After a short night's rest we were planning to go into the bait bright and early at around 5:30 AM and if there were any bears on the bait, I would try to stalk up on them. There was a bear, but I think it was the tall skittish youngster. He was very fidgety and I didn't get within 40 yards and he ran off. We then walked on in to the stand and heard another bear run off in the distance.
I then crawled up into the stand and didn't see another bear until about 9:25 AM. In fact, I had texted my buddy Wes to come on in and get me whenever he was ready, but no rush. It wasn't one minute later and I saw movement in the brush. It was a big bodied bear and he was coming right in. He walked right up to me at about 3 yards and I had tension on the string just hoping he would turn and give me a shot. I knew he was a big bodied bear, but when he looked up at me at three yards, it was one of the bears with a big crease in the head that makes your decision to shoot pretty easy. I thought he was going to walk right under the stand and not give me a shot. He stopped and looked up and didn't like something, but it sure didn't spook him. He simply turned and started walking away toward the bait. He reached the 4 yard mark and was quartering away. I was pulling back the bow and he stopped with his front leg back. Darn it! I kept pressure on the string and was looking hard at a little piece of white grass that was slightly forward of the "middle of the middle" and a bit higher due to the steep downward angle. He finally moved the leg forward and I reached anchor watched the arrow just miss the white grass. I was rather surprised that my Snuffer tipped arrow didn't punch all the way through with my 61# Stalker Coyote longbow. It was within an inch of the fletching and I saw a distinct spurt of blood when it hit. This indicated a chest cavity hit to me. I was worried that the shot didn't get an exit hole and I didn't want to spook the bear so I climbed down and walked out and waited for Wes to pick me up. We then went back and gathered some troops for a search and retrieval if needed. I wanted to give the bear a good two hours.
After we got back, I climbed up the tree and showed them right where he went. There was no blood immediately found as the bear ran in and then veered off. Wes found blood up on a branch and then the trail was pretty easy to follow. We went about five yard further and found this...
The arrow was a surprise to me as the last time I saw it, it was sticking out of the top half of the bear. I took it as a great sign as I believe what happened was that I hit the far leg and when he ran off it pulled the arrow through as he was running away. We had an exit hole and the blood was flowing pretty good now.
Topic: Wes' Bear (Read 1271 times)
