Hunt gone by

[MichelD]

I was looking through some old photos of a 1997 bear hunt and was wondering how they would turn out if I photographed them with my digital camera and transferred them to Photobucket, then to here:

Here goes:

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e369/Hublocker/mailgooglecom-1.jpg

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e369/Hublocker/P5110034.jpg

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e369/Hublocker/P5110025.jpg

[CabinFever]

Nice pix! Tell us how it all went down.

[MichelD]

I have it written down somewhere. Let me see if I can dig it up.

[BlacktailStalker]

Nice bear. I did the same thing of old wolf kill pics I had, they didnt turn out as well though.

[steepNdeep]

Wow! That's a big lookin' melon and great lookin' bear!! :cool:

[hunter1947]

Very nice bear you got there a few years ago ,where is the story ????.

[Summit 512]

Nice bear MichelD....and the pictures came out good.

[Blainer]

That's a nice big bruin there MichelD.

Do you know what that skull scored,big noggin on that fella.

[leadpillproductions]

wow thats a big head

[MichelD]

1997 bear

I knew this place several hours drive from Vancouver that held bears. I'd got one there a few years before with my iron-sighted Mosin Nagant.

I had modernized, taking another Mosin Nagant barreled action I'd got from Century Arms for $12.95, cutting the barrel down to 22 inches, plunking it in a 1944 MN stock (another 12.95) then adding a B-Square mount and a long eye relief scope.

So I drove up to this place and had a look around in the evening and slept in the truck that night.

It was a narrow little rapidly overgrowing side road running along a steep canyon over a river. The road followed the top of the gorge and continued up the valley, but a narrow little side spur switched back, crossways across a steep boulder and alder strewn mountainside up across a rockslide, then continued up to this beautiful little logged bowl that had an upper slope and a littler bowl on the bottom side of the road.

As I walked up, I realized that unlike several years before, if I shot something up here, there is no way the truck could make it this time. I had barely got across the rock slide, water bars, washouts and underbrush last time. Now it was worse.

There was the odd pile of bear droppings around, so it looked promising, even if the retrieval was going to be problematic. It’s a chore even rolling a 200 pound bear over, never mind dragging it a kilometre or more down a road.

Anyway, that morning turned out to be a write off I thought, when I got to the top of the hill where the old logging road crossed the flat middle part of the bowl, except for a few bear scats and varied thrushes, I didn’t see a thing. I sat and watched for a while and might even have tooted on my bear call, I can’t remember.

I was all the way across the clearing and about to start down hill when I decided to climb the bank and have another peak at the hidden little pocket bowl that was on the right hand side in the last corner of the clear cut. Just as I noisily clambered up the crumbly dirt and peeked over the edge, I saw a black bear just clambering out of the bowl and about to head into the trees on the other side, about 100 or 120 yards across. He was in motion, but I squatted at the top of the bank and rested the rifle on an upturned stump.

The bear didn’t stop moving and didn’t present broadside anyway, but just before he stepped into the big trees, he stopped and looked back then turned his head to the trees.

Last chance I thought. In the 2 ½ power long eye relief scope he didn’t look like much, but that big noggin looked like a big enough target, so I put the crosshairs at the base of his neck and squeezed the trigger. The old Mosin jumped against my shoulder and bucked up a bit. Shooting with both eyes open, I saw the bear dive for the trees.

Definitely not a successful head shot.

I figured I better go have a look. How many times have you shot an animal and seen them dive for the bush apparently unscathed only to find them piled up three yards away?

It must have taken me 15 minutes to clamber down through the tangle of branches, logs, holes and stumps, first down into the bowl and back up again to where I figured I had last seen the bear. When I got there, I still wasn’t sure where I was, so I looked back to where I estimated I had shot from, took a few more steps, and there it was.

Well, not the bear. A blood spattered tree. It looked like someone had shot a quart sized can of crimson paint right against the tree. It was painted red from the about two feet up to four feet up. Looked like I’d hit him. But where was he?

It wasn’t too hard to figure out. As you might have guessed, the blood trail was fairly substantial. Trouble was, it went down hill through the tall timber the loggers had left. The soft moss under the trees was spattered here and there with blood, the leaves of the blue berries and salal and small trees all indicating that the wounded bear was headed downhill. But how far? And how wounded?

It’s amazing how quiet everything goes in those moments. I listened hard, but heard no crashing, no laboured breathing. Had he got away? Was he lying down just around the next tree? I had reloaded, safety off as I crept downhill following the blood. Was the trail getting weaker? No, it was still fairly clear, but there was less blood, that was for sure.

I took another step around a thatch of blueberry bushes, and there he was, piled up, lying still at the base of a mossy rock.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I poked him in the butt with my rifle and he was motionless. I sat down on a nearby deadfall and caught my breath.

I got to work, gutted him, and realized that my shot had penetrated his right back leg, severing the femoral artery and continuing forward before exiting out the shoulder without hitting any bone. I wiped my hands off on the moss, put my knife away and sat down again.

Now what?

This wasn’t a little bear. He’d run at least 80 yards downhill into the trees here. There was no way I could drag him uphill to the clear-cut, down across that hellish tangle in the bowl, up out of it again and then down the overgrown logging road. I got up and went for a little walk downhill. I didn’t have to go far. About another 30 yards downhill I came to the edge of the cliff.

I was on top of a rocky wooded knoll directly above the road and the river. I could hear the river boiling in the gorge below, and looking down at the road, I could see the top of my truck parked about 500 metres along the road. And it was straight down. I was looking down onto the tops of 100 foot trees at the bottom of the cliff.

I didn’t have any choice. I went back up to the bear, and half dragged, half rolled him downhill until I had him on the edge of the cliff, then in one careful heave so I wouldn’t go over too, rolled him across the soft moss covered rounded edge of the cliff and shoved him over the edge.

Silence. One ………..Two………..Three………

Wasn’t he ever going to hit bottom?

Bump! Crash! There. Finally.

I stood there for a second trying to figure out what to do next. Finally, I took off my bright red t-shirt and tied it to a small tree at the edge of the cliff, got my jacket out of my backpack and hoofed it back through the trees, across the bowl, down the road to the truck.

Then I drove the truck to where I thought I was closest to the bear, got out and scanned the top of the cliff for my t-shirt. I finally spotted it with my binoculars. I took a compass bearing on the t-shirt and taking my frame pack full of cotton meat bags, headed into the tangle of underbrush to the base of the cliff, about 80 yards from the road.

It was a heckuva thrash, with bracken fern and salal and salmonberries covering up giant holes between the boulders and big stumps left over from the logging they’d done near the road.

After a bit of a nerve racking search – for a moment I feared the carcass had hung up on a ledge – I found the bear at the base of some smaller trees.

I dragged him out to a flat spot, skinned out one side, cut off the shoulders and back legs, bagged them, rolled it over and did the other side, bagged the chest portion and then rolled up the head and hide and started relaying the potions out one at a time lashed to the outside of my pack.

Got the truck loaded and drove home.

I went back to that spot several times over the years, never did get another bear there, but I’d stop and look for my t-shirt in the binoculars and over time it faded to pink, then shredded and turned nearly white, and then the last time I went, it wasn’t there any more.

[leadpillproductions]

Sounds like a good hunt,thanks for the story.

[Elkhound]

Nice story Michel. Thumbs up

[steepNdeep]

Great story & bear! :cool:

[bsa30-06]

excellent story, nice bear.

[twoSevenO]

that's a fat head bear, nicely done dude!!

[CabinFever]

Great story, thanks for sharing!

[BearSniper]

Great story !

Well written, I felt like I was right there with you.

What a job getting him to a point to skin him out:shock:

[BCHunterFSJ]

Enjoyed your story a lot! Thanks...

[hunter1947]

MichelD Very good story you posted on your past bear hunt ,very interesting.

[MichelD]

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e369/Hublocker/MichelMay2009065.jpg

[MichelD]

Playing with Photobucket, trying to post a bigger photo.