Bear Down! Labor Day Weekend 2008

[billythekidrock]

Sunday August 31st

The morning started out colder then the last couple but we were up and out of camp by 5:30 am. We spread out and set up on an old cut that we saw a bear in the morning before. The cut is large but has a couple of ridges and draws that make it hard to see the whole area. We sat listening and glassing for an hour and with nothing but a doe moving, I started in with the hand call. After an hour of calling I sat and listened for about 30 minutes before heading back to the rig. Killbilly had just seen a monster bobcat and then he told me about a bear he saw at the far end of the cut heading our way. The bear never showed. It could be that I stopped calling too soon or that he found something more interesting.

So we got back to the rig and were trying to come up with a plan. It was coming up on 9 am and the sun had yet to break through the clouds. We decided to drive a ways and continue glassing. I spotted a fawn (antler less) as it was trying to mount its mother. I almost went for the camera but didn’t, then I watched as mamma licked its rear from darn near its belly all the way to the top of the tail. YUCK! Time to go elsewhere.

We drove to the end of a road in the middle of a year old cut and decide to glass it. It is all brown and completely barren. A creek runs down the middle with strips of large timber and the draws on the other side have water with some new growth. After a few minutes I had enough of this wasteland and we head out the way we came in. Partway out I thought “since we are here” and we stop to glass some more.

Killbilly heads to the left of a large slash pile and I head to the right side. As I am walking I am trying to look at the hill across the ravine and when I get near the edge I realize that below me is a little oasis in the bleakness of this unit. As I quickly swept the opening below me I immediately see a black spot in the far corner. As I focus I quickly wonder if it is a wallow with a little bit of water but then I realize it is a bear. I job back to the truck to grab my rifle and tell Killbilly that there is a bear down there. I load a couple rounds and start looking for a rest and then I realize that it seems to be sleeping. As I head back to the truck for a range finder Killbilly asks, “Where is it”. I said, “It is down there sleeping”. He says, “sleeping?” and I say, “Yea, sleeping, I think”.






It seems as if I have a lot of time so I range it and it was 219 yards at a pretty steep angle. I am still looking for a solid rest when Killbilly asks if I want to shoot off his shoulder. I decline and set up on a pecker pole that is angled perfectly. Killbilly asks if I want him to back me up. This is a question we don’t normally ask so it caught me off guard at first but I quickly agree. There is still no movement from the bear as I rest my sites on the spine between the shoulder blades and squeeze the trigger. I couldn’t see the vapor trail but I could hear the bullet as it sped on its way. Thwack! Still no movement from the bear. I chamber another round and squeeze off another. Boom!…… Thwack! Now I thought I saw the head shaking but nothing more. Is the bear hit or is he still groggy? I held a tad high and Boom! Killbilly says, “that was high, it kicked up dirt above it”. We tell each other that we saw some movement, but still don’t know if it is hit or not. I know that I have to go down there to check, but I didn’t really want to pack my rifle there and back. I mention that I am going to put one more in it and I am going to aim a hair low. Boom!……. Thwack! Still no significant movement from the bear. We were starting to wonder if the bear was already dead and only moving when hit.

I get a couple game bags tied to my packboard, grab Killbilly’s pistol and my camera and I take off over the side. I took the direct route as Killbilly looked for a suitable exit route. At about 50 yards I drew the pistol while looking for any signs of life, or should I say of recent life. As I got closer I could tell it wasn’t breathing and then I noticed two streaks of blood dripping down its shoulders. I took off my packboard and snapped a couple pictures as Killbilly made his way down.





We take a few more pictures (they don’t do it justice) but because we had our work cut out for us we didn’t take as many as I would have liked. The sun was burning off the clouds and we were out in the open.






Upon inspection we find two entrance holes from the first two shots. They were about two inches apart and their exit holes only an inch apart. The third went high and the fourth was a few inches lower and it exited the shoulder and ended up under the skin at the point of his lower jaw. The green arrow is where it entered and the red arrow is where I made a cut to back the slug out. It was a Winchester Super X .270 130 grain Power-Point.



He had about ¾ of an inch of fat on his rear and a thin layer up to his shoulders. His guts were covered in fat and he had been feeding on red huckleberries and salal berries.



The hide was in good shape with short guard hairs with no rubs but no under fur. But since I am after meat and not rugs we cut him up the back to access the backstraps and shoulder portions that were salvageable. We boned out the front end but left most of the hide down in the hole. After some pruning we got him separated and in the shade. Then we hit the creek to wash up and cool off. When we got back we loaded our packs and started the climb out.





The red line was our route out of the hole and it is basically the same route I went down.



Back at camp we butchered the bear and put it in gallon zip lock bags on ice. Killbilly and I both used his palm skinner he bought from Rainshadow. The knife was a tad small for me at first, but after a few minutes it was a comfortable fit.






It was a boar that we figure weighed about 200-225 lbs live. The front pads are just over 4.5 inches and he might have squared about 5.5 feet. The baculum is almost 6 ¼ inches long. The skull is not very big and might be 17 inches.

[huntnphool]

Great story and pics BTKR, thanks for sharing and congrats

[jackelope]

agreed billy...way to document the story. thats a good looking bear, i really like those kind of tracking jobs.

[PolarBear]

Sweeeet!!  Way to go!  Congrats to both of you.

[ICEMAN]

Very cool! Great story. Really neat to see the pictures of the whole process start to finish. Good job!

[MuleySniper]

Man great job!!! Sounds like an awesome hunt! Glad to see one without any milk on its lips too I bet that was crazy shooting that guy and watching him not make a move.
MS

[actionshooter]

Right on Billy!! What time of day??

[bearmanric]

I see you guy's hunted north great country. nice shot's. that is funny thought maybe he was already dead. Rick

[saylean]

Good work guys. Thanks for the write up, it was a good read and a nice bear. That pic where it is laying down and from behind, looks like a pig.

[Hunting Cowboy]

Great story and pics! Congrtulations! It'll be interesting to see how old he was!

[Jackjr]

Nice Bear guys

[Wea300mag]

That was spectacular coverage of your success. Congrats!!!

[boneaddict]

Very nice, and damn good documentation for the forum.  Funny place for him to take a snooze

[tlbradford]

Great job and write up.  That is how stories should be told.

Seriously, the hunt washington hats are lucky.   

[Machias]

That poor bear died in his sleep!!    Sweet set of photos and great story!!  Congrats on a nice bear!

[hard hunter]

great job on the stroy and the pics and congrats

[russ]

great looking bear! awesome detailed story and pictures!

[rainshadow1]

Great job, Guys! Way to go!

[Timberlineduke]

Nice Job......thanks for the story!

[Ray]

Well done. Good lookin bear 

[Bean Counter]

...I watched as mamma licked its rear from darn near its belly all the way to the top of the tail. YUCK! Time to go elsewhere....

Congrats. Great story and thanks for the pics.

  Sorry had to do this..

I've read that a deer will eat its kids urine/feces and hold it in stomach until they get on the move. The idea being that predators will smell the waste and would have tracked them down with that.  Perhaps this fawn just dropped a messy one and the mom was trying to clean things up.

Boy, I'll never complain about changing a diaper again. 

[cohoho]

Great job and a good bear.  The perfect way to go - in your sleep.   

[bucklucky]

Nice Job Willy! Cant believe that sucker was sleeping out in that clearcut. I guess anything can happen! I need one of them Hunt-Wa hats before I go on my elk hunt this coming weekend  seems like they are awfull lucky!! Congrats man!!

[wf70gonehunting]

Sweet nice bear guys I would love to find one of those this year  :mgun

[addicted]

sweet. good looking bear. congrats

i can never even see them during season and they are out there sleeping for you guys.

[shag]

Excellent post.   Good job!

[billythekidrock]

Thanks guys. We had fun and it only took a couple extra minutes to take the photos. So many times we think we will take enough pictures and don't. I have very few pictures of kill sites plus packing so the last year or so I have made a point to take more. The fact that I pack a digital camera allows me to "burn more film" so to speak. Someday all I will have is memories and I want most of those on film.

There are a few comments that I would comment back on in one post.

Yes, it was very odd to me for it to be sleeping in the open. I know it happens and people find them like that, but not to me.

It was right around 9 am that I found him sleeping.

Yes, it was North.

I too am curious about it's age. Lots of color and cracks to the teeth with a little bit of wear and a lot of rot on the uppers between the canines.

I am not sure about the hats being lucky. I missed on the day before and 2007 I did not kill a thing. First year in over 20 that I was skunked.

Yea he died in his sleep. Just like I want to go.

[boneaddict]

I've stumbled onto two sleeping bears that I can remember.  One was in the spring which would be more characterisitic, I was shed hunting and hopped over a log and landed on him.  Still to this day not sure which one of us crapped our pants the worst.  The other was asleep in a log.

[Ghost Hunter]

Great job!!  And all I got was rained on and a few huckleberries.

[Michelle_Nelson]

  Congrats on the Great looking Bear.  Thanks for posting the Story!  Now I need to just find time to get back in the woods and hunt for my bear.   

[SCRUBS]

Congrats Willie! Nice bear and great story! oh yeah nice shootin too!

[coastalghost]

Nice bear billy!  What a great story.  Congratulations.

[tmike]

That's a nice bear! Way to stay after it.

[Gobble]

Nice Bear and great pics 

[Head-shot]

Congrats Willie, great story and pics.

[robb92]

Great story and pics!!! Congrats!!!

[catwithboost]

Well looks like I missed out on some bear being dropped while I was in Jamaica. Good job. Very nive looking bear.

[Alchase]

Great story and pics!
He sure looked comfortable all curled up like that, hope I go that way, with a good snooze, lol.

[billythekidrock]

Thanks guys. Yes, I would also like to go in my sleep. Maybe not the way he did, but definately in my sleep.

[Dean44]

BTKR,

Congratulations, that is a great story. I have dreams about coming across sleeping bears and I can hear them snoring but it has never really happened to me yet.

My brother in law who is mostly a hiker, not a hunter, came upon a bear sleeping and snoring in a clearing once and his dog ran right up and woke it up- bear went one way, dog went the other. It goes to show how hard they can sleep at times.

Thanks for sharing a great descriptive story with good pics. They are a lot of fun to read.

Dean

[fishing is for fools]

 Good job