Lost my 1st bear

[h20hunter]

Well, I guess from your last post I would only get after you a bit on one point. I still think you need to go back. Even if you wait a few days/week you can go. Look for carrion feeders. Use yuour nose, maybe you'll smell it before you see it. Go early and search all day. Maybe you will only end up with a stinky mess and a skull for your punched tag but better than nothing.

[Goldeneye]

Have you considered either taking vacation, sick-leave or LWOP from work?  You have a major responsibility after you pull the trigger and hit the animal.

[dreamunelk]

Considering it was a neck shot from the sounds of it you may have been off a little, or it moved, and creased its skull.   Explaining the quick drop.  He recovered bled a little and through a fit when he woke up..  If you would have hit in the neck he would have been down.  The Hydrostatic shock (is that the write term?) alone would have killed it.  So I doubt it is your bullet weight or the gun you are using.  Just a percentage shot that did not pan out.  Farther back and there would be more blood.  So odds are if I am correct someone is going to get a bear in a year or two with a a serious battle scar and maybe a strange hole in its ear.  I to have taken percentage shots and have been lucky.  Time and experience has taught me to play when the odds are in my favor.  Funny thing is I have had broadsides a 15 yards and the unexplainable happens.  Some time stuff happens.  Take it as a learning experience (does not matter how old you are).  We should always be learning.  Nothing worse than knowing it all in my opinion.

Not that it matters but thanks for posting.  I really hope some of the young guy's on here read this and maybe learn a little.

[greenhead_killer]

its agreat lesson for all and an unfortunate thing at the same time. i WILL NEVER take a head/neck shot on a bear. i have never shot one but have been out looking the last few years. i would rather wait for the right opportunity than potentially put myself or hunting partner in danger because of my over anxiousness. bears are tough as nails, research some pics of bears that have been head shot, there are a fair amount that have been deflected. they have very hard heads, and if its a good bear, you could lose points for breaking part of the skull off. anyhow, thanks for the post, bittersweet, but its a reality that we face in the field.hope everyone takes this to heart as the rest of you get ready for the upcoming seasons. if its dead, you will smell it in a few days, but you never know, might have just been a scratch and he makes it. keep your head up, this probably wont be your last scenario like this, hope you judge it differently next time. good luck

[boneaddict]

If it was worth pulling the trigger, it is worth going back and looking.  I'd imagine it should be where the rest of your bear season should be spent.  Quicker the better.

[sebek556]

Should you be beating yourself up? In my opinion yes, but not to the point where it puts you off from hunting only to the point where you learn from this. Should you go back and look hell yes. A few years ago I took a 568 yard shot on a buck, my friend that was with me said no way you missed. We ate dinner really fast then i convinced him to go look for a blood trail, sure enough we found the trail. This is when i started rubbing it in I missed huh? now at that range I know my 25-06 is still lethal (especially with ballistic tips)but lacking in straight knock down power. I spent the next three days trying to find the downed deer but the amount of blood we found it looked like a double lung 2ft areas of frothy bright red blood.  i had found a area that looked like the deer's final bed spot but no deer and end of the blood trail. I felt horrid this was the first time I pulled the trigger on a animal not to find it. The third evening my friend and I were sitting at my truck drinking a cold beer trying to figure out where it could of went when a neighbor stopped by. He told us to watch out for cougars in the area, and that on his property(where the blood trail went) there was a dead deer in a tree where a cougar had drug it. We went and looked sure enough here was my buck up the tree.

[O_mykiss]

If you had a blood trail for 150 yards through thick brush, there is probably a good chance that its laying dead somewhere.

If you pull the trigger on an animal, you owe it to the animal to exhaust every available resource until there are no other options. No excuse for backing out because its dark, especially if you knew you couldn't come back the next day.

I would be back up there looking at the next available chance, regardless of how far it is.

[bearhunter99]

Mistakes do indeed happen, especially when taking very marginal shots.  I'll throw out two things
1. I have never seen a tougher animal than a bear.  I shot a very large bear and the first shot broke its spine, I hit it 2 out of the next 3 shots.  The second shot took both lungs and the fourth took off the top of its heart.  The bear finally didn't get back up, probably 300 yards form the first shot.

2.  Do the right thing and punch your tag and go find it.  I shot a nice mule deer with my bow, the arrow got deflected by an unseen sagebrush branch.  I spent two solid days looking for it, then every night after work looking for birds.  I found it about a week later, in a brush pile I walked through 2-3 times.  I put my already punched tag on the horns and took em home.  I always double check my shooting lanes now.

Anyways, I agree that you owe that animal more than a couple of hours of searching.

[bloodhound]

some of the things ive learned about trailing animals is that for the most part (and there are exception), if you find a blood trail that goes longer then 100 yards its gonna die in my opinion. all shots that arent gonna kill it never go longer then that before they clot and stop bleeding. hair makes the best patch on a hole. i had an elk that i trailed for 2 days that some guy shot that i had never met before but said he needed help so i did. he told me he hit it good but when i finally found the elk it was alive bedded down with a hole on the very bottom edge of the stomach. i let him shoot again at 20 yards with a range finder and missed. the elk ran again and i spent another half our tracking the bull again and shot it myself and then found the guy and told him to go get his elk. point of the story is it never stopped bleeding for miles and miles. little drop every 20 yards or so but we found it.

if you can keep finding blood you keep going till it runs out and theres no way to find it.  and call your friends the more the merrier.

where abouts in the state did you shoot it at?

[KenPCPilot]

if you have a gps use it.  keep going in a crossing back and forth pattern and mark a waypoint ever time you find blood or sign.  that way you can start to develop a pattern that should give some indication of the direction of travel.  look for claw marks on the ground as well indicating some running fast and hauling ass.  a spray bottle with hydrogen peroxide can be helpful even if the blood is old and dried the h202 should will oxidize the dried blood and make it fizz.  sometimes it is hard to tell between dried blood and just red coloring of vegitation. if you can get a buddy to help you can cover a lot more ground.  good luck

[johnnyaustin44]

I've got the next two days off and am outta Arlington if u want some help looking for it

[jackelope]

This is why I don't take head shots.

[GHETTO GUIDE]

Yes this sucks and we have all been there. 

Looking sucks , period!  But this is what we do and what we owe the animal .  So you pack up and go back in loaded and  search untill you have beat the hell out of yourself.   When you are done you look longer, take a break...    Yes this sucks , Its not as fun as hunting but thats the breaks.  Dont give up untill you are able to live w/ your choice.   

[ratherhunt]

Go back and look, you owe it to the bear and yourself, do everything you can
then you know you tried. Call in sick whatever but look and keep looking. I would
also punch my tag I lost a deer overnight and by the time I found it the coyotes had
gotten it but I punched my tag and felt better at least I found it.

[DBZona]

This is my opinion and just that from my experience.  You put it right behind the ears, it dropped, then got up and went on a terror run through the thick brush for what seemed like a long time?  Sounds like a possibility that you hit it lower in the neck.  a lot of meat in the neck. You missed the spine, obviously cause it took off, but hit close enough to jolt the hell out of it and knock it out.  You did not hit the jugular, obviously for lack of blood.  My guess is you missed any major arteries.  You only found smears and drops of blood in THICK brush. 

To me how long a blood trail is, is irrelevent.  It tells me one of two things, one I either had a really bad non fatal hit, or two it just ran really fast on fatal hit.  I have experienced both in my hunting career and have learned that both are possible for EVERY hunter to experience and that the type,color, etc... of blood is more important.

From what you told in the story at 100 yards is I am guessing a non fatal hit in the neck, but lets say you did miss both the spine and jugular, what if you took out the esophogus, or wind pipe?  That is a possibility.  A bear could survive a clean shot through both, but could also die from a clean shot through both. 

Bottom line is, and you know this, is this is a learning experience for you.  Take it as that.  People are going to tell you that you have to get out there and look some more, and maybe you should, but only you know if you have exhausted every effort in finding the bear, no one else on this forum knows that more than you.  So if you feel you have, then good for you.  Especially in thick brush, Its going to be hard to find a bear that is not bleeding a whole lot. 

So go out if you feel it is the right thing to do, and whatever to those who are gonna give you the third degree for rushing a shot, or taking a head shot, or (in there opinion) not looking long enough.  Cause I am sure they have NEVER EVER done anything stupid in there hunting careers.  And this forum has a lot of them, and it is the very reason I do not post a whole lot.  I joined this forum to be encouraged and to learn, not to be criticized for making a simple mistake.

So I encourage you to do what your heart tells you in this matter.  And learn from it.  I even challenge you to do what I did, introduce one of your buddies to the sport of hunting, tell him your mistakes and how you learned from them.  That is what my dad did for me.  To me the best and most of the hunting stories growing up were about mistakes made in the field and how he overcame them.  And the story always ended as a successful hunt.  NO HUNT IS PERFECT.  And I have now passed my stories of my mistakes to a youth I am teaching to hunt. 

This is just my    So just take it for what it is and do what you feel is right.