Black Bear King of the internet COVID edition

To be fair, he was sleeping by that tree. In a sequence of pics I think he was rolling over and got caught exposed:) He’s a good sized bear but so far totally nocturnal. There’s other candidates that might give me a chance to fill the freezer but not quite his size, although one is a beautiful cinnamon that will be tempting.
 
Well, just finished up the bear hunt. It was an awesome week. Saw 40-50 bears, was within easy bow range of most of them. My goal was to take a nice cinnamon/chocolate bear as 30% of the area bears are colour phases other than black. In my usual bear haunts, the bears are 100% black, so anything else is unusual and desirable to me. I stalked plenty of bears feeding along greened-up swamp edges and in oat fields with broken bales. Early in the week I passed up shots on half a dozen mature black coloured bears, trying for a brown"ish" one. I gave it the old college try up until the last evening. Over the week, I had a few smallish cinnamon bears and sows with cubs in easy range, but never had a real non-black shooter. One 250 pound cinnamon sow had an entirely white chest, shoulder to shoulder and chin to sternum, she was a beautiful bear. I decided on the last morning to stalk up a ridge that topped out at the back of an oat field with broken bales that the bears had been feeding on. I had seen a large black several times feeding on two bales at the rear corner. It was a good position, he was unapproachable because the prevailing wind blew right to him and he had a good field of view, the one blind spot was if some fool crawled up the ridge through the thorn brush. I took my time from first light and eased up the ridge and when I slowly poked my head up over the top, I was looking right at him, facing me at a range of 20 yards. I slowly lowered back down, removed my pack and flipped off the safety, and then raised back up with the rifle mounted and put a 200 grain SP from the Ruger M77 Frontier .358 through the center of his chest. At the shot he humped up and dropped straight down without so much as a flinch. A great bear hunt done, terrific weather and good company. Will try for a cinnamon bear next year. This boar weighed in a 425 pounds, and had a thick perfect hide... it will be a while before I know the skull dimensions, but he has a good pumpkin head on him.
 

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Ardent said:
Was waiting for your post Greg, that’s a wonderful bear, looks prime. :cheers:
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Yeah, he is in terrific condition, I have two coolers of boned-out meat in the truck for sausage patties. Mildly disappointed that I did not connect with a good cinnamon bear, I only saw one good cinnamon boar briefly in the distance, but he was gone by the time I covered the ground... saw quite a few sows and jeuveniles. I am going back next year because we spent the midday hours building an outpost cabin on a purchased 1/4 section of land strategically located.
 
Beauty of a Bear, sounds like an incredible hunt, especially seeing so many Bears in one week, then taking the one you want (other than a Cinnamon)
 
hoytcanon said:
Well, just finished up the bear hunt. It was an awesome week. Saw 40-50 bears, was within easy bow range of most of them. My goal was to take a nice cinnamon/chocolate bear as 30% of the area bears are colour phases other than black. In my usual bear haunts, the bears are 100% black, so anything else is unusual and desirable to me. I stalked plenty of bears feeding along greened-up swamp edges and in oat fields with broken bales. Early in the week I passed up shots on half a dozen mature black coloured bears, trying for a brown"ish" one. I gave it the old college try up until the last evening. Over the week, I had a few smallish cinnamon bears and sows with cubs in easy range, but never had a real non-black shooter. One 250 pound cinnamon sow had an entirely white chest, shoulder to shoulder and chin to sternum, she was a beautiful bear. I decided on the last morning to stalk up a ridge that topped out at the back of an oat field with broken bales that the bears had been feeding on. I had seen a large black several times feeding on two bales at the rear corner. It was a good position, he was unapproachable because the prevailing wind blew right to him and he had a good field of view, the one blind spot was if some fool crawled up the ridge through the thorn brush. I took my time from first light and eased up the ridge and when I slowly poked my head up over the top, I was looking right at him, facing me at a range of 20 yards. I slowly lowered back down, removed my pack and flipped off the safety, and then raised back up with the rifle mounted and put a 200 grain SP from the Ruger M77 Frontier .358 through the center of his chest. At the shot he humped up and dropped straight down without so much as a flinch. A great bear hunt done, terrific weather and good company. Will try for a cinnamon bear next year. This boar weighed in a 425 pounds, and had a thick perfect hide... it will be a while before I know the skull dimensions, but he has a good pumpkin head on him.
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very nice bear and great fur.

well done.

do you have a license for spring and one for the fall or one bear only?
 
medvedqc said:
very nice bear and great fur.

well done.

do you have a license for spring and one for the fall or one bear only?
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Phil, in some units you can buy a second tag and use it spring or fall, other units are one tag only. In the old days, there was no limit, you could buy as many tags as you wanted.
 
hoytcanon said:
Well, just finished up the bear hunt. It was an awesome week. Saw 40-50 bears, was within easy bow range of most of them. My goal was to take a nice cinnamon/chocolate bear as 30% of the area bears are colour phases other than black. In my usual bear haunts, the bears are 100% black, so anything else is unusual and desirable to me. I stalked plenty of bears feeding along greened-up swamp edges and in oat fields with broken bales. Early in the week I passed up shots on half a dozen mature black coloured bears, trying for a brown"ish" one. I gave it the old college try up until the last evening. Over the week, I had a few smallish cinnamon bears and sows with cubs in easy range, but never had a real non-black shooter. One 250 pound cinnamon sow had an entirely white chest, shoulder to shoulder and chin to sternum, she was a beautiful bear. I decided on the last morning to stalk up a ridge that topped out at the back of an oat field with broken bales that the bears had been feeding on. I had seen a large black several times feeding on two bales at the rear corner. It was a good position, he was unapproachable because the prevailing wind blew right to him and he had a good field of view, the one blind spot was if some fool crawled up the ridge through the thorn brush. I took my time from first light and eased up the ridge and when I slowly poked my head up over the top, I was looking right at him, facing me at a range of 20 yards. I slowly lowered back down, removed my pack and flipped off the safety, and then raised back up with the rifle mounted and put a 200 grain SP from the Ruger M77 Frontier .358 through the center of his chest. At the shot he humped up and dropped straight down without so much as a flinch. A great bear hunt done, terrific weather and good company. Will try for a cinnamon bear next year. This boar weighed in a 425 pounds, and had a thick perfect hide... it will be a while before I know the skull dimensions, but he has a good pumpkin head on him.
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Good stuff Hoyt, you make it look/sound so easy. i wanted to get out this spring but this "no camping on crown" really blew it for me. i'll try my hand again in the fall
 
park.city said:
Good stuff Hoyt, you make it look/sound so easy. i wanted to get out this spring but this "no camping on crown" really blew it for me. i'll try my hand again in the fall
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Sorry... it only "sounds" easy when written in a couple paragraphs... did I mention the 100 or so ticks I pulled off my body? Found another one an hour ago...
 
That's a healthy size bear for the spring (and anytime) and the coat looks nice. Sounds like a great hunt (ticks aside!).

Also wanted to comment on the rifle/scope combo: a short barrel cousin of my laminate "Alaskan" (23", 375R & VX-3). I thought 20" was short but see the Frontier is 16.5".

I carry the Alaskan more and more for bear stalks, I guess I really trust it for that. So I could picture the up close moment of shouldering, pushing safety forward and firing.

Thanks for sharing the adventure.
 
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