wasn't so upsetting as in that time we had seen one mule deer doe and two grouse.. after some discussion we decided to go back to two valleys that didn't hold anything but looked promising as it was now later in the evening and things should be livening up, and boy did they ever! over the next 90 minutes saw over 20 deer, a mix between white tail and mule deer as well as a few moose and three other smaller black bears, we now knew which way the wind was coming from so we made sure to put the boots to the ground on the right side of the ridge.. the first valley we didn't stick around at because the wind direction was 100% against us and we didn't have access to the back side of the ravine, so we moved on to the next one, made the short hike to the ridge and started glassing.
it was now almost 8pm and after no more than 5 minutes, way over on the valley bottom by the water, was a bear feeding.. 1000yard range finder was not able to range it, but it looked like a bear that was worth investigating based on how visible it was to the naked eye at that distance (later checked my gps, and it was 1.2KM from ridge to bear). We immediately got excited and started to bounce ideas off each other to figure out our best way down as we were on a steep ridge overlooking the valley, after a few seconds and the bear munching away slowly away from us we decided to quit wasting time and head straight down and through the thick bush in order to get where we thought we were about parallel with him, then we used the hill beside us to regain a bit of elevation to get a look over all the brush growing beside the creek (turned out to be a bit more than a creek, at over 8ft deep and barely 5ft wide).
After what felt like an eternity of sitting on the hillside waiting and hoping for the bear to show itself again, it eventually meandered back out into the open munching on the fresh grass, we looked around to see where we could set up with a proper shooting lane, My hunting partner stayed still where we had already seen him and had a good line, and I quietly moved a hundred yards or so up stream to get a shooting lane on another opening in the brush, we had decided that based on the size of this bear, and the fact we were pretty confident that it was a boar, that if either of us got an ideal shot we'd take it, as we had all the exits from the plateu covered.
After a few moments a gust of wind blew across my face and spun through the valley and no sooner did I feel the wind on my face, did I see the bear stand up in his hind legs, look directly at me and sniff the air.. I knew then that I was busted, and that he was about to hit the ground running (hopefully away from me! as we had closed the gap down to 150 yards.) I then decided as he was on his way back down to all fours that was my chance to get a clean hit and have no meat wasted, and boy was I right! Double lung soup, and the bear hit the ground where it stood.. no tracking for hours, no not finding the bear! after the shot, we moved back up and away to watch from a distance to ensure it was dead before we approached, once we were confident it was safe to move in, we decided we would cross the creek at the narrowest point, cut and quarter and pack it out in a few trips (much to our dismay) once we got to the creek, I used my hiking pole to feel around to ensure we would have good footing as the current was pretty swift from all the snow thawing around us and draining into the valley, unfortunately for us, what we had assumed was a creek that was just fast moving, was actually at least chest deep and there was no way we were safely going to get across this, we walked both ways for a while and there was no chance to get around, then panic started to set in... my bear is on the other side, and we can't get to it! After a few minutes of chaos I was able to think clearly, and turned to my GPS to see how far we had to go to get around it.. and that's when lady luck smiled on us... according to my gps a few KM up the road, there was an old deactivated road that took you across the creek via bridge.. well, thankfully that bridge was intact, but when they say deactivated, they certainly mean it! The bear hit the dirt at 8:25pm and we didn't put our hands on him until almost 11pm!! and we didn't get him home and skinned until the witching hour of 3am... It was a long day, and i'm sore and tired today.. but let me tell you.. IT WAS WORTH IT!! Couldn't have asked for a better start to the hunting season, and it really amped up my hunting partners to get their boots on the ground and to cut some tags as well!
Gun of choice for this outing was a Xbolt Hells canyon speed in 6.5 CM shooting 143grain ELD x under 35.5grains of varget.
Topped with a Vortex viper pst gen II.
Now lets get to the pictures, since I know that's all everyone wants....
We will start with our view from the hillside while we waited to ensure it was safe,
To be continued...
Reply With Quote
