The Firing Line Forums

Go Back   The Firing Line Forums > The Hide > The Hunt

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Old September 5, 2009, 06:34 PM   #1
gedenke
Senior Member
 
Join Date: August 8, 2007
Location: Southern Oregon
Posts: 381
Two bears in two minutes...(long read)

Fall Black Bear opening day this year, here's the story, enjoy...

My buddy Scott and I are working through a big clear-cut as dusk approaches. It's a beautiful summer evening and there's a lightning storm moving across the sky a few miles off to the west.

Scott's behind me a couple hundred yards and we're scanning down across the blackberry piles to the creek bed, 300yds below us. About a mile or so into our walk, I hear some brush moving about 200yds downhill and moments later, a nice blackie strolls into view. Jet black and medium in size. I drop to a knee and start prepping for a shot. Breathe, size him up in the scope, breathe some more, check the wind... then off to my right...Crack! I look over and there's another bear! This one's about 60yds, but he's tiny, just a little guy maybe 50lbs. Beautiful cinnamon coat but way to small, so I shift my attention back to bear #1. It's moved uphill and a little closer now, and has presented a perfect broadside. I put the crosshairs behind his shoulder and touch one off. My new .270 scores it's first hit and it's a good one. The bear bellows loudly and tumbles off into the brush. Of course the little cinnamon bolts for the treeline, but much to my surprise, a third bear busts out further downhill and heads for the creek, pauses and looks back at the ruckus my bear is making and then disappears into the creek bed.

This is where Scott joins the show. BOOM! I hear his .300mag bark and echo across the valley like the thunder from the lightning storm. I look back but can't see him as he's over the finger I had crossed a few minutes earlier. Then, another one from Scott's cannon. Still nothing to see. At this point, I'm not sure if he can see my bear or not, so I assume he's taking a follow on shot. But, I can still hear my bear moving in the brush, so I watch and wait for my own second shot, which comes a moment later. The bear comes out from behind some brush, limping badly. He tumbles over a snag. I want him down quickly, so I put another one in his shoulder, this one drops him. I'm thinking it's over, when a third shot came from over the hill, and 30 seconds later, another one. Now I'm confused. What the heck is going on over there? I figure I'd better go find out, so I walk back to where Scott was. I find him 300yds behind me and looking down at the creek. As I walk up to him he says: "I got a bear down!", pointing down hill. The huge grin on his face was priceless. "Me too!" I said, "Over there!" I'm sure I was sporting the same ridiculous grin. I give him a big handshake and clappped him on the shoulder.

By now, the sky is just starting to darken, and we know we have a lot of work to do, so we get busy extracting our bears. Although we didn't have to drag the bears terribly far, the going was tough, as we had to negotiate snags and berry piles the whole way. It was 2am by the time we got them down to the truck and back to the house, and 4am when we finally finished and hit the hay. A long, exhausting night, but what fun! This is one hunt I will not soon forget.

So, that's the story of the night I stumbled onto a "herd" of bears. Two bears, by two guys, in two minutes! I really think the pair were brothers. Both were about 150lbs, 4.5 feet nose to tail, and both living on the same hill. I have to give credit to the 150g Barnes TSX I used, the bullets performed flawlessly. One shot actually passed clean through the shoulder blade and exited the other side!

Here's a pic:

__________________
There's an art...to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss!
gedenke is offline  
Old September 5, 2009, 07:09 PM   #2
hogdogs
Staff In Memoriam
 
Join Date: October 31, 2007
Location: Western Florida panhandle
Posts: 11,069
What state is this? What day? Temps?
Brent
hogdogs is offline  
Old September 5, 2009, 09:05 PM   #3
gedenke
Senior Member
 
Join Date: August 8, 2007
Location: Southern Oregon
Posts: 381
State is Oregon, day was Aug. 1, 2009, temp was about 80ish.
__________________
There's an art...to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss!
gedenke is offline  
Old September 8, 2009, 09:59 PM   #4
Countertop
Senior Member
 
Join Date: September 7, 2004
Location: At the diner
Posts: 125
Great picture, Fantastic story.

Were they 150lbs dressed? or was that before you dressed them.

How quickly did you have to cool them down in 80 degree temperature to keep the meat from spoiling?
Countertop is offline  
Old September 9, 2009, 08:49 PM   #5
Buzzcook
Senior Member
 
Join Date: November 29, 2007
Location: Everett, WA
Posts: 6,126
Sounds like fun. Nice bears and a nice story.
Buzzcook is offline  
Old September 19, 2009, 11:19 AM   #6
gedenke
Senior Member
 
Join Date: August 8, 2007
Location: Southern Oregon
Posts: 381
150lbs live weight (estimated). Not huge bears at all, I figure they were probably 3-4 years old. As for the cooling, we gutted them immediately and skinned them as soon as we got home. It did cool down a little after sundown. I was a bit concerned about spoiling, but the only meat lost was from blood shot.
__________________
There's an art...to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss!
gedenke is offline  
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 01:55 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
This site and contents, including all posts, Copyright © 1998-2021 S.W.A.T. Magazine
Copyright Complaints: Please direct DMCA Takedown Notices to the registered agent: thefiringline.com
Page generated in 0.04116 seconds with 7 queries