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?