Bear Hunting...

 (This happened back in May but I'm just adding it so it can be in our book I make each year!)

Saturday at about 7 pm my gun earned a new nickname.

Picture yourself high on a mountain side with 6 inches of fresh snow blanketing all the spring vegetation. Imagine the calm silence as new snow falls around you. The silence then being broken by the cracking of a branch off to your left as you continue to climb. As you peer through the timber you see a flash of black and gray. You pull up your rifle to try and get a closer look only to immediately see the face and body of a brown bear running through the trees. That's where it all started.

My friend and I went bear hunting for the second weekend. The first to set up the bait sites and this last Saturday to check on them. We were pretty disappointed to find nothing had hit the baits yet, and the weather was pretty nasty with snow and sunshine trading off about every 15-20 minutes. We decided to climb a hill and see what we could find when came up on the bears. My friend ending up taking a shot as the bears circled back around and walked about 60 yards in front of us broadside. I think he got too excited and ended up shooting just underneath it (it was quite a rush to be that close to a bear in the thick timber). We then tracked it through the snow down, across, through the creek bottom, up the next ridge, around the point and back up another draw over about 2 miles. Roughly an hour and a half later we spotted the bear across the ridge about 300-350 yards away. We crawled around a rock outcropping/cliff area and found a good rest. As I pulled up my rifle, I see the bear stand on its hind legs and start scratching its back on a big pine tree. I fired off a shot and missed. It started running and slowed to figure out what was going on. I let off another shot, then my friend shot. Then as it started to head up the hill I took one more shot. I watched through the scope to see it turn its head and attempt to take one final step over a large red rock only to slide, tumble, and roll about 100-150 yards down the hill. At first I wondered if it maybe slipped, but through the snow flying I could see the large red spot on the side of the bear and knew I had bagged my first bear.

It is definitely not the biggest bear, but it is a bear nonetheless with big teeth and claws. The experience was unbelievable.