Spring Bear 2019
It all started about 15 years ago, every May our rod and gun club does our outting in the same spot, we get between 60-70 people out for the weekend, from as young as 8 all the way up to our oldest members around 80.
Every year, the occasional couple of guys will head out for abit in search of a bear but the weekend is more about spending time together, enjoying great food, and stories around the fire til late at night.
This year I figured I'd give it a go and actually do abit of hunting. There was a ridge up about 2km above our camp I always liked heading up to to check out, there was a valley that seperated it and another ridge that since I first started hunting, always envisioned shooting a bear on. My first check turned up nothing, the second, more of the same. I went and checked out a couple areas I knew from my long history riding around the area and saw some unusually small bears, that I would say were last years cubs and every one was alone. No shooters.
Sunday morning came around and everyone was beginning to pack up and get ready to head home. I had been really wanting to get out and take some shots out past 500 yards since I finally got a load developed that is shooting just over .5moa. So I went up the hill with the friend and got my gear set up for paper at 500 yards, as the night before I was busting 6" rocks at 350.
As I laid down and prepped for the first round, my buddy told me to stop as he saw a bear on the far ridge(right where I had always envisioned one. I quickly spun around and saw that he was a decent bear and reset. He was using my geovids and they were set up different that range finders he had used in the past so he read out the first range that he picked up(630) I adjusted and squeezed one off, I saw the shot hit right above the bear. My fault I should have confirmed what number he was reading out as when using Geovids you need to wait for the second number, the corrected range, which he didnt know.
The bear ran up the hill and then stopped, I had my buddy read out again the new range "651...625 corrected". I waited about a minute for the bear to give me the shot I wanted and when he did squeezed one off, he dropped dead in his tracks and rolled about 60 yards(didnt realize how steep the hill side was). We got up celebrated and headed down the hill after packing up to get everything we would need to get from camp.
There was still 40 people waiting to have some lunch before departing from the weekend. We grabbed everything we needed, took some of the youngins and headed over to the nearest point we could get our atvs and started heading down the hill, didn't take long to find him piled up in a bunch of bush and the work began.
The shot was perfect, he had was mid step when I shot and the bullet went in right behind the shoulder and out through the second, I was able to recover the bullet and am going to see what it weighs to see how the retention was. The Berger VLD continues to impress me.
I've been working on my perfect set up(gun, scope, bullet) for about 2 years now and my shooting and confidence as well, the feeling when all the work and time pays off is like no other!
A fawn/lamb killer off the mountain and some great sausage and pepperoni to be made for the freezer.
I'm having some issues getting pictures up but will try once I get home later on.
Last edited by porthunter; 05-07-2019 at 11:42 AM.
Life begins where your comfort zone ends
WSSBC Monarch; RMGA; 2% for Conservation Certified; WSF; BCWF
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