The first downed bear started with the soon to be brother in law telling me all of these great stories of seeing bear and killing bear at a little place called no-tell-um ridge (Must be a Native American name). After a few phone calls and stories by him getting me pumped up, he give me the official notice. "Opening morning, my place, 2am."
We hit the mountains and are hiking as the sun starts coming up. Not much bear sign, but lots of cat and coyote sign. The first ridge has a really nice 3x3 black tail buck on it. He is doing his thing...We glass for a while but don't see the real critter we are hunting for.
We go hiking towards area two for the day. Not many berries up in the mountains, but we see more sign and lots of berries as we get settled down on the second clear cut. As I sit down, I start hearing noises down below. Jeremy points below himself and motions that he sees a bear. I start moving towards him...falling...I thought I busted the bear, but thankfully he didn't even hear me.
I get positioned next to Jeremy and get my sights on the bear. I ask if he is too small and Jeremy said, "Nope, shoot em."
I line up the first shot, about 100 yards and put the cross hairs right on the front shoulder. Down he went with the first shot. He got right up and started to move. I have heard too many stories of people losing bears or them running, so I had predetermined that I was going to shoot until he was stationary. I hit him hard for round two. Bear hit the dirt again and gets up on the log next to him. I put the third round into the shoulder and knock him arse over teakettle. A few seconds later, as I see his big black body, I hear the death moans.
My first bear was down at 9am. We had him skinned and quartered by 10am. We were down to the truck by 11:30 and officially home by 3pm.
I must admit, this was the most amazing hunt I've ever been on. The bear was an old boar with almost no fat on his body. We guessed he was about 180-200 pounds of old boar.
