Thanks guys but here comes the ugly. And I only write this because it happened, not because I'm happy or proud about it. There are many aspects to hunting that extend beond being skillful with a bow. This part of the story is the mental side of it
It's few hours later around 8 pm, I'm maybe 2 miles away form the spot I chased the bear earlier in the afternoon and I get picked up by Chris. I'm beat, tired from walking in the heat and would like nothing more then a cold beer or two but I have water instead. We start driving to were John is posted and happen to look up a hydro line (pipeline to us from the US) and at the very top of the hill 1/2 mile away is a bear walking across the 100 foot opening. Guess where he's heading? The same direction as the lease area I chased boo boo a few hours before. He looks big. We have to drive around the hill to get there and on the way we pick up John then head to the base of the hill. Chris stops at the bottom of the hill, grabs a sandwich, takes a bite, looks and me and asks what am I waiting for? Go shoot a bear. I'm beat and thinking "could you have parked a little closer or further up that hill" but I was just thinking it as I baled out and got a move on.
10 minutes late I am almost to the top and come around the corner to the lease and sure as poop there's a bear in almost the same spot as the first bear was but this ain't boo boo. This one is full size and bigger then my first bear. Now, why did I need to kill a second bear? I wasn't thinking that at the time because I'm hunting and in that mode but if I go back again I'll only shoot one. I like to hunt bears and like the meat but have enough skulls and hides laying around the house. Sometimes it's best to just be happy with what you have. Anyway, back to the story. I circle the lease pretty wide and and come up to a containment berm a few feet high. I peek over the top and there he is snatching mouthful of clover like a black angus steer. I admit it was pretty cool to just sit there and watch him being selective in his feeding. He only ate the clover, not the grass and he was kinda smacking his teeth together I could hear. Oh, I was about 30 yards away is why that is all so clear. I like 30 yards but 15 sounds better. His back is to me so up and over the berm I go. My cover? A 6 inch log, not all that much to hide behind if you're 6' and 185#'s. But what's the worse that can happen right? So I'm inching along getting closer and he's just eating away. He stops, I stop. I get to about 20 yards and I'm flat out in the open, no cover with a full size boar that has me by a few pounds unawear I'm going try and stuck an arrow in him. I roll to my knees waiting for the shoot and here it comes, he's turning right to left giving me a quartering away shot, I'm drawing, picking a spot and it happens. He turns his head and looks right at me for the first time. You know how everyone says look at the spot you want to hit and you will hit that spot? That's pretty much how I shoot. I was looking at his face just as I released and hit that big rascal right in the nose! Straight up the beak. I can still see that arrow flying in slow motion and that thought in my head ohhh nooo and whack, right square on the black of the nose.
Well at least he's running away and not toward me I as thinking as I jumped up and tried to tree him. But he kept moving across the flat and down the hill to the thick stuff. I picked up my arrow and 9 inches was missing and it had blood 5 inches up the broken shaft. He was leaking pretty good to. I just couldn't believe I lost it like that and shot him in the nose.
Topic: Alberta S&S bear hunt, the good, the bad and the ugly. (Read 2075 times)
