Went to check the huckleberries this afternoon at about 4000 feet they are coming in alright. Nothing like last year but not bad. they should be ready to go in two weeks or so.
Here are some pics of last years bear. Shot him on September 1st in 124. Any guesses as to the weight of this bear. It's the first bear I have shot and did not have him weighed. He was just a hair under 5'. Had to tell the wife I went "huckleberry picking" and i was bringing the rifle for "protection". I was hunting an area I had seen a ton of sign in, though never saw a bear. This particular morning I made about a one mile circle and as i approached the point in the road where I had started, I heard something moving in the brush. I slowly crept up the road and there 15 yards below me a bear pops out of the brush. It has no idea I am there and it looks kinda small, so I decide to wait and watch what this bear does. A minute later this fella walked out of the brush 30 yards away. When he turned to look back at the other bear I noticed he has beautiful V patch on his chest, and my heart is set on taking this guy.
I pulled the .308 up put the crosshairs in the right spot quartering away and boom. Dropped him like a rock! The other bear decides to run right past me at 10 feet. I am pumped by this point. I am 30 yards from the road, no blood trailing (I am color blind so trailing blood sucks!), and this is my first bear! a minute later mister bear decides to wake up and proceed to drag his @ss off into the thick brush. By the time I shoulder the rifle to put another in him he is out of sight. CRAP!!!
By the time I am done cussing and down to wear I dropped him, I realize that I cannot see any blood. Fortunately he literally drug himself off, so I follow the drag marks for about 15 yards where I finally notice a wet substance on the ground, I touch it and sure enough its blood. I follow the trail for 70 yards which ended up being an hour (I shot the bear at 7am). At that point the brush gets real, real thick. I made the executive decision, since I was by myself to back out wait a little bit and get some help, that is not color blind.
By the time I get some help and get back up the mountain its noon, and getting hot. We went to where I last marked blood and found one more thick spot of blood and then nothing. We look for over an hour in this small drainage and finally decide to think about it. I wounded bear would do two things, take the easiest route and go to water. Fortunately those are both the same direction, downhill. So off we go the 150 yards downhill to the other road and if he crossed the road I would hopefully be able to tell where.
That is when I noticed movement in the drainage below between the U in the road. So we decide to split up and each go a different direction in the road. When he gets to the other side he tells me he is going to drop into the drainage and see if he can see anything. He had that freakin bear walk within 10 feet of him and the bear did not even know he was there. He yelled to me after the bear was out of sight and I met him in the bottom of the drainage. He pointed out where he last saw the bear and we walked the 30 yards there took 2 steps and there he was sitting next to a log like nothing ever happened to him. I shouldered the rifle and put one in the boilerroom. He let out a few death moans right there and dropped the 6 feet to the drainage floor and he was done.
Its a little hairy walking up on a bear that would not die on the shot I had earlier in the day. By the way, dragging a bear straight uphill 100 yards, without skinning him is freaking joke. When I skinned him I found out the the first shot was perfect quartering away, but he had so much fat that it absorbed the bullet and just stopped outside his ribcage. I must have rattled his spine and paralyzed him and knocked him out for a minute.
I just dropped this dude off at Fuson's in 9 Mile and cannot wait to get him back. We were going to do a rug with my first bear, but with that V patch I just could not resist doing a half mount. I have many more stories to tell you guys about my hunting adventures in Arizona growing up.
