My last 5 black bear hunts have come down to the last minute of the last day before I took the bear I wanted. 2013 would be no different. We had returned the last happy bear hunters to the airport, a father and 15 year old son team that had both taken good bears on their first bear hunt. I had not planned to hunt this year but with two full evenings to hunt after closing down our bear camp,I knew that I had plenty of time to take a bear so I decided to go for it.
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I decided that I would only shoot a great bear and on video or I would go home empty handed. I would be removing our equipment from the remote baits so I just went to the end of the string and set up a ground blind. I still had a buddy/assistant guide hunting so I put him at the hottest bait. I went to my stand, baited the barrel and drove the truck about a 1/4 mile away. I took my black widow with me for the walk back into the bait site. I just had a feeling that I would need it.
As I turned the corner at the bait site, I was relieved that the bears were not there yet. I relaxed for a moment and knelt down to pick up some gear when I noticed a decent boar at 15 yards. I nocked an arrow as I sized him up. I then reminded myself that no video=no bear so I gave him a deep "woof" and he melted back into the thick cover. I knew he would return. I got the blind set up and it was just a few minutes before a string of medium boar and sows rolled into the bait at 10 yards. One big sow tried to stick her head into the blind. They were good bears but with a full day left to hunt I decided to wait for a great bear.
The last day I decided to move my buddy to where I had hunted the night before. This was his first trad hunt and I desperately wanted him to score. He had arrowed a good bear a few days earlier but the arrow had passed above the lungs doing no real harm. We had seen and videoed the bear a couple of times over the next couple days and he was doing fine.
I decided to hunt a bait where a GIANT sow had given a couple of hunters the slip. I had also caught her on trail cam with a big boar in tow. She seemed to always fade just out of tradbow range so I silently slid in and placed a portable stand where she would not expect me to be. It was a beautiful but quite uneventful sit for 4 hours. As darkness started to set in, I pulled my old Black Widow from the bow hanger and turned to where I felt the bear would appear. A state of absolute calm seemed to come over me and I became 100% sure the bear would show within seconds. At that exact moment, I heard the slightest sound of a distant chipmunk announcing the bears approach.
The bear appeared like black smoke and was incredibly cautious. I eased on the video camera and waited as the bear took a full five minutes to move five yards. There were numerous marginal shot opportunities but it would be the perfect shot or nothing. I could clearly tell that this was a sow and I continued to look down her back trail for a boar but none showed. I was stunned at the size of this sow. It was clearly the same big girl that I had gotten well over 200 pictures and trailcam videos of over the last few weeks. She had a head like a pumpkin.
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At one point she looked at me as only a giant bear can do. She then turned to walk away but paused at 14 yards. I bore down on the string and concentrated on hitting her off shoulder. The arrow with the big white fletch suddenly appeared right where I was looking. She roared, stumbled a bit and then tore off into a jungle of head high and very thick ferns. She made it less than 40 yards and popped her teeth 2-3 time before giving a death moan. The big Steelforce 150 head had given that old bear an honorable and quick death.
I crawled into the jungle in near darkness and found her piled up next to an ancient spruce tree. I wondered how many time she had walked under the tree.
She was an absolutely beautiful animal and wore double ear tags that told me she had been a trouble maker at some point in her very long life. I look forward to reporting the tags and finding out her history. In my more than 35 years of bear hunting experience, she was the biggest sow I had ever taken.
The next morning had us skinning and packing up the 2013 bear camp gear. It had been a great season but we were flat out wore down. Still, all we could talk about as we left that wilderness was getting back to bear camp in 2014. Man I already miss that place.
The video is a great one and I will try and produce it along with a full review of a great season as soon as possible.
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What a beauty. Congrats!
Congrats! Great story and an awesome bear!
Congrats, Good job Jerry
Very nice, Congrats!!!
SO awesome.!
Sweet!
Congrats.
Very nice. One of these days I'll get to go on a bear hunt.
Bucketlist - Bear!
Great job man!! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Man that sounds like fun. Nice bear
What a big old girl and great way to close the season...thxs for sharing!!
Nice bear. I would love to come hunt with you sometime
She's a beauty for sure, congratulations!!
Congratulations, Jerry! Very well told.
Very cool Jerry. It will be even harder waiting till next year.
Jack
I am looking forward to hunting with you Jack. You are going to have a ball.
WOW !! What a beauty.
Congratulations
Glenn
Congrtaulations on a fine bear Jerry.
Well done. Great story telling too...thanks.
Thanks. Great.
I would like to know how you "knew" a large bear like that was a sow?
Dan in KS
Dan,
When the bears reach maturity there is little difficulty telling the boars from sows when you have a moment to look them over. It comes with experience but length of body, hip to shoulder size ratio and body shape are just a few of the cues.
Great Bear!
Thanks Jerry. I hope to hunt bear one day and I am always in a learning mode. Congrats again.
Great bear Jerry!
David
Beauty, congrats.
Jerry,
DANDY bear !! Congradulations.
Congratulations, Jerry! That's a beautiful bear!
Very nice!! Thanks for sharing and congrats on the biggest Sow to date. Her backstory would be interesting to hear about as well as her age.
How do you go about telling a big sow from a boar? I only see a few bears every year, usually from a distance of 100-300 yards (spot and stalk) and have zero confidence in my sexing abilities until I lift the leg of a fallen bear.
Thanks in advance.
Randy.
Randy,
Look 7 post up and I mention how to tell the difference. I did run a ton of trail cameras this year in video mode and I have a lot of bears pic and videos clips. When I get a chance, I will go thorough them and put together a little video on judging both size and sex of bears. It has been something I have been wanting to do for my hunters for some time now.
Jerry- I would love to see a tutorial on that subject. Thanks again
A biggun! Congrats! Can't wait for the video.
Awesome bear, congrats!!