A bad night/morning - Maybe not so bad?

TheCoachZed

TheCoachZed

CGN Ultra frequent flyer
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Location
Southern NB, aka "Canada's Bible Belt"
Sat in my stand all day yesterday, saw bunch of small bears, but waited for "the big one," as seen in my other thread. Sure enough, he came in about 8:50, chased off the small bear in the bait, and commenced to eat.

I watched it for about 20 minutes. Wanted to make sure it wasn't a sow with cubs. Didn't see any, and since I didn't have any pix of this bear with cubs in tow, I was reasonably confident it was a boar. So, I put the crosshairs on his vitals and let fly with the .30-30.

Bang! The bear flips around, goes arse-over-teakettle down the hill behind the bait, and thrashes around in the woods a bit (he didn't bawl, though, just broke a lot of brush). After about 10 minutes I realize it's getting dark really fast and I need a better flashlight before I go in, along with better-suited firepower. And, I wanted backup. So I tore home, met my buddy there, we loaded up on shotguns and flashlights, tore back to the woods, and . . . . nothing.

No more noise. No blood. No bear.

We looked around for about 45 mins, but realized we weren't going to get anywhere searching at night, especially with the woods full of bears, wounded and non-wounded, around us, so we went home and I went back this morning and spent another two and a half hours looking for sign. Nothing.

This just plain sucks. I thought for sure I had a clean kill, but apparently there's no exit wound (no blood spray at the spot I shot him), so who knows. I'm sure I didn't gut-shoot him, unless a rib deflected the bullet backwards or something. I don't know. If I lung shot him I should have found blood even without an exit wound, but there's nothing. After I hit him, he rolled down into a creek bed, and this morning I searched that creek bed in both directions (it's a pretty steep hill on both sides, so I figured he'd take the easy route) and didn't see a single sign of a hit. But I know I hammered him, because he went flying. :(

So . . . . I'm headed back again to search the hills around the creek. Maybe I'll get lucky and find him dead. But at this point, all the meat is spoiled, and the hide is probably ruined too from some other bear chewing on it, so all I can get out of the bear is a skull. And I was looking forward to a freezer full of bear meat, not worrying about where the unfortunate animal went after I shot him.

Even more annoying is that I tried to do the "right thing" and used my .30-30 because I knew I could make a lot better shot than I could with my 12 gauge . . . but if I'd hit him with the 12 gauge he probably would have been dead right there and now I feel like Mr. Unethical, even though I'm busting my ass trying to track this animal down and put it out of its suffering, before it rips some hiker apart or something.

So it all just plain sucks.
 
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Keep looking, I'm sure he's dead. Bears have very long hair in spring and often it keeps you from finding blood, especially since they can cover ground fast.

The hide will be fine. No other bear will touch him. In fall maybe, not in spring. Depending on outside temperature, the meat may be OK.

It's a good idea to wait until morning like you did, not from a safety standpoint alone, but if he's gut shot you'll just keep pushing him and in the dark you won't get another shot, even with a bright flashlight.

You'll be surprised how much more you can see in daylight. also look for tracks and broken branches where an animal was running, if there's no blood.

A 12 gauge is no better or worse than other calibers if you don't hit the mark. Your 30-30 will kill a bear dead, providing you did your part.
 
hey Coach, I'm not a hunter so my opinion means little. Yes this would suck, but I think your effort shows ethics. It would be very easy to say, uhhh I'll just get the next one. Anyways good luck...
 
Sounds familiar this story... The first bear I ever shot, I lost. It's a ####ty feeling, but it can be made into a learning experience. I made the same mistakes as you did, I assumed I was undergunned, I rushed to go looking for him for fear of not being able to find him in the dark with all the other scary bears lurking around, didn't plug him with a follow-up shot because I was confident in my first, didn't take the time to track the blood trail properly.....

Where you undergunned? No.
If it makes any difference, I'll say the 30-30 has nothing to do with him getting away. Shot placement is key, and when shooting at a fuzzy black mass in the last minutes of daylight, well sometimes it doesn't take much to miss the vitals. With that said, I've seen a bear shot through the heart that ran 150yards into the bush before expiring.

Did you go in, looking for him too soon? Probably.
Is it possible that what seemed like 10minutes of waiting was actually half of that? When waiting for something impatiently time seem to tic by real slow. I wouldn't be surprised that you pushed him furthur into the bush as you stumbled out of your stand to go get a better flashlight/friend. Bottom line, you would have searched for him in the dark either way, best bet was to wait a solid 20minutes (get a watch), and then go get a buddy. Also, I wouldn't worry about other bears in the dark, make noise and they're gone.

Did you have time for a follow-up shot? If so, you might want to consider that in the future. On the bear I shot and lost, that was my biggest mistake. I was too confident in the initial shot and when I had the opportunity to shot him again, I didn't. rookie move.

Did you take baby steps when tracking him? Most hunters don't.
I think this is one of the most important things to do when looking for your kill. First off, you go where you shot him and find the first signs of blood, then you take it drop by drop (toilet paper trail) until you stumble across your bear. What you don't want to do is when the adrenaline is still pumping, is to walk in the general direction the bear has fled, in hopes to find him. By doing this you might be destroying his trail. Bears don't always leave good blood trails, their fat and long fur do a good job of containing the blood. If no blood, you might be able to tell which way he has gone by the broken/damaged vegetation he left when he fled. Tracking is one of my favorite parts of the hunt, the more you do it, the better you become.


you live, you learn.

Kuddos for going back the next moring and putting an extra effort in finding him.
 
No matter how good the hunter, they will always make at least one mistake in their hunting lives. Be it a poor shot placement or losing the animal. Your hunting ethics are really shining at this point so try not to feel bad. Just try to keep searching. Like Goose said look for the broken branches and signs of a large running animal.
 
Goose25 said:
Sounds familiar this story... The first bear I ever shot, I lost. It's a s**tty feeling, but it can be made into a learning experience. I made the same mistakes as you did, I assumed I was undergunned, I rushed to go looking for him for fear of not being able to find him in the dark with all the other scary bears lurking around, didn't plug him with a follow-up shot because I was confident in my first, didn't take the time to track the blood trail properly.....

Where you undergunned? No.
If it makes any difference, I'll say the 30-30 has nothing to do with him getting away. Shot placement is key, and when shooting at a fuzzy black mass in the last minutes of daylight, well sometimes it doesn't take much to miss the vitals. With that said, I've seen a bear shot through the heart that ran 150yards into the bush before expiring.

Did you go in, looking for him too soon? Probably.
Is it possible that what seemed like 10minutes of waiting was actually half of that? When waiting for something impatiently time seem to tic by real slow. I wouldn't be surprised that you pushed him furthur into the bush as you stumbled out of your stand to go get a better flashlight/friend. Bottom line, you would have searched for him in the dark either way, best bet was to wait a solid 20minutes (get a watch), and then go get a buddy. Also, I wouldn't worry about other bears in the dark, make noise and they're gone.

Did you have time for a follow-up shot? If so, you might want to consider that in the future. On the bear I shot and lost, that was my biggest mistake. I was too confident in the initial shot and when I had the opportunity to shot him again, I didn't. rookie move.

Did you take baby steps when tracking him? Most hunters don't.
I think this is one of the most important things to do when looking for your kill. First off, you go where you shot him and find the first signs of blood, then you take it drop by drop (toilet paper trail) until you stumble across your bear. What you don't want to do is when the adrenaline is still pumping, is to walk in the general direction the bear has fled, in hopes to find him. By doing this you might be destroying his trail. Bears don't always leave good blood trails, their fat and long fur do a good job of containing the blood. If no blood, you might be able to tell which way he has gone by the broken/damaged vegetation he left when he fled. Tracking is one of my favorite parts of the hunt, the more you do it, the better you become.


you live, you learn.

Kuddos for going back the next moring and putting an extra effort in finding him.
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I didin't go into the bush looking for him after ten minutes. I left my stand, walked to my truck (opposite direction), and came back and wasn't in the bush until about an hour after I shot him. I'm not that stupid! :) I had no desire to be mauled by an angry bear. I wonder if I should have stayed, though . . . but we needed the lights and the shotguns, so there's no point in second guessing.

I know I wasn't undergunned - but I was probably under-ammoed. I was using the Federal Power-Shok rounds that gave me crappy performance on my whitetail last fall. And I watched him for almost 20 mins, so it wasn't like adrenaline screwed up my shot. I'm confident I placed it right, but the results just aren't there. I honestly was expecting a bang-flop, the way he was writhing after I hit him.

I had time for a second shot, if I had my shotgun, but the .30-30 is pretty stiff to pump, so it was gone by the time I had the second round racked. I certainly would have gotten another shot into him if possible.

Anyway . . . ran to town, taught Sunday school, and am now skippin' out on church to go tracking.
 
he's got to be dead if he flipped and crashed like that. Get 4 buddies and do a grid search. The sooner the better. Play everything out in your mind again, figure out the way he took off and walk a few yards apart and walk that way. I bet he's dead not too far away but probably in some real thick stuff. If you do all that stuff and still don't find anything you did your best and not much else to do.


so you found NO blood at all? maybe you scared the crap out of him? LOL
 
DVXDUDE said:
so you found NO blood at all? maybe you scared the crap out of him? LOL
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A friend had that happen to a deer. The deer did a flip onto the ground and got up and ran off. The deer ran off to the edge of the field and stood there looking around. After about 15 minutes the deer slowly walked to the far end of the field and went back to eating. :D
 
Went back in there, did a careful search myself of the most likely escape routes, then of the unlikely routes. Two buddies showed up, we did a grid search, still nothing. No hair, no blood, no tracks, no bear.

I'm hoping I just didn't hit anything important or something and that it will come back in. But I doubt it at this point. It's probably off mouldering in some swamphole. :mad:

But I did the best I could and searched the area thoroughly. I just wish I had him in my freezer. . .
 
The bear I shot yesterday had a fist sized hole through his shoulder, right through his heart and he ran 50 yards. Keep looking, you never know. Also watch for magpies (if you got 'em around), crows etc. But big game animals are remarkably resilient. If the bear wasn't hit quite right, he might well survive.

A .30-30 should do the trick, if the shot placement is right, but maybe this is the excuse you need to convince the wife you need another bigger caliber, eh?

Good luck.
 
I don't want a bigger caliber . . . I like the .30-30, 'cuz it has just enough punch for the ranges I hunt at, and it's a pussycat to shoot. I think I just need to change my ammo brand.

Or maybe I just need to hit the bear where it drops him. :redface:

The other part that sucks is, this pretty much ends my spring hunting season. I normally work evenings, so I can only hunt Saturday nights unless I am on vacation. Since most big bears around here are shot late in the evening, that means I only have one chance a week to shoot a decent bear after this week of vacation. And since we trampled the area all over, I seriously doubt any new decent bears are going to miraculously show up this week for me to shoot. There's a few smallish ones there, and I know they taste good, but I shot a small one last year and sorta regretted it. I mean, I was happy to get a bear, but somehow it didn't feel that great. Even though it tasted great. ;)

Maybe I'm just going soft in the head. After all, a bear in the freezer is worth two in the bush!
 
If you have the time Zed, just nail a smaller one. The big one is probably either dead or not coming back so i would have to say a freezer full of meat sure beats nothing at this point. Good Luck to ya man and don't be hard on yourself. Most of us have been there at one point or another.

Dorian
 
Bear is a really resistant animal. I track some for other people almost every year, and mine most usually run 15 to 40 meters before collapsing. Even when shot with a big caliber, the bang-flop is not a current thing when shot through the vitals, most shooters shoot too high, blowing the lungs but not touching the heart. They somtimes can run for more than 100m even with a blown heart... and even pierced side-by-side they sometimes bleed very little (until they fall - then, you are OK for a pound of blood).
To make sure it falls fast or don't leave too far, the best way is a lower shoulder shot, the bones will blow in many shrapnels through the internals. But it wastes a big part of the fur and meat, so I do so only for bringing down a wounded one..
Watch for not using hard bullets at low velocity, too. It will just punch through and won't make huge internal damages, making the bear dead, but giving it time to go hide away.
 
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Well . . ..

I went into the stand today with the .30-30, and test-fired it. It is dead on.

Then I went home and looked at the latest game pictures. There is a huge bear that looks to be the same one, and it looks to be relatively healthy.

So either I missed it (not likely, he rolled back on his backside and flopped all around after I shot him for a couple seconds) or I hit him somewhere non-vital and he's still kicking, although probably not too happy.

In either case, I'm going to try to bag him later this week. I'm just glad he's not rotting away in a swamp somewhere.
 
^ Bears don't like getting shot! They react vigorously to any hit, it doesn't mean the shot is fatal. I hope you get him and then find a superficial bullet wound on his dead carc-ass.
 
One thing that must be considered - you may have hit a branch or sapling, throwing the bullet off. It happened to me several years ago deer hunting. Heard/saw a big buck coming off the hillside. Let go a well aimed shot at about 80 y with my trusted Swede.
Deer ran toward me, unfazed, and stopped 40 y away giving a clear broadside. I decided to let go again. I was so excited I short cycled the bolt and re-chambered the spend casing - click....
Upon examination, my first shot had hit a branch from a sapling about 20 y in front of the deer - no venison for me!
 
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