Hunting Washington Forum
Big Game Hunting => Bear Hunting => Topic started by: O. hemionus on October 17, 2017, 04:55:19 PM
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Just interrupted my deer hunting camp to run home and process up my first bear! Heading back into the woods as soon as I finish processing the meat tonight and will be out through the rest of the week. More details to come soon...will try to update this Sunday or Monday.
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You're banned for starting this thread, without pictures. :chuckle:
Congrats. :tup:
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:yeah: :bdid:
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:ban:
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Got the meat at least cleaned and frozen. Will have to wait until after deer camp to come back and grind it up. Sooooo much meat. Heading back to the woods now. Just have time for a teaser...but I promise I won't drag this thread on forever. I will write up the WHOLE story (whether you want it or not) as soon as I get back. Now for the teaser - this picture is of my dad, who was hunting with me at the time, holding up the bear paw. He was NOT long-arming it.
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Based on the pad width that thing is a toad, can't wait for the story!
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Wowzers
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Looks like a nice one :tup:
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Wow... What a pig...... At least judging from that paw.
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Nice! Looks like a slob!
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Wow, need more pics! That looks huge, need a skull measurement NOW!!!
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Oh yeah....... congrats!!
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Wow, what a tease. Can a bear and a bigfoot cross?
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Wow! I look forward to more pictures!
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Sweet!!!! Glad you were able to connect and I know you were putting the time in.
Looks like a tank!!! Even with just a paw pic.
Those winchesters work out?
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AWESOME!! HUGE pad! Can't wait for the story and MORE photos.
P.S. Once you post the story and the photos I recommend a month long ban for the BIG tease!!! :) :) :)
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That's great! Congratulations on the bear.
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Cool bear paw. Now, let's see the rest. :tup:
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fantastic. can't wait to see the rest of him.
the bear, I mean. not your dad.
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Well that looks like a Dandy first bear. Anxious to hear and see more about it.
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So is it true what they say about big feet? They belong to a big bear.
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Holy :yike:
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Holy smokes that is a big paw.
Looking forward to the story. At the request of multiple members you are hereby banned for 5 days, enjoy the time out and be sure to post that story and photos when the ban expires on Monday.
That ought to teach him a lesson. :tup: :chuckle:
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Wow! Congrats on the bear!!
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You know what they say about a boar with big paws... :chuckle:
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You know what they say about a boar with big paws... :chuckle:
He's dead.
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Wow! Congrats!
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Looks to be a heck of a bear, congrats!
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Tagging...please hurry with the story!!!
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Can't wait for the story and pictures!
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:bumpin:
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tag
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tagging
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:yeah:
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Holy smokes that is a big paw.
Looking forward to the story. At the request of multiple members you are hereby banned for 5 days, enjoy the time out and be sure to post that story and photos when the ban expires on Monday.
That ought to teach him a lesson. :tup: :chuckle:
So....if I got back from camp early, does that mean you still want me to wait until Monday? :dunno: ;)
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Lets see it now!!!
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No, no. Gotta wait for Rainier10 to lift the ban first....sorry ;)
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Tag
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Lol come forth with the photos and story
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There should be a time limit :twocents:
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Ok ok! Sorry - I started to write everything up but then got reprimanded (rightly so) at home for not unpacking first before I hopped on here to see everyone's successes from the first half of deer season, and then got caught making dinner...I'll write this up in spurts while I finish making dinner.
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One of the things that made this hunt so memorable was that this was the first time my dad and I had hunted together since I moved to Idaho in 2011 and then subsequently moved down to Alabama. I only returned to Washington this past winter. We had always been hunting partners, and my dad had not hunted since I left. With all my seasonal jobs and schooling out of the way (I think), I decided I could afford to take a full week off from my new permanent job for deer season. We both got off work early on the 13th, met at our former deer camp near Cle Elum, promptly set up camp, and began hunting early the next morning. However, after two subsequent days of hard hunting, we had only seen one doe and very little deer sign in general. My younger brother was planning on joining us Tuesday morning when he got off his work shift, so my dad and I decided to make a day trip to one of our other hunting areas closer to Ellensburg, hoping that we could find some fresh and ample deer sign for my brother. Despite putting in several years as a weekend warrior, he had yet to harvest an animal of any sort. We were really hoping this was his year to get a buck.
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We hunted hard all morning and into the afternoon. We had a good setup at daybreak, where a doe and her yearling funneled down a draw no more than 30 yards from us. The arrowleaf balsamroot covering the hillsides was extremely noisy (usually to our disadvantage) and gave them away as they crept down the draw, and we thought we heard another deer following their same route a few minutes later, but nothing came of it. By mid-afternoon, we had finished glassing and working the set of big ridges and draw between them that we had started on earlier in the morning, and continued hiking the ridges and draws to the east. We eventually stopped at a small outcropping that has been a favorite glassing spot of ours in the past and spent roughly an hour scanning the opposite hillside and the open slopes multiple ridges over. Finding nothing, our planned route took us to the next subsequent ridge.
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AND...to be continued. Will have to finish tomorrow. I know I didn't get much written down tonight. Sorry to leave you hanging all week and then draw this out so long - wasn't my intention!
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:yike: :chuckle:
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Someone get a rope!!!!! :yike: :bash:
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@Rainier10
Use that ban hammer, asap!
:chuckle:
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Just for the record - I can be a bit long-winded, but that is what makes a good story, right? :rolleyes: Here's a start...I'll keep hammering away.
We stopped on this ridge to glass down into the deep draw and to glass the wide bowl that formed at the mouth of the draw and continued uphill. The opposite ridge was mostly bare of trees and looked like an excellent spot to catch a deer funneling up from thick brush and timber that lined the bottom of the draw. The timber in the bottom grew increasingly thicker as the draw descended further and further down, until the draw widened out and met up with the draw from the next canyon over. This formed a dense “hell-hole” of cover, and one that looked extremely enticing to explore (save for the steep descent down into it and the inevitable grueling climb back out). I turned to look at my dad and made a half-joke about all the deer probably hiding down in this hole. He laughed me off and pretty much told me there was no way in this world we were going down there. His back had been giving him trouble all week, and I couldn’t blame him for not wanting to hike down in there and back up. Still…it sure looked like a cool spot to explore…
We continued moving from the ridge top across the bowl that formed the head of the draw, to the other side that we had been glassing earlier. Every few minutes, I would joke with my dad about being ready to dive down into the timbered hole at the bottom of the draw; this was followed by a chuckle and an eye-roll from him every time. As we approached the eastern ride of the draw, the sound of ravens squawking and cackling finally came forward to my consciousness. I must have been hearing the sound for several minutes, but not registering it. After recognizing it wfor what it was, I made a comment to my dad suggesting that those ravens must be mad about something, given all the ruckus they were making. I listened for a minute or two longer, then mused out-loud that I found it interesting and odd that the ravens weren’t making all of this noise from the top of a tree as one would expect. Instead, the noise was originating from down near the ground, amongst the brush and timber at the bottom of the draw. We slowly walked a few more yards, then decided to sit down on the hillside to give dad’s back a rest. While sitting, I attempted to isolate where the ravens were at. In doing so, we saw a pair of magpies and a Steller’s jay homing in on the same area and swooping back up repeatedly. A raven proceeded to chase off one of the magpies. I had just mentioned to Dad earlier in the day about how ravens and crows often purposefully created a ruckus to attract predators to a a fresh carcass to make it easier for them to scavenge; I think I read this in my undergrad Animal Behavior textbook many years back. I deduced, and told my Dad, that there must be a deer carcass or a wounded deer down there for all those Corvids to be congregating in one place. Maybe a hunter-wounded buck, or a dead one that was shot and never recovered?
My curiosity got the best of me, and I told my dad that I was thinking about diving down there to investigate. He gave me a dubious look and sad something to the effect of, “You had better not shoot something all the way down there.” Well, I couldn’t take it any longer and so I told him I just had down there to check it out. “You go right ahead, I’ll stay right here,” was his response. I slowly descended into the abyss, trying to dodge the balsamroot leaves and their dry, echoing crackle on my way down – but not being very effective at it. All the while, that old saying of “curiosity killed the cat” kept playing in the back of my mind.
I finally reached the brushy bottom and paused to again try and pinpoint where the ravens were coming from – it was just ahead of me, slightly upslope, to the right. I crossed the bottom and casually made my way upslope 15 yards or so. At this point, I knew I had to be close to the location of activity. As I approached a small stand of 8’-10’ saplings, approx. 2” in diameter, maybe two or three trees deep, I heard something explode and flush up just on the other side of the saplings, less than 10 yards away! So went my stream of consciousness at the time:
“Oh shoot, I just jumped something!”
“Oh shoot, maybe it was a predator feeding on a carcass! Quick, better try and get it to stop!”
(I make three rapid small-animal-in-distress cries with my mouth)
“Oh shoot, I better dive through those saplings to see what it was, pronto!”
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This whole process spanned about four total seconds. Then if popped the safety off of my 7mm magnum, flipped the rear scope cap up, and scrambled through the row of saplings. I was hunched over and nearly crawling, and looked down amongst the saplings to see tufts of deer hair everywhere. But no time to stop and look – in 2 seconds, I was out the other side and immediately standing up to see a bear running off, roughly 50 yards away. As I stood up, my gun came to my shoulder and I remember thinking, “Wow. Big bear. Shoot!” Unfortunately, all I could see was a big black rump bobbing away fast, and I immediately decided against the Texas heart shot. Then, at 70 yards, for some reason the bear stopped running side-hill down the canyon and paused to glance down into the bottom of the draw to his right. That was all the opportunity I needed. As he turned his head, the length of the neck between the front shoulder and base of the head became visible. He was 95% straight away from me, but quartered enough that my 160 grain Accubond (thanks, carpsniperg2) slipped just forward of the front shoulder to smash into the base of the neck. The bear dropped like a sack of rocks, and I chambered another round instinctively, ready for a follow-up shot.
This entire process, from the time I first jumped the bear, to the time I chambered a second round, could not have taken more than 7 or 8 seconds. With the second round loaded, I kept trying to get a bead on the flailing arms and legs as the bear tumbled and rolled down the hill and out of sight. I had been bear hunting several times already this year, and regularly reminded myself of the advice that I had read on the bear hunting threads – continue shooting until the bear stops moving. I immediately raced to where I saw the bear go down and looked at the bottom of the draw to see the bear piled up and resting on its back at the base of the draw. I held the crosshairs on the beautiful, white, “Y” mark on his chest as he gave a few final twitches before finally relaxing, dead.
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After I had gotten to where the bear rolled down the hill and stared down in disbelief at my first bear lying 40 yards below me, I heard my dad yell down from the top of the canyon, “Need me to come down there?” “YEP!” I hollered back. I waited a few minutes for him to get down the canyon and over to where I was – I wanted both of us to go down and see the bear together up close for the first time. Before we went down to the bear though, we backtracked to where I was at the time of the shot and looked around. There, just on the other side of the saplings I crawled through, was a partially consumed muley doe carcass. After conducting a very brief necropsy and looking around at the surrounding evidence, I was fairly certain that the doe had been actually killed by a cougar that morning or late the night before, but that the bear must have interrupted the cat’s dinner and helped himself to the doe. I shot the bear at 1540 hrs, and judging by the number of piles of bear scat around the carcass, this bear had been busy feed for quite some time. I counted at least 3 large piles adjacent to the carcass, with all 3 approaching the volume (and shape) of a medium-sized football. I didn’t try it, but I was pretty sure one scat mass was solid and compressed enough that it could have been picked up and even thrown like a football! Don’t ask me how a bear produces such a fecal mass – even after spending much time throughout my life identifying and photographing scat, I still have no idea.
This first picture shows the deer carcass off to the left and the saplings I crawled through off to the right.
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:yike: :tup:
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Sasquatch. They have the big foot.
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After looking at the kill site, we excitedly walked back over to the location the bear was standing at when I shot him. There was no blood anywhere on the ground – just a piled-up bear at the base of the hill. We finally walked down to him. High-fives, a bear hug, and a prayer of thanksgiving for the life of this bear and the amazing experience ensued, followed by several photographs of the bear. He was a monster of a bear – definitely no ground shrinkage here! Quite the opposite, really. We rolled him over (barely) and measured the boar out with a small tape measure I keep in my pack. He came out to 5’ 10” from the tip of the nose to the base of the tail. I could barely lift his head up, it was that heavy. The paws were huge too! Bigger than my hands or my boots. The white chest mark he had was a very cool piece of character to go with the perfectly black and intact hide, with hair approx. 4” long. The teeth looked to be in their prime. This was one heck of a first bear, and I was stoked. The 160 grain Accubond went in one side of the neck and out the other, turning the whole neck region into what looked like a bowl of Jello. But, as far as I can tell, the bullet left just a small entrance and a small exit wound on either side and did virtually zero damage to the hide! Pretty impressed with my first experience using the Accubonds.
In terms of the bear’s weight, we estimated him to be at the 400-lb. + mark. I had killed a muley buck with my dad in 2011 just two canyons over that the butcher estimated at 220 lbs. This bear was MUCH bigger than that buck, and was much harder to move. Two years ago, I also tranquilized a problem bear in Alabama that was weighed at 320 pounds when it was poached a month later. This bear that I had just shot was at least another 1/3 as big in size as the bear I darted in Alabama, plus more. Also, the gut on this bear was impressive. When skinned out, his gut full of deer looked like a big balloon. I wish I could have gotten a chance to weigh the whole bear, but that wasn’t a reality.
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Excellent and dandy bear!!!! Glad you got to lay the accubond smack down on one :IBCOOL:
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Thanks! Any chance you or one of the other Mods could rotate that last picture for me?
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Wow, need more pics! That looks huge, need a skull measurement NOW!!!
Thanks, no skull measurement yet. I put the head and hide in the freezer, so I'll have to wait until I drop it off at the taxidermist and get the skull finished before I get any measurements. From reading on here, it seems like the avg. size of a WA bear is about 200 lbs. I doubt this is close to a record bear, but should I have it officially measured? :dunno: It doesn't matter to me a whole lot, but it would be cool if it was close to a record. I have no idea.
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Outstanding!! Congratulations!! :tup:
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You got it :tup:
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Thanks! Any chance you or one of the other Mods could rotate that last picture for me?
Thank you very much for fixing that, carpsniperg2!
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That bear is in its absolute prime. super healthy. How do you know it's a boar? :chuckle:
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Congrats. I'm thinking there is some bear pepperoni in your future.
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Wow! He's a beast! :yike:
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:tup:
Freaking giant! Awesome!
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Wow, that initial paw print did not disappoint!!!!
What a toad!
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Dude that is awesome! Beautiful bear!
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:yike: That thing has some big ole ears too !! #400+ Thats unbelievable Congrats !!
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Congrats, fantastic bear and experience.
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Wow, need more pics! That looks huge, need a skull measurement NOW!!!
Thanks, no skull measurement yet. I put the head and hide in the freezer, so I'll have to wait until I drop it off at the taxidermist and get the skull finished before I get any measurements. From reading on here, it seems like the avg. size of a WA bear is about 200 lbs. I doubt this is close to a record bear, but should I have it officially measured? :dunno: It doesn't matter to me a whole lot, but it would be cool if it was close to a record. I have no idea.
Once you get it skinned out you'll be able to take a green measurement of the skull - super easy, just length + width, you can print a score sheet from boone-crockett.org for instructions. I think you have a chance of breaking the 20" minimum, I think he will be just shy at 19+ - but I'm not very experienced judging skulls in the round. Regardless, an absolute stud bear in the early prime of life, 7-8 is my guess
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Dandy boar! Nice work. Great write up too. Thanks for sharing.
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He's a healthy looking beast!
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He's a healthy looking beast!
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Looks like a 2 year old cub, was mamma with it? :chuckle: What a Washington State Toad!! Nice shooting too! Congrats on a stud bear!
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Fantastic. Thanks for sharing!
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Great bear and story! Thanks for sharing it! :tup:
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No, no. Gotta wait for Rainier10 to lift the ban first....sorry ;)
Oh man, just saw this, I was just messing with you. Great bear and great story. Thanks for updating everyone and congrats on a great bear.
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Awesome!! Congrats :tup:
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@Rainier10
Use that ban hammer, asap!
:chuckle:
Sorry the @Rainier10 thing didn't work for some reason.
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I wonder if the cat was down below and that is what he stopped to look at before looking back at you???
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Thanks, everyone! Still excited about it a week later!
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I wonder if the cat was down below and that is what he stopped to look at before looking back at you???
No idea. But...we made sure one of us had a rifle with us on our return trip back in the dark, just in case things got a bit dicey...not fun returning to TWO carcasses (bear and deer) in a brushy ravine at night!
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That bear is in its absolute prime. super healthy. How do you know it's a boar? :chuckle:
You have to open the mouth REALLY wide, then measure the diameter of the third molar, and divide it by the mass of the extracted bottom right canine, right? Alternately, if you get elbow-deep in gutting the bear and find a baculum floating around, I guess that would clue you in ;) Think I will mount the baculum alongside the skull when I get it finished :chuckle:
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No, no. Gotta wait for Rainier10 to lift the ban first....sorry ;)
Oh man, just saw this, I was just messing with you. Great bear and great story. Thanks for updating everyone and congrats on a great bear.
I know - just thought I'd flip it back around and send the lynch mob after you, instead! Had to give you a little grief for the fake ban. :chuckle:
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Very nice Bruin, congrats! :tup:
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What a great specimen. Wow. You better give up bear hunting, and start golfing. :chuckle:
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Great bear. I’d estimate it at 225 lbs, and a 17-18” range skull.
Great bear!
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