I just got back from hunting bear in Saskatchewan. For the second year in a row I hunted with Lyndon Gliege of Smoothstone Lake Lodge. Last year I took my 1st bear (a nice Cinnamon bear) on the last evening of the hunt with my Firefly longbow. This year I decided I wanted to try and hunt from a natural ground blind so I could experience the thrill of being right down on the same level as the bears. It turned out to be everything I hoped for and more. I definitely want to get back out there and do that type of hunt again in the near future! I had encounters with 3 different bears under 10 yards and one was as close as 3 yards.
I have always wanted to try and submit an article for publication and I am going to give it a try based on this hunt. For that reason I am not going to go into the full details of the hunt here. If anyone is interested in seeing the rough draft of the story (and giving me some critiques or suggestions) send me an e-mail at
[email protected] and I will send it your way. I have the basic story written but will need to polish it up considerably to make it more readable and more interesting. The short of it is I shot a beautiful blonde phase bear at 11 yards on my last full evening of hunting. I peeked a little when I shot trying to see the arrow hit causing me to miss several inches high. I ended up spining the bear but it managed to move pretty quickly and effectively to a distance of 5 yards where I sent another arrow through it's lungs to finish it off. Interestingly, it ended up in the same patch of trees where I had originally planned to set up my natural ground blind. I shot the bear with my new favorite bow, an Assenheimer recurve that I had only had about a week prior to the hunt. I got a great deal on the bow from fellow Trad Ganger Ed Long aka Plumber. Thanks again for the great deal Ed!
This is a picture that shows a little of the contrasting colors of the bears coat. Unfortunately, the real beauty of the coat does not show up in the pictures.
The next two pictures were field photos taken shortly after I shot the bear.
This picture shows guide Sean Fezzik standing in my ground blind. I took the picture from the spot the bear was standing when I shot the 1st time. If you look to the left of the blind you will see a 4 wheeler trail which is maybe 6 foot wide. Immediately to the left of that is the clump of trees I was going to set up in that was the spot the bear ended up in. It may have been a different story altogether if I had not decided to sit on the other side of that trail!
This picture is of me standing up in my ground blind. In actuality, I was sitting on a walkstool when I took the shot. BTW the bear came into 6 yards and stared straight at me prior to moving out to where I actually shot it. The barrel was 9 yards from me and the bear came between the barrel and the blind slightly closer to me than the barrel.
The final picture is of me in the ground blind. Sean took this picture without any zoom standing in the spot the bear died. BTW the sound of the death moan at 5 yards will really make an impression on a guy!!!
Topic: New to me Assenheimer slays bear up close and personal (Read 2163 times)
