(After some prodding, I went back and added the story. I hope you enjoy).
This picture was from last fall in Colorado. I'd just shot this big old boar from way too close. It was one of my most memorable hunts; I'm glad my Dad was there to share it with me. I like it when I'm browsing old pics and am flooded by memories.
-Vig
The bear story starts where the elk story ended. Or, to be more accurate, where the elk's life ended. Exactly where it ended, over what remained. The closest tree that I could comfortably hang a tree stand on was about 75 yards away, and that aspen coincidentally held my tree stand about 13 feet up. It was a good elk stand near a waterhole, proven by the gut pile in front of me. The problem was there was only oaks nearby, and very few what looked big enough to support me.
I hung a tree stand anyway up in the nearest clump of oaks. The tree was only about the diameter of my arm only six feet up in the air, but it was the best chance I had to ambush a bear. I knew they were around because I'd seen the sign: piles of bear poop in the trail you had to strain your leg to step over. The evening before I shot the elk my Dad pointed out a bear track on the water hole that my five-inch fletch wouldn't span. "You'll know it when you see that bear," he told me.
It took a couple of days before there was any evidence of bear activity where we cleaned the elk. I had been sitting in the oak tree, six feet off the ground, morning and night. Finally, as my Dad and I snuck in just past daylight we realized that things had been disturbed very recently. I hurried into the stand while my Dad went back down to the pond in case another elk was going to make the ill-fated decision to drink. I stepped onto the platform and looked down to realize that whatever had disturbed the elk remains had drug them almost under my stand, behind some thick oak I couldn't shoot through.
I made a lucky decision to break a few of those branches and clear a shooting lane just in case the bear approached from my left side. I grabbed my bow, knocked an arrow, and stood surveying the situation when I thought I heard a noise off to my left. I froze, straining to make out what I'd heard. Then, getting louder with each repetition, was a breathing that sounded like something you'd hear from the overweight, over-indulging buffet regular on his fourth trip to the dessert bar. I slowly craned my eyes to the left to catch a glimpse, hoping it wasn't a sow with cubs.
Through the oak branches I got immediate identification of a legal bear. It was less than 60 feet away and moving steadily toward my position; I remember seeing the huge light colored hump on its back and its huge dark front paws as it walked toward me. I knew right then things were about to get a little western! I readied my grip on my bow and tightened the string in the groove of my fingers and shifted slightly to aim through the small gap I had just cleared in front of me. I consciously bent at the waist, knowing I'd be shooting near straight down. As the bear walked under me I looked behind his shoulder, drew back my GrizzlyBows longbow, and released the arrow.
There is some debate as to what happened next. I remember calmly sliding another arrow out of my quiver as I calculated distance and shot angle to try to get another arrow in the bear. Thankfully, as we found out later another arrow wasn't necessary. I watched it spin and jump about three times before it lined out straight away with a bad limp on its front right leg. My Dad, who if you remember, was on the waterhole 75 yards away, has a different recollection. He said he heard some commotion and looked up in time to see a dust cloud and me in the oak tree thrashing side to side. He heard someone growling and someone screaming and he didn't know which was me and which was the bear. When things finally settled down he called up to me "What's going on up there?"
"I just shot the biggest bear I've ever seen!"
He came up to meet me while I was still in the tree trying to gather my composure. He stood in front of my stand, less than six feet away; I didn't have to bend down to hand him my bow. He asked where the bear was when I took the shot… I laughed and told him it was exactly where he was standing.
With the help of two of my brothers we followed an exciting but easy blood trail. Thankfully, the shot had done the job.
Topic: Two guys and a dead bear (Edited to add story) (Read 536 times)
