Well, after 9 trips in to the bait I finally got my spring bear.
Not a huge body, but the back paws are 9 inches long and 6 inches wide. (for somoe reason that's the only measurement I can remember)
Pics are to come asap as it was 1:30 when I got home last night and after 5 miles and 6 hours of fighting the slews I was just plain ol’ too f—ing tired to do anything. After a bath it was 2:30 by the time I crawled in beside Mrs. Mumptia
Here’s the story:
I took two complete rookies in with me who have never hunted (very limited shooting experience as a matter of fact one of them was one of my PAL students back a few years ago) and they can’t stop talking about it.
When we got to the bait I charged it with oil and four days left overs and started a honey burn. I’ve never used a honey burn and I’d been out to the bait 8 times with no sightings so I figured I’d pull out all the stops. The burn went well but the dam bear came from the exact opposite side of the burn and upwind from us so chances are he didn’t smell a thing coming in.
This is where the fun starts. I looked at my buddy Nick (who has never been in the bush really before last night) and his eyes were as big as dinner plates. He pointed and said bbbbear!!! We looked out and sure enough he was coming into us at a slow walk.
When I parked my quad I thought , hell I haven’t seen it yet so the chance of seeing him are slim so I parked my quad about ½ ways back to where I usually do and sure as s**t it was right in the bears path. The bear stopped and smell the trailer, walked around my quad and then got up on it. After smelling the front rack he walked over the handle bars to the back rack and had a good smell and then he crawled into the trailer and began introducing himself to my bait box. I guess there was too much mud on it so he left the trailer and came over to the stand and stood up right in front of us (I figure his snout was about 4 feet away from my boot) by this time my two buddies were in peak mode and if we had of listened really close I’ll bet we could have taken their pulse by just listening ha,ha.
Next the bear walked under the stand on Nick's side and went out of sight. This is when Nick pressed the small panic button (and he's a red head so he was a dam near glowing neon pink ). I told him to move over to my side because I was worried it would climb into the stand. It heard us move and bolted about 30 yards and stopped. Then he false charged us twice and finally moseyed on over to the bait and began chowing down on the oil lick I had for him.
We watched him for about 10 minutes and when he finally gave me a broad side shot I took it at 27 yards with my single shot Baikal 12 gauge with a 2 ¾ “ 1 oz Federal rifled slug. Jesus that slug was devastating. The bear turned when the slug hit and ran 25 feet bounced off a tree and was cold junk before he hit the ground. I found the wad right where he was hit.
Back to my buddies, one was high fiving and the other one was checking his shorts.
So we gutted it (I gutted it) loaded and started the drive out.
What a night. Now both fellas are talking about getting into hunting.
I got home 4 hours late and when I got home Mrs. Mumptia said, “what did you get?” and after the story she said she was starting to wonder where I was and that I has 1 more hour before she called my hunting buddies to come out and look for me.
Gotta love a cool headed hunting wife.
Pics will come asap as the bear needs to be cleaned up first.
Mumps
Not a huge body, but the back paws are 9 inches long and 6 inches wide. (for somoe reason that's the only measurement I can remember)
Pics are to come asap as it was 1:30 when I got home last night and after 5 miles and 6 hours of fighting the slews I was just plain ol’ too f—ing tired to do anything. After a bath it was 2:30 by the time I crawled in beside Mrs. Mumptia
Here’s the story:
I took two complete rookies in with me who have never hunted (very limited shooting experience as a matter of fact one of them was one of my PAL students back a few years ago) and they can’t stop talking about it.
When we got to the bait I charged it with oil and four days left overs and started a honey burn. I’ve never used a honey burn and I’d been out to the bait 8 times with no sightings so I figured I’d pull out all the stops. The burn went well but the dam bear came from the exact opposite side of the burn and upwind from us so chances are he didn’t smell a thing coming in.
This is where the fun starts. I looked at my buddy Nick (who has never been in the bush really before last night) and his eyes were as big as dinner plates. He pointed and said bbbbear!!! We looked out and sure enough he was coming into us at a slow walk.
When I parked my quad I thought , hell I haven’t seen it yet so the chance of seeing him are slim so I parked my quad about ½ ways back to where I usually do and sure as s**t it was right in the bears path. The bear stopped and smell the trailer, walked around my quad and then got up on it. After smelling the front rack he walked over the handle bars to the back rack and had a good smell and then he crawled into the trailer and began introducing himself to my bait box. I guess there was too much mud on it so he left the trailer and came over to the stand and stood up right in front of us (I figure his snout was about 4 feet away from my boot) by this time my two buddies were in peak mode and if we had of listened really close I’ll bet we could have taken their pulse by just listening ha,ha.
Next the bear walked under the stand on Nick's side and went out of sight. This is when Nick pressed the small panic button (and he's a red head so he was a dam near glowing neon pink
). I told him to move over to my side because I was worried it would climb into the stand. It heard us move and bolted about 30 yards and stopped. Then he false charged us twice and finally moseyed on over to the bait and began chowing down on the oil lick I had for him. We watched him for about 10 minutes and when he finally gave me a broad side shot I took it at 27 yards with my single shot Baikal 12 gauge with a 2 ¾ “ 1 oz Federal rifled slug. Jesus that slug was devastating. The bear turned when the slug hit and ran 25 feet bounced off a tree and was cold junk before he hit the ground. I found the wad right where he was hit.
Back to my buddies, one was high fiving and the other one was checking his shorts.
So we gutted it (I gutted it) loaded and started the drive out.
What a night. Now both fellas are talking about getting into hunting.
I got home 4 hours late and when I got home Mrs. Mumptia said, “what did you get?” and after the story she said she was starting to wonder where I was and that I has 1 more hour before she called my hunting buddies to come out and look for me.
Gotta love a cool headed hunting wife.
Pics will come asap as the bear needs to be cleaned up first.
Mumps
