Sorry for the delay, what good is time off from work if when you come back, your work load is twice the norm because you have to make up for when you were gone? Anyway, here comes the bad. I have my arrow minus the front 1/3 of it and a really poorly hit bear to deal with. I walk out to the road far enough for the guys in the truck to see me and wave them up. Chris is pretty excited at first as they drive up and see a broken bloody arrow but the mood changes when I tell the story. Bears are tough critters and after 35 years of running the camp, those folks in Alberta have seen it all when it comes to bears surviving bad hits from hunters. One bear they killed a few years back was missing it's lower jaw but it was fat and happy. Its tongue just developed to be more of a mouth part becoming thicker and stronger. But an arrow up the nose? I'm not so sure. It's getting late and I want to take care of business right now and end the suffering if the bear isn't dead yet. I ask John if I can use his rifle and Chris grabs his 45-70 and we slip into the bush. Blood is very heavy and my hopes are high the use of the rifle is just not going to be needed. He's going down hill and not using the bear trails. That's a good sign, taking a direct route down hill means he isn't thinking to much and that's the direction of water. If he stuck to the trails he has he's wits about him and thinking things out, not a good sign. I'm on the blood and Chris is watching whats in front of us. We didn't plan this very well and I didn't grab my pack from the truck that has my basic stuff in it for this kinda work and neither did Chris. Matter of fact I found out later he only had one bullet for his gun! He did say it was in the chamber though :rolleyes: . We don't find a piled up bear after about a 150 yards so we back out and plan to continue this in the morning.
The sun comes up early this time of year that far north and I'm always up at the break of dawn. No one else in camps ever seem to get up as early as I do so I'm the official coffee maker and tidy thinks up from the night before guy usually waiting on people to get moving. It's aways the same kind of camp talk on bad hit animals no matter where you go. Some guys are encouraging and positive trying to ease the hunters mind saying they bet the animal is dead and others tell stories of surviving critters like the bear with no lower jaw. Me, I just keep seeing that bears face as he turns and looks at me, the arrow spinning through the air and me saying a loud 100 time, "I can't believe I shot him in the nose".
Back on the track and I have my bow now, no rifle, along with my pack and Chris has a gun full of bear medicine. I'm on the blood again and Chris is covering what's out front and down the hill we go. Again the bear is just busting through the thick stuff and every once in a while I can tell where he shakes his head spraying blood but he doesn't bed down. Bad sign. 800 yards from the shot and he is on flat ground in the creek bed and my blood trail is getting real thin. The creek bed is an animal highway. Bear trails, moose tracks and deer rubs are abundant. If I hunt this camp again I'll still hunt this bottom and get off the roads. But the blood, it has ended and with no dead bear at the end. We know he came to the water so Chris goes down stream and I head up stream. We bird dog the bottom and side hill a bit trying to pick the blood again. We are poking around in the brush piles and blow downs for about a mile up and down the creek. At about noon we meet up and do a final side hill walk looking for the trail on either side of the creek in case he climbed back out but no blood. And no dead second bear.
So I'm done hunting for the week. I do drive out to the spot where I took the shot that night and the next just in case he comes back to eat but there is just a big sow and three yearlings. More bears are brought in by the gun hunters but none had a broken off arrow up the nose. I have always told folks that if you hunt enough sooner or later you'll have a situation like this. We want to bring it back in for a "redo" but what's done is done. Learn from it.
I've bait hunted bears maybe 7 or 8 times and sneak hunted them 4 or 5 and there is no comparison to the thrill of being on the ground. I haven't made up my mind on next years spring bear but I might go back to this camp. The size is above average here plus they run about 50/50 on colored bears to blacks and I've only killed blacks. I like hunting different areas too so I'll start my research and maybe find another camp where I can S&S big bears. Sorry for the wounded bear, it happened and there is no sugar coating it. Just have to do better next time.
Topic: Alberta S&S bear hunt, the good, the bad and the ugly. (Read 1643 times)
