After taking my first spring bear last year I was excited for spring bear this year, especially considering how low I was running on meat. Only one problem my wife is due to give birth to our second child June 4th so I knew my hunting time would be limited this season. With season opening Friday I had to work but I made a plan to leave 1st thing Saturday morning and hunt hard for 3 days. As I was nearing the location where I planned to camp for the weekend I looked up into a basin about a mile off of the road and saw what I assumed at first to be just another blackened stump, but as I rose my binoculars to my eyes it took a step and continued to feed. Knowing that the location I planned to camp was on the backside of the ridge the bear was on, I decided that I would mark the approximate location of the bear on my onx hunt app and continue on to set up camp in case it didn't work out. After quickly scrambling to set up my camp and doing a couple of last minute gear checks I started the long, steep climb up the ridge with great anticipation. I finally reached the rim of the basin that the bear was in at about 11 am and the bear was nowhere to be found. I sat down and decided to enjoy a snack while I thoroughly glassed in hopes of relocating the bear. After about an hour I decided to move to a different location to glass the parts of the basin I couldn't see. As soon as I got to the next glassing point I immediately spotted the bear, it had been about 150 yds below the spot I was sitting and glassing previously but due to how steep it was I was unable to see it. Well from this point the bear was at 367 yds but it was at an extreme downhill angle so I wasn't sure about the shot. After watching it for about 5 minutes the bear moved down into the bottom which was an alder jungle and I lost sight of it. I decided that since the bear was probably going to take a nap I would relocate to an even better vantage point and do the same. So after losing sight of the bear at around noon I caught about 3 15 minute catnaps between glassing sessions and when I woke from the 3rd catnap at around 3:45 the bear had made a reappearance on the opposite side of the drainage, I grabbed a quick range of 332 yds, settled my crosshairs on the bear, and squeezed the trigger. The bear crumpled at the shot and rolled about 50 yds down the hill before piling up against a clump of alders. I watched and waited to ensure no movement for the next 30 minutes and then made my way around the basin and dropped in to find my bear. As it turns out the entire hillside it was on was full of waist high alders and even with good landmarks it took some searching to find the bear piled up in the alders. It turned out to be a sow, I would estimate her to be 3 yrs old and probably 175 lbs live weight, so I am definitely starting to believe what people say about bears and ground shrinkage. I tried to get a couple of pics but I was more concerned with salvaging the meat, and trying to keep the bear from sliding the rest of the way into the creek bottom. After a couple of pics I skinned her out and deboned her. I think my pack must have weighed 90+ lbs and it was the most brutal pack out I've ever had. I got some better pics of the head and hide on the front lawn this morning.
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