Stickflingers, last week...rookies, big bears, and bloody arras.

[Terry Lightle]

Mike,this is not the way to make or  keep friends

[K.S.TRAPPER]

Calm down guys!! He just got in from a 24 hour plus drive last night. I'm sure he's wore out and don't worry it will be worth the wait.

Congrats again buddy, Great story and picks I'm enjoying it a bunch            

Tracy

[brock donald]

still waitin for ya mike, get up, awsome so far buddy

[owlbait]

Hey Mike great start, looks like time to change your avatar too. That young, slim guy looks like he has aged and "grown" since that pic was taken, but he is still a killing machine. Looking forward to "the rest of the story".

[Whip]

No more sleeping until you finish this story!!   We've waited long enough!  :p  

Congratulations on painting your arrow red.  Let's see what slowed it down.

[Wannabe1]

I'll hold my comments 'til we hear, "The Rest of the Story".   :D

[wapiti792]

Thanks for your patience guys. Got a few hours sleep and made breakfast for the family. Good to be home but there is a void I can't explain. I should be checking the wind, thinking about my campmates going to their baits, and building for the anticipation of the hunt...but when your camp goes 100% on bears in 3 days, you come home early, and you dream of hunts to come    

Now where was I...oh, the big bear came to the bait and chased the yound bears to the tip-top of the two birches within 30 yards of my tree. I grabbed my bow and started sizing him up...definetly a boar, he'd have a hard time fitting in the barrel (my yardstick), and I have NEVER killed a bear. He gave me several shot angles, went to run off/up one of the smaller bears and came back.
 

I kept some video going, hung up my bow and sat on my hands so that I wouldn't shoot that bear. I told myself it was the first day, early, and that I would have more chances. When he walked away I grabbed my bow again and used language to myself that would make most blush. The family version went something like "Idiot, you have never killed a bear before and you just let a good one walk." After showing Ryan the video later he agreed that it was a potential P&Y critter. Sometimes I am not too smart...but sometimes I am lucky  

[joekeith]

   

[wapiti792]

So the night kept plodding along. The boar I passed left and the two young bears hung around awhile. At 9pm (last shooting light there is 10:30 pm) a nice young, fat sow came in to the bait. From the time I got to the bait until after shooting light I had bears either on the bait or near it. Total of 10 different bears came to that bait, and many of them several times. I had the pleasure of watching the sow and again video her. I noticed my battery running low, but I figured the show was getting close to being over. Boy was I wrong...

At 9:30 the sow suddenly barked and bolted as fast as she could out of sight. I immediately grabbed my Talltines Longbow. Ryan was right, I had learned something. When another bear spooks and you have the wind, something is coming.

I had no sooner stood when the biggest bear I had ever seen stopped just before the shooting lane. I'll never forget how huge it's black body was and how it's brown muzzle stood out. I right away thought "boar". The bad thing was that I was pegged...the stare down began because I shuffled my feet and made the slightest of noise. I also had hit record on my little video camera and perhaps the extra movement caught the bear's attention. I cussed myself, put my head down, and felt 2 inches tall when it turned and slowly walked away.

That low feeling lasted about 10 seconds because another LARGER bear was coming on the same path as the blackie popping it's jaws. It then dawned on me what I had...a huge sow that was obviously "in season", and her big chocolate suitor. I can't tell you what I felt. I don't have the adjectives, but I was in awe. Just like the sow he stopped short of the lane and turned to go. The two bears staged just into the thick brush and I caught a glimpse of him mounting her. As my thermacell ran out of juice and the black flies starting to naw on my flesh like the tiny carnivores that they are, the sow turned to come back in...to me, at the bait, with a longbow and a sharp arrow waiting.

[Steve O]

THAT is exactly why I don't think I am good enough to video!    :D  

Sure am glad you were  NOW ready!!!

[Bel007]

OH Boy.. This is gonna be good.      

Ok, yes, I have heard it before, but it never gets old !

[wapiti792]

Brian! Can't wait for you to share your hunt. Folks you may not know this, but Brian Lance is a funny dude. Some of the things he says makes you spit soda out your nose. He's a great campmate and travel buddy...can't wait until 2012 pal    

Ok here's where it gets good...The sow gives me the perfect shot. I mean she is by far the largest animal I have ever had inside of 15 yards. She's as fat as the boar just 10 yds behind her and I have a shot. No way...not with that beast behind her with a chance of coming in.

Slowly she eases into position and starts to feed. The big boar is popping his jaws and glunking the whole time. He's got one thing on his mind and it's not oats. We walks past the sow at about 17 yards and his back end is framed by the sows large noggin and his head is behind the tree as I draw.

Sometimes I don't remember drawing down on an animal. It just happens. This time I remember everything. I picked a spot, came to anchor as the sows head popped up. The big boar stopped broadside, and I remember seeing my arrow hit just a couple of inches higher than where I wanted. I remember the growl, the dash away from what bit him, and I remember a roar, 3 short roars, telling me that my shot was where it needed to be. I was left with this. Oh yea we've seen this....
 

[jimmerc]

Now I feel like i'm there with you the old pulse is just a pounding!   Awesome story and pics!!!!

[Cyclic-Rivers]

I now know how this rainy day will be spent.

Checking back here feverishly.

[bryan r]

....we are waiting.


X2 on the pulse pounding. Great read thus far!

[JSMOFFITT03]

 

Great story.  Can't wait for the rest....

[wapiti792]

Some people yell and scream when they kill an animal and that is their way. I just remember raising my hands to the heavens, bow clutched tightly in my right hands, and feeling the wetness roll down my face. A feeling of gratitude, of fufillment, of awe...I had my moment there. I will never be ashamed of that moment, and I will hold it to me for many years to come  

Soon after the moans and with an hour before pick-up time, I started to pack my gear. The bears weren't done with me yet. First it was the big black sow walking back from where the chocolate giant had died, then it was the smaller sow from before. As I gathered my gear and examined my arrow from the tree with my binocs a funny thing happened:

The big sow came back to the bait with ANOTHER large boar. She was very popular right now it seemed. I watched the mating ritual just into the brush and wondered if this boar now knew he was the new king?

After awhile the big boar came to the bait, spotted me, and immediately charged my tree. I remember not being prepared and bumbling with the camera and bear mace at the same time. The camera won and although he put his paws on my tree and whoofed, I never REALLY got scared...ok maybe a little. He strutted back to the bait, growling, and popping. He had a big scar down his left cheek, and I wondered if a chocolate giant had not handed down some punishment recently. I took some pics in the fading light of the would-be monarch. They are not good, but he was a large boar. Not as fat as the one I had shot, but his frame told the tale of what he is going to be.

"Scar" hung around until dark, not letting the sow come to the bait and occasionaly popping his jaws in my direction.

 
 
 

At one point I wanted to get down, get out of there in the darkness to meet Ryan at the road so that he didn't walk into a mad boar on a bait. Everytime I tried to put a foot on the first step the big boar would come closer. I didn't want to ruin the bait for someone else so I waited and hoped Ryan would be ready.

Like a guy that knows his business (which he does), he showed up at 11pm with a large flashlight and got me. We pulled the stand and slipped out. When he found out I had heard the moan, he shook my hand and told me congrats. We would get the bear in the morning, away from "Scar" and the others in broad daylight. That my friends, sounded good to me  

[Hud]

Michael, whaat, whatcha all doing? Comeon baack and finish this thing...Please  

[Bel007]

I told ya'll the story was a great one.  The next batch of pictures from Mike should really get you going.

I, however, am no story teller.  At least not in writing.  I have to tell stories in person, with lots of hand gestures and exaggerated posturing.

So if you will excuse me from trying to keep up with Mike and his extraordinary tale, I will just post up a few pictures, add a few descriptions, and keep scrolling back to look at Mike’s photos again and again.

[Bel007]

Here is our cabin.  Our camp mates from Alabama, in the background (l to r) Paul, James, and Doug (the cowboy).  In the foreground, our capable guides Ryan and David.  Ryan is scratching his head wondering just-what-in-the heck he had gotten himself into with this week’s crew.