Bear Down

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The last three days were intense. Four bears on opening day. Three the next. That’s a lot of bear dragging, weighing, picture taking and skinning. It was taking its toll on us. After the slant eared bear left it took a while for me to settle down, but once I did my eyelids felt as heavy as lead.

“Bear,” Fred whispered and nudged me out of not-asleep and not-quite-awake land. Fred videoed the bear as it walked by us on the right. I hooked my release on the Fireball’s string loop and looked up. The bear poked its head past tree #1 and looked right at me.

This time I wanted to get my bow back as soon as possible and sort things out at full draw. The bear poked a little more of himself around the tree but kept his eye on the blind. I waited, ready to draw as soon as he looked away.

An issue tumbled through my brain. This was not the slant-eared bear, the huge bear that we saw two hours earlier. But it was still a big mature bear. I had my chance at slant-ear and it didn’t work out. Chances were slim that I would see him again. (And that proved to be right because we didn’t see him again.)

At last … the bear looked away and stepped forward. Without hesitation, I drew. The angle was not good so I held, looking for him to turn more broadside.

He did. I settled my top pin where I wanted to shoot and released the arrow. The arrow hit right where I was aiming. My bow was so quiet the bear didn’t flinch until after the broadhead slammed through him.

Blood flew into the air as the bear leaped over the logs and was gone in a flash. He took a right turn and the sound of him running ceased. A few seconds later we heard his death moan.

Fred swung the video camera on me and we did some of that excited after the bear kill talk. Then we got out of the blind and walked to the logs.

Big splotches of bear blood were on the logs. A testamony to the effectiveness and toughness of my 2-inch Grim Reaper broadhead.

I stepped into the woods where the blood trail marked the way. As you can imagine the blood trail was substantial.

I followed the blood a short distance to where the bear turned left. Then I stopped tracking and walked ahead and looked out ahead of myself. In 20 yards I saw a black object laying on the ground up ahead of me. “Here he is,” I called to Fred. We pulled the bear a few yards to get him in a place we could take pictures. And we took them.

SEE THIS HUNT ON VIDEO:

CONTINUED…

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