Bear hunt video - Mikel Flores shoots nice blackie with a Firefly

[SlowBowinMO]

Mikel Flores bought a Firefly stock bow from us a few years ago, and has been busy with it ever since.  Here is one of his latest adventures, which he kindly videoed for us to enjoy.

If I recall correctly Mikel's Firefly is 54# and he used a Stinger 125 4 blade on this hunt.

Way to go Mikel!

 

Here's Mikel's video:

     

And here is his hunt story:

  After several trips to Idaho I finally came back with footage of a beautiful black bear taken with my Firefly Longbow.  I arrived late in Spokane on Thursday September 13th and headed out early Friday morning.  Because of issues with my cell phone and lack of coverage I got delayed and didn't make it into Weitas Creek Outfitter's upper camp until that evening.  Saturday I got down to business and began scouting the eight (8) bait sites Gary Haight (the outfitter) had running already.  I set out additional game cameras to check for wolves that morning and ended up choosing to hunt "The Rock", a familiar site, but all was quiet that evening except for the occasional ground squirrel and birds.

Sunday morning Gary decided to put me on the "Look-Out" site which had produced bears in the past and had shown promising activity on it recently.  The Look-Out is a site that's half way into a deep draw about 400 yards off the roadway.  There's a game trail that runs east of the Look-Out which makes it an ideal location for attracting bears.  

I got to the "Look-Out" about 4:15 PM that evening and set up all my camera gear.  I was just 15 yards West of the site on even ground in a huckleberry patch with a good window of the site.  I had fashioned my homemade leafy sticks in front of me for cover and sat back enjoying the close of another day in the Clearwater National Forest.  

At about 5:00 PM I caught movement just to my left as I could see a set of ears just skimming the top of the foliage just below the site.  Because I was parallel to the site the thermals that had now changed direction and were going back down into the draw never carried my scent in the bear's direction.  This bear, which I had determined was a sow by her facial structure, was extremely cautious coming in.  She had good size and I made the decision to go ahead and take her if the opportunity presented itself.  She initially took food off the site and would retreat back into the cover.  After 30 minutes of this cat and mouse game she began to relax and started tearing into the site.  At one time it looked as if she was putting all 250 lbs. of her weight into pulling back some logs to get further into the food.  

I knew she still wasn't broadside to me so I continued to wait for the perfect shot. A bears vitals are a little further back than a whitetail's so I kept telling myself "middle middle" which is the term I've used for several years when looking down at a bear.  After she took one last big bite she began to turn her head toward me all the while still chewing and she paused for about 2 seconds and looked directly at me, almost through me.  She then went back to grabbing another mouthful when I began my draw sequence.  At full draw I held looking for "The Spot" and I see what appears to be a leaf dangling right in front of where I need to thread my arrow.  As if in slow motion and subconsciously my right hand comes slowly back touching my shoulder and I watch the arrow just touch the leaf and disappear into the bruin.  She turns abruptly left and tears out  of the area heading East.  I wait for what seemed like an eternity and then hear a huge crash coming from down in the draw, the forest went silent.  I looked down at my watch and it was 6:20 PM.

I waited for 20-30 minutes and didn't hear anything.  Because sundown was at 6:40 PM it was already dark halfway down the draw.  I quietly packed up my camera gear, bow and leafy sticks and hiked back up to the road and called Gary on the radio.  He told me "sit tight".  When Gary arrived we reviewed the video and we both knew the shot was good but it was now O-Dark Thirty and we decided to track her in the morning.  

Monday morning I got up about 5:00 AM, and headed out with Gary to find this bear.  As we made our way back into the draw the peacefulness of North Central Idaho began seeping it's way back into my soul, I LOVE THIS PLACE.  At the site we could see leaves and branches broken from the bear's abrupt departure and found my arrow.  I kept telling Gary the "crash" I heard came from down in the draw.  We looked for any sign below for about 45 minutes but just couldn't locate this animal.  We finally retraced our steps and started on our hands and knees looking for a blood trail and found signs just East of and above the site.  Within 5 minutes Gary located her at the base of a tree, she apparently attempted to climb the tree and expired half way up before coming back to earth.

We got her field dressed, quartered and skinned within the next hour.  At camp I de-boned and prepared steaks with a simple rub (Grub Rub), garlic powder and pepper and placed the steaks into ziplock bags for marinating in the ice chests. Wednesday evening we had some mesquite we fired up in the grill and had bear steaks with au gratin potatoes and a little bit of Gascon Malbec wine.  I can honestly say that was one of the top five meals I've ever had and the ambiance of dining in the back country of the Idaho wilderness was the icing on the cake.

I met two other traditional hunters the last night in camp who shot my Firefly and one of them offered to buy my Firefly on the spot.  I politely declined, gave him your phone number, website address and told him to call you when he got back to civilization.

Tim, I can't thank you and Jim enough for marketing and building the finest longbow made.  It is truly a pleasure to carry the Firefly into the woods every time I go hunting.  Mikel

[huntsman247]

Awesome! Way to go

[Alexander Traditional]

Nice bear and good video.

[Tater]

Nice Bear,..Congrats!.

[Big Ed]

Very nice!!

[Cyclic-Rivers]

well done.  Good Shot and Great Bear!  Congrats!

[shick]

Well done, Mike.  Great post.
Shick

[GRINCH]

Mike,glad your determination paid off,great shot and story,congrats.

[SlowBowinMO]

TTT for others to enjoy.

[rastaman]

Nice bear, story, and video!      

[SilentArcher]

Tim,

Thank you for the vote of confidence.  It was a FANTASTIC hunt in North Central Idaho.  You'll have to go with me next year and I'll run the video and you hunt the bears. My Firefly longbow has always come through and performed exceptionally well. Keep up the great work you do with Braveheart Archery!

Thanks for selling/marketing the BEST 3 piece longbow made.

Mikel