So I got a hankering to get some cheese smokies made and since I won't waste Deer, Elk, Moose on making Processed meat, Bear was the next logical choice. Plus I hadn't taken a bear with my 280AI yet
Never hunted or killed a Fall bear, kinda liked the idea of taking a bear that had been feeding on Huckleberry's so when a friend (and fellow HBC'er) offered to take me to one of his Huckleberry hideouts I accepted (Did I mention he's Nutz about bear hunting).
Due to family obigations we didn't leave till noon30 which was fine because it was fairly hot.
Now this place was packed with Huckleberry's big delicious fat huckleberry's. I ate a few. This place had soooo many huckleberry bushes they had choked out the alder, only a few mountain ash and black current bushes for variety. So many infact it made spotting bears difficult. This place was an old cutblock and was either never replanted or the huckleberry's choked them out too.
We were walking the road system glassing where we could, when at about about 3:00 ish I spot a Chocolate Blackbear. At first it was a monster, that is until I put the spotting scope on it and seen those ears, those big huge ears
We make our way to a switchback below the bear, still 200 yards away from where we last seen him. We wait for 10 or 15 minutes and we can't see anything. So I head off into the cutblock, I literally had to stand on logs and stumps to get a look around, gradually I make my way around to get a better look at where the bear was but being quiet is tough to do in an enviroment so thick with huckleberry bushes( I'm sure my chewing was pretty loud). All and all my trek probably took 45 minutes to 1 hour and I arrived above where the bear was last seen and so far no sign of it.
Just then I hear it, a crashing from behind me, I spin around just in time to see the South end of a North bound bear hightailing it through the timber boardering the cutblock, the timber too was full with berry bushes. I let out a bawl but no stopping that bear but it didn't smell me so I figured it will settle down.
I get back down to the road and meet up with my partner and we decide to hunt our way down to a good glassing location. On our way down I spot another bear, it happens to be about 300-400 yards below the patch of trees that I spooked the bear into earlier and it too looks to be the same size and chocolate brown(ie: same bear). Partner Ranges the bear at 425 yards, plenty of cover to get closer.
So the stealthy stalk begins, we're fast on our feet like Mohammad Ali and as invisible as Ninja's. We close the distance to 168 yards and set up the spotting scope for a better look. Its feeding across a creek on another slope and we would have to drag it down hill about 250 yards but thats part of the game.
I look at my partner and say, should I take it from here? He says if we get to those logs it will be a 40 yards shot and much more draumatic. I said " lets make this sporting and get closer then".
So off like Ninja we go, staying low and trying to stay hidden. We get to the logs and we can't see the bear. Buddy says, she looked nervous and I think she might have seen one of us, I say HAHA impossible, we were like NINJA, plus at that range we would have heard her bust out.
We try and look around these logs for a what seemed like 10 minutes but was probably only one. Finally my partner spots her, then the wind swirls and she picks up her head and looks down hill, SWEEET she thinks we're below her. She heads across the creek directly to us, great she's taking ALOT of the packing out of the situation. I wait until I can get a shot and now she's 84 yards above us on the bank. She stops again and looks on her backtrail. I just see her head and neck in the huckleberry bushes but with my Titanium 280AI that's WAY more than I need.Offhand shot at 84 yards and she flips backward and bangflops, she was on about a 45% slope and still she only rolled 10 feet.
Bullet was a 140 TSX and it performed beautifully, didn't hit bone but severed her jugular and trachea, hole going in was a pencil of course but the bullet expanded very well in only 8 or 9 inches of neck meat and was golfball size exit. Very effective shot.
She's around a 5 footer with the hide off but not stretched. She was surprisingly heavy though. Ton's of fat on her too which I trimmed most of it away before taking it to the meat processor. Gonna make some goooood smokies.
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Originally Posted by 6 K
