Free: Contests & Raffles.
You killed the "poo bear"
1st Bear Hunt - Day 2 - The Insult to Injury BearMy wife was up at 3:15 am cooking breakfast, she woke me at 3:40, I woke Johnny and Jim up at 3:45, we had breakfast and were headed out hunting before 4:30. Jim had arrived the night before for his annual turkey hunt, Jim was going hunting with Daniel and Johnny went with me bear hunting.The first place I headed for was the two areas with all the bear poo. I pulled into the first area and there it was, another pile of poo right in my tire tracks from the evening before. I told Johnny, this bear is messing with us, this is adding insult to injury, the bear pooed right in our tire tracks after we left! Worst of all, the bear likely pooed in the middle of the night, what if the bear is only moving in after dark in the full moon? We looked over both areas with poo closely, no bear!I checked numerous other spots, we covered a bunch of ground, saw some fresh bear tracks, saw deer, saw a bull moose, saw a cow moose, but no "live in the flesh" bear. We were coming out of one area and found a turkey hunter walking back to his truck and give him a ride. He told us he had called in two cougars while turkey calling, he had a good look at the one cat and heard the other cat calling back and forth with the cat he saw, so he figured it was a female and a kitten. Definitely too many cougars in our part of the state, last year we saw 10 cougars while out hunting.By now it was lunch time, we had a few snacks and headed back the the two poo areas. I planned to keep checking these areas until we found one of those two bear. We were just pulling up to the first area and I spotted another pile of fresh poo on the side of the road. I told Johnny this bear is really messing with us it pooed on the road after we left! We moved along slowly, in my mind I'm trying to form a plan on how/where to best watch this area without the bear knowing we are here. Every time we leave the bear leaves poo, we need to stay and watch so we can catch this bear in the act of pooing "while it thinks we are gone"! Suddenly I spotted something, "BEAR" I whispered to Johhny, he got down on his shooting stick immediately, but the bear moved behind some limbs, we moved a little but still couldn't get a clear shot, we moved several times and still no clear shot. I had thought this would be a boar as it had been leaving good sized poo and had nearly a 5 inch track, but looking through the binos the nose looked narrow even though it had a decent sized head with some distance between the ears, I still wasn't sure if it was a boar or sow, but I could see it was definitely a good sized bear. Suddenly the bear started moving to the right away from us. I whispered we need to move, so we moved about 30 yards or so, suddenly the bear was in clear sight, Johnny quickly aimed using the shooting stick, "BOOM", the bear dropped like a sack of potatoes. OH YEAH, BEAR DOWN! The bear was still alive but couldn't go anywhere, I said I thought it was a spine shot "which later turned out to be at the base of the neck at the front of the shoulders", so we moved in close and Johnny finished off the bear. We took photos then hid under the trees for a short hail/rain shower to pass, then we gutted and halved the bear and packed it out.The bear ended up being a large old sow, maybe the largest we've ever taken. She had pooed right near where we killed her, she was probably the same bear we had been looking for. Her nipples were tiny and hard to find, looked like they had never been sucked, she probably never had cubs, a barren sow. Her ultra thick black hair is probably about 4 inches long and the hide measured 5'10", she will make a stunning rug. Congrats Johnny, it was our pleasure meeting you and getting to know you during the hunt!
