Backup Shot at a Black Bear?

[dustycool]

This story ended up longer than I expected, but I wanted to give some context before asking my question at the tend. This one has been nagging at me for weeks.

May long weekend I was out with a couple buddies for a black bear hunt. My one buddy is moving out of country later this year and figured this might be his last chance to hunt a black bear, so he’s motivated. Anyway, Sunday around noon we come around the corner of an FSR and spook a bear off the only patch of green grass for miles. We back off and wait twenty minutes with a strong wind in our favour. We sneak back in on foot and start to settle in to wait for a bit when we both realize that the bear is actually sitting on a ledge twenty feet above the grass we were focused on and watching us from 40 yards away. All around the bear, and us, is 15 foot Christmas trees packed tightly together. I figure I’m going to setup to fire a backup shot as soon as I hear my buddies gun fire. I don’t want to track a bear further through this stuff than necessary. We’re both lined up. My buddy fires. The bear spins around. All I see is fur in my scope when I fire, but I know it’s more backside than broadside. The bear disappears.

I walk over to my buddy and ask him how he felt about the shot. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if my scope is still good.” His sling had broken off earlier in the day and the rifle had fallen on the ground scope first, but he had elected to continue hunting. I was upset with that answer, but overall was still feeling positive about the situation. After a short wait we head up onto the ledge and find no sign of blood or hair. I get nervous. Three of us spend the next hour crawling around in the tangled branches of these Christmas trees and find zero blood, zero hair, and zero indication of direction of travel beyond the first five feet. We, however, did find my buddies bullet embedded in a rotten stump behind where the bear was standing. Based on trajectory etc, he is convinced that he missed below the chest between the bears legs. Now I’m even more frustrated and feeling sick because I took a poor angle shot at a moving bear that hadn’t even been hit yet. I also know that zero sign doesn’t always mean zero hit. I made my buddy sight in his rifle right away. It seemed fine, not a problem with the scope.

I know that we both made mistakes in this scenario and I’ll own mine. But I have a question for the forum. I’ve done most of my hunting alone, without anyone available for “backup” shots. I’ve always thought it seemed like a good idea if available. Now I’m not so sure. How many people use them and in which circumstances? Would you take my shot as I’ve described it here?

[Drillbit]

You didn't do anything wrong.

You were doing your best to kill it as fast as possible.

Usually when the first guy hits, the second guy does too cause they don't really move.
Usually when the first guy misses, the second guy does too.


I usually hunt alone too, but the times I had somebody with me and they shot right after me has saved lots of work.

[TexasWalker]

Personally I'm not into "backup" shots.
I handload premium bullets and am very proficient with my rifles.
I have never needed or felt the need for somebody to back me up.

It sounds like you probably shot a bear in the ass or missed it completely, you'll never really know.
That's what eats at a guy in situations like this or with lost animals you know you hit, the unknown.

[crassul]

The first shot must have hit the bear, or it would not have spinned. It would have run straight to cover.
I shot a bear this May, zero blood, ran 30 meters, when I gut him, the bullet hit a little low, took one lung and the liver, exit the other side and hit the ground behind him, I thought I missed, clear miss.

[walks with deer]

bears rarley leave blood trails.

[boxhitch]

You didn't do anything wrong.

You were doing your best to kill it as fast as possible.

drilled it.

Nobody else can make the judgement , you did what you did with best intent
It sux that you didn't find the bear, but thats hunting

[boxhitch]

How many people use them and in which circumstances?

Have and in the same circumstances as you. Two holes are always better than one, always

Have also been on shots where I wished I had taken a follow-up as the shooter takes what I call the Golf Shot instead of shooting again

[sawmill]

bears rarley leave blood trails.

Huh? I have trailed more than a few, always had blood.

[Fella]

2 backup shooter stories that illustrate that it can be a crap shoot:
-Was bear hunting with 2 buddies, they were out together when one guy decides to take a poke at a bear that was about 100 yards away. He somehow smoked it in the arse and the thing took off like a bat out of hell. Second guy stops it dead in its tracks with a shot through the head. Saved us a long night of tracking.

Second story: same guy who dropped the bear was hunting with his wife’s uncle, Uncle is an extremely accomplished hunter. They were glassing a cut, uncle sees a buck 150 yards away and puts one through the lungs, but as deer sometimes do it turned and started pronking away from them while leaking mega blood, buddy thinks it’s gonna get away so takes a poke at it and deer stumbles and drops. Uncle tells him that he didn’t need the shot, deer was walking dead. Anyways they get to the deer and only find the broadside shot but one of the deers hooves looked funny. Uncle asks buddy “where did you aim?” Buddy answers “back of the neck”. Turns out somehow buddy had shot that deer through the bottom of its foot. We always ask him if he cripples his game first now to keep it from getting away.

[caddisguy]

Backup shots can be pretty difficult. It requires that two people be ready to shoot in sequence. Often the animal will be running half a second after the first shot (unless they get the bear good) ... second shot might end up being more "forced". I am not against the idea. It's all circumstantial. If there is time for a good follow up shot I'd go for it.

Anyway, all you can really do is what you did. Check out ground zero. If there is no blood or fur, start doing a grid search for a few hundred meters. Use your nose for any hint of lawn mower waste or wet dog smell. You can come back the next day too and look up... for ravens.

Most of the bears I have shot bang flopped yet still managed to leak a lot of blood... lung shots, head shot, neck shot, liver shot, etc. The liver shot one went off like a hose. I still needed to finish him off but noticed when field dressing there was virtually no blood left in that bear. I WISHED I would have taken the follow up shot on that bear. I just saw him flail around with blood going everywhere and he went down, twitching. I can't count how many times I raised my rifle back up to shoot again then decided it wasn't necessary... probably around 5x in 10 seconds.

I also had a bear run and followed up my own shot then he piled up. I only found one bullet hole so to this day I don't know which one actually hit him... as I didn't do much detective work (walking up to where I initially shot him to see if there was sign) most likely the one where he wasn't running. Timing on the other was probably coincidence.

But as walks with deer said, it can happen where there is no blood at all... probably due to all the fat and fur (which makes sense when you see the mammoths walks with deer shoots). That said it can even happen with deer.

Well bummer about not getting the bear. It's still a really good story though. Thanks for posting it up. Out of curiosity, was this Region 2 and was the ledge he was sitting on covered in moss? And was it a brown phase bear?