CoryTheCowboy
CGN Regular
A couple weeks ago I was driving a logging road on the way home from an out of town appointment and since bear season was open, had a rifle and was hoping to find a cooperative bear. Rifle in question is a FN98 in 9.3x62 topped with a Leupold M8 4x shooting handloaded PRVI 285gr at 2150FPS.
(A bit of a backstory, last year on the same road with the same rifle, I missed a bear facing me at 75 yards. Couldn't understand how, but when I shot at a target the next day, completely missed the target board due to a loose rear base screw. Dealt with that and had no issues since.)
I came around a corner and saw a bear about 100 yards distant, munching on grass in the ditch. I'm not particularly choosey on size, I'm much more of a meat hunter than a trophy hunter. I quickly decided it was a shooter and started sneaking towards him. He'd wandered into the bush, so I sat down and got the rifle up, hoping he'd walk back out and provide me a shot. It probably wasn't actually much more than a minute before he came back out, but it felt a lot longer before he reappeared at about 40 yards. He was a lot more considerate than most pedestrians I've seen in the city, because he first looked the other way and then looked at me and did a bit of a jump. I was sitting still, I don't think he could've seen me, just knew I wasn't there when he'd went into the bush. A bear at 40 yards through a 4x scope looks mighty big and from a seated position with my elbows on my knees, I thought this was about as much of a sure shot as I've ever been presented with on a game animal. He was facing towards the road and was as completely broadside as I've ever seen in the wild. I put the intersection of the cross hair tight behind the shoulder and squeezed. The gun bucked and the bear turned 90 degrees (towards me, but aimed into the brush) and took off. I'm a fair hand with a bolt rifle, but didn't have another opportunity as he ran past me.
I sat for maybe 10 minutes and didn't hear anything. I dropped a handkerchief where I was sitting and walked to where I'd shot at the bear. No blood, no hair and no clear tracks in the short grass. I looked at the direction he'd ran and dropped another marker where the bear had been.
I walked and searched for about an hour before I lost the light with no sign of the bear. Let me tell you, it was a very grumpy drive back to town that night with a sleepless night. Mostly wondering if I'd awoken some kind of curse on the rifle from the original makers when I'd rebarreled it. I'm a long (long) way from as a good of shot as the original owner of the rifle was, but even with the excitement of a big game animal, I couldn't understand what happened, or how I could have missed.
First thing the next morning, I went to a nearby gravel pit with the rifle, set up a target at 40 yards and hit an inch below where I was aiming, which is about right. Went back to town to grab my bird dog, who has only smelled bears hanging in my garage, but figured if the bear got himself buried in something or tucked in somewhere tight, he would be a good help. My Dad offered to come as well to wrangle the dog while I carried the rifle.
We got to where I'd shot at the bear and I replayed the whole scenario for my Dad and he agreed that even I would've had a tough time missing a bear from that distance. The night before I'd walked about 100 yards from where I'd shot the bear doing the best grid search I could do by myself while trying to fan out. Both my Dad and my dog agreed he wasn't within 100 yards of where I'd shot from.
We kept slowly moving the direction I'd last seen him going. About where I'd stopped the night before, I looked back at where the bear was and mentioned that we were headed downhill. My Dad nodded and took the lead with the dog. I'm not going to lie, I was feeling pretty discouraged at this point. I'd never had an animal shot through the lungs go anywhere near this far. The trees started to open up into alders when I heard a sharp intake of breath. I looked up and saw the rear end of a bear piled into a alder bush. My dog started barking. I gave him a cursory poke with the barrel, but he was dead.
Interesting to me, the bear wasn't tipped on his side like almost every other big game animal I've ever shot has been, it was like he was in midstride and then the alder bush stopped him.
I felt a huge wave of relief and thanked my Dad for the help.
It had unfortunately gotten hot that morning, and didn't cool much the evening before, and I ended up losing some of the meat, but was still able to put a big dent in my empty freezer.
My shot had been right where I put it, the bullet took out both lungs behind the shoulder. I've never shot a bear in the Spring with this much fat on him, but when I got him home and hung up, it was eye opening how from the outside you couldn't even see a hole, but from the inside you could see broken ribs.
Total distance he ran from where I hit him to where we found him was 143 meters according to my GPS.
Lessons learned.
Don't give up. If the shot felt good, have a bit of confidence in yourself. Look further than you think you should.
If you're going big game hunting, expect to get something. I was woefully ill prepared to deal with looking for something in the dark. I knew better, but it still bit me and cost me a fair bit of one of my favourite meat.
Cory
(A bit of a backstory, last year on the same road with the same rifle, I missed a bear facing me at 75 yards. Couldn't understand how, but when I shot at a target the next day, completely missed the target board due to a loose rear base screw. Dealt with that and had no issues since.)
I came around a corner and saw a bear about 100 yards distant, munching on grass in the ditch. I'm not particularly choosey on size, I'm much more of a meat hunter than a trophy hunter. I quickly decided it was a shooter and started sneaking towards him. He'd wandered into the bush, so I sat down and got the rifle up, hoping he'd walk back out and provide me a shot. It probably wasn't actually much more than a minute before he came back out, but it felt a lot longer before he reappeared at about 40 yards. He was a lot more considerate than most pedestrians I've seen in the city, because he first looked the other way and then looked at me and did a bit of a jump. I was sitting still, I don't think he could've seen me, just knew I wasn't there when he'd went into the bush. A bear at 40 yards through a 4x scope looks mighty big and from a seated position with my elbows on my knees, I thought this was about as much of a sure shot as I've ever been presented with on a game animal. He was facing towards the road and was as completely broadside as I've ever seen in the wild. I put the intersection of the cross hair tight behind the shoulder and squeezed. The gun bucked and the bear turned 90 degrees (towards me, but aimed into the brush) and took off. I'm a fair hand with a bolt rifle, but didn't have another opportunity as he ran past me.
I sat for maybe 10 minutes and didn't hear anything. I dropped a handkerchief where I was sitting and walked to where I'd shot at the bear. No blood, no hair and no clear tracks in the short grass. I looked at the direction he'd ran and dropped another marker where the bear had been.
I walked and searched for about an hour before I lost the light with no sign of the bear. Let me tell you, it was a very grumpy drive back to town that night with a sleepless night. Mostly wondering if I'd awoken some kind of curse on the rifle from the original makers when I'd rebarreled it. I'm a long (long) way from as a good of shot as the original owner of the rifle was, but even with the excitement of a big game animal, I couldn't understand what happened, or how I could have missed.
First thing the next morning, I went to a nearby gravel pit with the rifle, set up a target at 40 yards and hit an inch below where I was aiming, which is about right. Went back to town to grab my bird dog, who has only smelled bears hanging in my garage, but figured if the bear got himself buried in something or tucked in somewhere tight, he would be a good help. My Dad offered to come as well to wrangle the dog while I carried the rifle.
We got to where I'd shot at the bear and I replayed the whole scenario for my Dad and he agreed that even I would've had a tough time missing a bear from that distance. The night before I'd walked about 100 yards from where I'd shot the bear doing the best grid search I could do by myself while trying to fan out. Both my Dad and my dog agreed he wasn't within 100 yards of where I'd shot from.
We kept slowly moving the direction I'd last seen him going. About where I'd stopped the night before, I looked back at where the bear was and mentioned that we were headed downhill. My Dad nodded and took the lead with the dog. I'm not going to lie, I was feeling pretty discouraged at this point. I'd never had an animal shot through the lungs go anywhere near this far. The trees started to open up into alders when I heard a sharp intake of breath. I looked up and saw the rear end of a bear piled into a alder bush. My dog started barking. I gave him a cursory poke with the barrel, but he was dead.
Interesting to me, the bear wasn't tipped on his side like almost every other big game animal I've ever shot has been, it was like he was in midstride and then the alder bush stopped him.
I felt a huge wave of relief and thanked my Dad for the help.
It had unfortunately gotten hot that morning, and didn't cool much the evening before, and I ended up losing some of the meat, but was still able to put a big dent in my empty freezer.
My shot had been right where I put it, the bullet took out both lungs behind the shoulder. I've never shot a bear in the Spring with this much fat on him, but when I got him home and hung up, it was eye opening how from the outside you couldn't even see a hole, but from the inside you could see broken ribs.
Total distance he ran from where I hit him to where we found him was 143 meters according to my GPS.
Lessons learned.
Don't give up. If the shot felt good, have a bit of confidence in yourself. Look further than you think you should.
If you're going big game hunting, expect to get something. I was woefully ill prepared to deal with looking for something in the dark. I knew better, but it still bit me and cost me a fair bit of one of my favourite meat.
Cory
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