Free: Contests & Raffles.
Here’s the story. Since I had tagged my first bear of the season on August 22nd, I had decided to hold off for a larger bruin. The 2 primary areas I hunt hold a lot of bears year after year, but my challenge is always talking myself out of shooting. I swear every bear I see always “seems big” to me! Anyway, I had a few great opportunities glassing a few more bears that I decided were “not shooters”. Then this past Friday evening after about 5 minutes of glassing I see this guy at the very bottom of a steep cut. I threw up my spotting scope and could tell he was a shooter; my rangefinder said 310yds. He was slowly making his way down the hillside in and out of the brush, reprod, and berries so I had to wait a few minutes for a decent opportunity. Right before he went out of sight he stepped into “somewhat” of an opening. I held at the top of his shoulders and squeezed. I quickly threw up my binocs and could see that he was hit good and slid down out of site. I quickly proceeded to lighten my pack to the essentials, throw on my hunter orange, and took off down the draw with a hope of getting to him before dark. After a treacherous decent and a few choice words, I actually found him pretty easily. It was really steep so I pulled out some rope to tide his head to the nearest tree so I could get to work. There was just enough light for me to get him cleaned, opened up, and marked on my GPS so I could find him quickly the following morning. The next morning along with the help of a friend we butchered him up and packed him out on our pack boards. Although the pack was not that far, it was STRAIGHT uphill. For those that have packed critters out…you know a good friend when he is just as excited to help pack your animal out as he would be to pack his own!! Happy hunting & good luck.
