Shot my biggest bear to date early Friday morning.
Details:
385 yards, 139 grain Barnes LRX factory load 7MMRM
Heard the distinctive whap of bullet hitting meat
Bear hopped and ran directly into big thick timber (but thankfully no jack firs)
Heard three part death moan 20 seconds later, then silence
Let him soak 30 minutes, went to spot of shot, not a single drop of blood anywhere. Thankfully I knew exactly where he was.
All I did find was torn up ground where he dug into the ground to run
Time to go find him. But no blood anywhere.
Started going on his initial path and slightly down hill, thick ferns between all the timber
All my previous bears that run and died quickly went about 40-50 yards and bedded. So after about 25 yards of still no bear or blood, I climbed a giant old growth stump so that I could look down on the area around me.
Found him dead about 45 yards in total.
That's when I saw he was a good bear, with cinnamon sprinkles
Turns out it was complete pass through double lung obliteration and there wasn't any blood trail anywhere until 5 yards from him in his final spot where he must have spit
Couple hours of gutting, skinning, quartering, and packing a half mile each way and everything but the guts were in the truck
Just finished processing him, and the yield was 85 pounds of ground meat, plus 3 whole lower leg shanks about 4 or 5 pounds eachfor osso buco, and 8 mason jars of rendered fat. And I'm not bearded butcher efficient. So well over a hundred pounds of yield and that's not adding any pork
Gonna measure the hide tomorrow, but I'm guessing based on the meat yield that he was 325 or 350 (or maybe more?) and maybe slightly over 6 feet nose to tail, but I'll know when I put a tape on it.
Poop and stomach was all blackberries and those little red berries that grow in bunches
I didn't include the swizzle stick weight in the overall yield. Ha!!
Some of the meat pictures are ridiculous. The hind leg hams had a three inch thick layer of fat covering them.
Lots of pictures. Hopefully I can figure out how to post them.
