CodyH
Active Member
Friday was a VERY good afternoon. My dad has never killed a bear and has always just wanted one that was decent. We did some shooting on steel at 550 yds to build his comfort and confidence on my rifle. That produced 1/4moa shooting and plenty of confidence for a longer shot if necessary. On our way up to where we were gonna hunt, we came around the corner and saw the biggest bear of the day at about 40 yds. After he was over the hill in the brush, we continued on up the hill to our original destination. We were driving out of a spur rd and I pointed out how good the draw below us looked on my dads side of the pickup. About that time he saw a bear take off out of the cut not to be seen again. So we went to the other side of the canyon looking for the road that walked into a clearcut across the canyon from us. On our way out we saw a cub about 50 yds off the rd in the corner of a different unit. It was very patient and after watching it for about a minute we moved on. Headed back to the draw we saw the second bear run out of and walked in to see if he had come back out, but had a bad wind. It was about 7:30 and we decided to go back to the area we saw the cub to wait til dark in hopes of the small chance there would be a boar in the area (very unlikely the sow would have allowed this) but was our best guess for the last hour. On the way across the ridgetop, I stopped to glass the bottom of another unit that was very grassy and close to the creek. I was looking farther down the canyon and my dad asked me what the black spot was down below us, then realized it was another large bear. He then very frantically started saying "Giant Bear in the road"!! He got my rifle and started to set up while I ranged him at 686 yds the first time as he crossed the road below us headed into the clearcut. I ran the ballistics for 700 yds and set the scope and got him set up with a rear bag to help. I ranged the bear one more time at 700 yds on the nose as I set up to spot through the binos. as I told him to shoot when ready the bear took 1 step and turned just barely quartering toward us. At the shot the bear jumped a little and started to try to run slowly but was having a hard time. He went about 8 yds and stumbled hard and turne to the right and made it about another 10 ft and flopped over on his back on a small brush pile. He raised one paw for under a second after going down and never moved again after that. He was alive less than 4 seconds after the shot. we were able to drive down the bottom road to within 30 yds of the bear and when we walked up the hill I was shortly confused to his size because he fell in a hole in the brush pile but soon realized he was over 300 lbs. His shot went in the near side shoulder taking both lungs on the way through and had 2 exit holes out the ribs on the far side.after skinning and caping him out, he squared up at 6'5". An amazing first bear and excellent shot for little to no practice with long range. The rifle is a Sendero .300 RUM shooting 210 gr. Berger VLD Hunting bullets. Their performance was impressive to say the least. we were very lucky to be able to get him out whole. Had it been anywhere else we would have had a lot of work on our hands. It seems that if I have my ugly dog with me out in the woods, we seem to always find the animals we are after. He is only a year old and this is the 5th bear he has been with me for as well as a couple bucks and 1 bull. Im starting to think he is my good luck hunting partner.
