Post by mikeredding on Aug 16, 2006 10:57:07 GMT -8
Billybob's recent bear story reminded me of the first bear I got.
It was towards the end of general rifle season for deer and my wifes tag was still unfilled so my buddy and I went out to scout for a buck. We were at 6500 Ft. elevation on top of Bear Mountain. It was almost dark and we were driving along just starting to head down off the mountain when he saw something and told me to stop and backup. Needless to say it was a bear. He was a chocolate and was sitting on his butt in the middle of some low Huckleberry bushes just looking at us, not a care in the world!
I got out of the truck and walked off the road of course and BOOM. He dropped instantly and everything was over. WRONG! Next thing we new he was running full boar through the timber like the bullet never hit him. We were both saying what just happened. We were a little nervous about the situation so we decided to wait a little bit. It was about 20 minutes but seemed like hours. It was more or less dark now so we grabbed a flashlight out of the truck and went to look. We found the spot where he went down and only 1 drop of blood. I didn't understand, he went down like a sack of potatoes. We started going through the timber for a while but couldn't find any sign. Now it is pitch black in the timber and we are totally freaking ourselves out. We went back to the truck and decided to come back in the morning. The next morning my wife got called in to work so I couldn't go because I had to stay with the kids. I was going crazy. We finally got back up there at 1:00 in the afternoon. We headed back up into the timber and found the spot where we left off and started sidehilling looking for sign. I was losing hope by now. My buddy was about 50 yards up the hill from me. He had just yelled at me to see where I was at and 5 seconds later BOOM,BOOM. I started running up the hill and he started screaming at me to get up there. Little did he know I was already almost there. BOOM again. I got to him and he was white as a ghost and shaking like a leaf! The bear was laying about 10 feet from him. I asked him what happened and he said that when he yelled at me to see where I was he heard a little stick break and turned around and the bear was standing on his back legs about 3 feet from him. He whirled around and shot twice from the hip missing both times. The bear turned and started to run and he shot him in the neck. I didn't believe him at first until I found to empty brass laying in the bears bed! We found just a few drops of blood in the bed and we figured he had been in it for about 22 hours. Amazing. I had to check the bear in with the ODFW biologist and he said that their blood and fur is so thick that they don't bleed much at all. In fact he said that if you don't break bone or hit vitals that most of the time they will heal up and live. This one had a 4" channel of destruction all the way across his shoulders but didn't hit bone so it didn't hardly even phase him! I've killed 3 more since then and I truly believe they are one of the hardest creatures to take down and keep down.
It was towards the end of general rifle season for deer and my wifes tag was still unfilled so my buddy and I went out to scout for a buck. We were at 6500 Ft. elevation on top of Bear Mountain. It was almost dark and we were driving along just starting to head down off the mountain when he saw something and told me to stop and backup. Needless to say it was a bear. He was a chocolate and was sitting on his butt in the middle of some low Huckleberry bushes just looking at us, not a care in the world!
I got out of the truck and walked off the road of course and BOOM. He dropped instantly and everything was over. WRONG! Next thing we new he was running full boar through the timber like the bullet never hit him. We were both saying what just happened. We were a little nervous about the situation so we decided to wait a little bit. It was about 20 minutes but seemed like hours. It was more or less dark now so we grabbed a flashlight out of the truck and went to look. We found the spot where he went down and only 1 drop of blood. I didn't understand, he went down like a sack of potatoes. We started going through the timber for a while but couldn't find any sign. Now it is pitch black in the timber and we are totally freaking ourselves out. We went back to the truck and decided to come back in the morning. The next morning my wife got called in to work so I couldn't go because I had to stay with the kids. I was going crazy. We finally got back up there at 1:00 in the afternoon. We headed back up into the timber and found the spot where we left off and started sidehilling looking for sign. I was losing hope by now. My buddy was about 50 yards up the hill from me. He had just yelled at me to see where I was at and 5 seconds later BOOM,BOOM. I started running up the hill and he started screaming at me to get up there. Little did he know I was already almost there. BOOM again. I got to him and he was white as a ghost and shaking like a leaf! The bear was laying about 10 feet from him. I asked him what happened and he said that when he yelled at me to see where I was he heard a little stick break and turned around and the bear was standing on his back legs about 3 feet from him. He whirled around and shot twice from the hip missing both times. The bear turned and started to run and he shot him in the neck. I didn't believe him at first until I found to empty brass laying in the bears bed! We found just a few drops of blood in the bed and we figured he had been in it for about 22 hours. Amazing. I had to check the bear in with the ODFW biologist and he said that their blood and fur is so thick that they don't bleed much at all. In fact he said that if you don't break bone or hit vitals that most of the time they will heal up and live. This one had a 4" channel of destruction all the way across his shoulders but didn't hit bone so it didn't hardly even phase him! I've killed 3 more since then and I truly believe they are one of the hardest creatures to take down and keep down.
