I've posted this bear several other places and talked about it a lot but I just got the tooth age back from WDFW. I'll start at the beginning with this story.
I was on the high hunt in 2021 and went on a stalk opening morning on a nice 4x3, I never got a crack at him but when I got to my shooting spot I bumped two 3x3S and I took a shot at one broadside at 350, no reaction, shot again no reaction. I watched them walk over the hill. I gathered my things and went to go check for blood just in case, I got over there and found no blood and bumped the bachelor group up out of the basin and nobody was moving slow or bleeding.
I decided to take my time following them up a 50 degree slope hoping I could slip up on them re bedded somewhere nearby if I let them calm down. 45 minutes later I've made it up the slope they galloped up in 13 seconds, after catching my breath and getting some water in me I started slipping along the spine of the ridge glassing down into the basin they ran to.
I heard a crashing sound that was very similar to a deer blowing out of a bed so I hurried over looking downhill to spot the buck I was after, then I heard huffing and teeth clacking and looked up into the brush white mountain pine I was standing under to see a black mass above me, I didn't want to shoot from the downhill side because my buddies were in the opposite basin and that wouldn't have been safe, so I got on the uphill side of the tree and was almost level with the Bruin.
He turned his head to look me in the eye and I knew this was a bear I wanted, I quickly shouldered my 7mm and sent a Barnes 140 TTSX through his lungs. He came out of that tree like a bucking bronco and landed on his back, bounced up onto all fours like he hit a trampoline and was in 4HI coming at me, I had just closed the bolt reloading and touched off the second shot hitting the bear just below the left eye coming out between his shoulders. He came to rest at three of my steps from crawling up my leg.
I packed the bear head and hide back to camp to cool on a rock and came back the next day to DE bone and haul the rest of the meat back to camp. I had a buddy help me pack out the bear to the truck otherwise I couldn't have gotten the whole hide out.
TJ Elliot did the rug and did an amazing job, the boar squared 6’6”, skull was 18 6/8, and tooth age was 11.
