Suddenly, the bear explodes running ten yards to the edge of the brush, but stopping before entering, and looking the other direction, towards the mouth of the bay. When the bear exploded I raised up, bringing my bow in line with the bear and half drawing the arrow. I am quickly trying to decide rather to take the shot or not, he is out side of my predetermined range but well within my comfort distance, which I had practiced and in the past had made killing shots. The other part of my brain is screaming, why the h*** did you bring up the bow instead of the shotgun? I decided this it, picked a spot, drew, anchored, and then released the arrow. To this day I only need close my eyes to clearly see the arrow arching toward the bear then suddenly dropping just underneath its chest and disappearing into a pile of kelp on the beach. The bear immediately disappeared into the brush while I quickly knocked another arrow then grabbed the shotgun. Your guess is as good as mine why I grabbed another arrow before the shotgun.
The next two or three minutes I remained frozen, half expecting the bear to come charging from the brush four yards in front of me. During this time I kept replaying the shot trying to analyze why it went low. The string had hit my sleeve but the arrow had flown straight without any noticeable wobble and I didn’t hitting the sleeve was the entire cause. To say I was dejected is an understatement, so I remained kneeling there for a couple more minutes when suddenly the bear reappeared from the brush where he had entered minutes before. Only now his demeanor was completely different, he was walking softly, like his feet were on pins and needles rather then rocks and sand. He alternated looking both directions on the beach, looking past me and trying to find what had made the noise that had sent him into the brush. I got the impression he didn’t know what had made the noise but was going to whip whoever disturbed his feeding. After a while he froze and started staring intently towards the mouth of the bay. I am elated, thinking the good lord has given me second chance. Slowly I rotated my upper body, telling myself to bend the bow arm, then started the shot sequence: picked a spot (a little higher this time), drew, anchored, then released the second arrow, keeping the bow arm slightly bent this time. The arrow cleared the bow nicely and started arching toward the bear when suddenly the bear disappeared back into the brush before it arrived. Literally, the brown bear did a complete 180 turn and was in the brush before the arrow arrived, on target this time. It is hard to describe how fast that bear moved. I once shot at a Javelin in Texas that turned 180 and dodged my arrow, this bear made him look slow.
Once again the stare down with the brush was repeated, but when the boat that had been anchored in the neighboring bay came around the point headed our direction a few minutes later I accepted there wasn’t going to be a third chance and moved to the edge of the water to put some distance between myself and the brush. The water was now forty yards from the brush instead of the hundred plus yards it had been when I started the last part of the stalk. I now knew why the bear had been staring in that direction and was initially spooked; it had heard that boat coming. Brother Bob had been forced by the rising tide to continually back up and reset on higher ground. During the final phase of the stalk he managed to move directly behind me two hundred yards down the beach. He watched both arrows fly through his rifle scope and didn’t shoot the bear thinking that both arrows had been perfect hits. He expected a short blood trail with a dead brown bear at the end. Bob got seriously ill later that afternoon and we used the satellite phone to call the flying service and they picked us up the next morning, ending my island hunt. The hunt continued several days later on the mainland, but that is a story for another time. If I can find some pictures from that portion of my brown bear hunt I will post them later.
On with your story Steve I'm sure it has a lot better ending.
Topic: May 2009: SOLO Alaskan Brown Bear (Read 9279 times)
