"Bear" with me, Figuring out photos
I will begin my story by saying how much I love reading these longer hunting stories posted here with photos and details so I have decided to post the story of our hunt for all to enjoy.
The story really begins two years ago when my father in law took myself, my brother from Ontario whom I accompanied and both my brother in laws up to an area up north they used to hunt about 20 years ago. We were successful on that trip with my brother harvesting his first black bear ever the very first night and my brother in law harvesting another big boar part way through the trip. Although we saw many many bears I passed up on all the smaller ones and finally on the last night missed a big chocolate brown colour phase that has haunted me the last two years.
Fast forward to last week on saturday when my dad, and both my brothers from Ontario came out to repeat the trip along with my brother in law who harvested the nice boar from last year. I was accompanying my older brother. After careful packing and planning I picked my brother, who was the last to arrive up from the airport and we were on our way. We left the abbotsford airport around 1030 and with a quick stop at Cabelas and pretty much continuous driving we pulled into our campsite around midnight. It was freezing cold, about -5 so we decided to set up our new Alaknak tent that night and get the wood stove going. Waking up in the morning I was pumped. As we packed pretty luxuriously we had a great bacon and eggs breakfast and started our day off with a drive of our favorite "bear loop" where almost all our sighting were last year. right off the bat I was feeling pretty dejected. We had almost none of the lush green from our last trip and there was still some ice on our end of the lake we were camped on! my high hopes were foolishly fading only half an hour into our first drive. Where the road was covered in grass, tracks and bear poo last time there was nothing to be seen. We hunted and fished the rest of that day and although we were having an awesome time I was worried we had missed the timing this time although by the end of day one I could almost swear the grass had grown an inch.
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We stayed up late on sunday night as the sun doesn't set till about 945 and not dark until almost 11 this far north at this time of year. I believe that night we had a good steak dinner, a little wine and a couple beers by the fire. Monday morning we woke up ready to try again.
What we had realized the day before is the area we hunted which 2 years ago was a densely forested area with grassy roads had been logged hard and there was tons of clear cuts everywhere to view from. We weren't sure if this was an advantage or a disadvantage yet. That day we drove way up high into a south facing cut block with some nice greenery. As we rounded a bend my brother yelled BEAR BEAR BEAR! He hopped out and there was a nice colour phase black bear up in the cut. He got set up quickly with my dads 308 browning birds eye maple and made a perfect shot from 150 yards through both lungs. The bear ran a surprising 80 yards down the cut and then 40 back up before expiring pretty close to its original location. We headed up and were already feeling much better about this trip. Kyle made the first kill last trip and this one as well! We had a nice 5'5 sow to throw on the roof of the jeep and bring back to camp to skin and prep meat.
When my dad brother and I returned to camp my other brother and brother in law were back there fishing. They were howling about the bear on the roof and were super excited for us. We all went to work on the bear. We had been skinning for about an hour and my younger brother who was on his first hunt was right into it. Little did we know he was playing us like crazy! I went over to grab a beer and as I was getting it I notice about two feet from me a 6 foot colour phase boar hanging from the tree. About the same time as my brother was shooting his bear my brother in law was shooting this nice boar. They played us and didn't even tell us about him for about 2 hours until we noticed him. Needless to say the double header was a good surprise and we had a great laugh. We had an awesome dinner and some drinks and we went to bed feeling a whole lot better about things.
The next morning while the guys worked on processing their bear meat and getting it into the freezer we brought with a generator, my younger brother and I hunted hard. We looked high and low to find a bear and after so much driving we were feeling pretty dejected by the end of the day. We had an earlier dinner so we could head out for an evening hunt and both my brothers and I headed out together. We had got some intel from a local forestry worker who was seeing about 5 bears every night on his drive home. We headed up that road but as we were driving we were driving directly into the setting sun and couldn't see a thing. We were bombing down the road to get to the end so we could turn around drive out slowly with the sun at our back for last light. As we were driving, my brother who was in the back and staring out the window yells "bear bear! its a good one, keep driving") so I don't even touch the brakes and drive about 150 yards past and slowly creep to a stop. We slowly walk back up the road with the wind in our faces until we were about 40 yards away. It was feeding in and out of the ditch and was behind bushes and I couldn't make out a shot or if it was a good one for a painful 10 minutes. We crept forward a couple times and by the time the bear presented itself I had a crazy lower back cramp from laying on the road staring through my scope and being propped up on my elbows. He walked up on the bank and I could see he was a good one. I put the cross hairs right behind his shoulder and let my trusty browning a bolt medallion in 338 rip. He took off down the hill into some of the thickest timber you could imagine. We could hear him crashing around and then nothing.
We waited about 10 minutes before my brother and I headed in with rifles while my younger brother stayed on the road. Nightfall was coming fast. We headed in about 50 yards apart and I was scanning under every tree and had my rifle ready at my hip to fire if I had an unexpected visitor through the thick brush. I climbed over a log and rounded a big tree when turning to my left, there he was at less than 10 paces! Although not in the way I expected. He was standing facing down hill and after skinning him I found I had shot out one shoulder and one lung. I put my rifle up and hammered him in the neck. He dropped immediately and somehow (ill never know how) he climbed back to his feet and turned my way. I reloaded and hammered him again through the chest. Down he went again and then up he came with his head flopping up and down gasping for air. I am sure he would have died very shortly but at this range I wasn't willing to risk it. I hammered him again and finally he dropped and slowly expired. Upon skinning we found they were all great hits and I do not know how this guy took so much lead. My brother came rushing over to make sure I was ok after all the shooting and upon approaching the bear we realized he was a really great one. We wanted to get him on the road to skin because it was so thick in the brush. It took me and both my brothers who aren't small guys all our strength with a rope on each paw and one around the neck to get him up to the road. He was right around 6 feet nose to tail on the body and 6'7 nose to tail once skinned.
After dealing with all these bears and it being only Tuesday we decided to wrap up camp on Wednesday morning and head out by about 3 in the afternoon. Staying overnight in Prince George. Our wives were all visiting and had the kids and we wanted to spend some time together. We broke camp and got some pictures of the bears and headed out.
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