Nothing in the berry patch this morning, so I decided to glass an overgrown creek bottom on the way out. Got lucky and spotted this guy crossing through the creek. Took about an hour to finally get in and get a shot on him, and put one in him at somewhere around twenty-thirty yards.
He went down quick and made a pretty good death moan, but I backed out anyways to give him some time, and to call in help to get him out of the jungle we were in. Spent over two hours looking for him (no blood what so ever) before my brother finally stumbled on him, less than fifty feet from where I shot him. We really got lucky to find him at all, couldn't believe how well an animal that size could hide in the middle of a berry bush.
Not a tank, but a good healthy boar, he's also my biggest and first non-black bear.
After a really frustrating spring season, and a rough year in general, I couldn't be happier.
A lot of emotional up and downs today. Way up after making a great stalk and putting a good shot on what I knew was my best bear, then way down with spending so long trying to find it, when I knew he was down and baking in the middle of the day sun. And then finally back to the highs of finding him.
First picture is just showing the mess we were trying to track him in, second and third is the showing how he was when we found him.
He went down quick and made a pretty good death moan, but I backed out anyways to give him some time, and to call in help to get him out of the jungle we were in. Spent over two hours looking for him (no blood what so ever) before my brother finally stumbled on him, less than fifty feet from where I shot him. We really got lucky to find him at all, couldn't believe how well an animal that size could hide in the middle of a berry bush.
Not a tank, but a good healthy boar, he's also my biggest and first non-black bear.
After a really frustrating spring season, and a rough year in general, I couldn't be happier.
A lot of emotional up and downs today. Way up after making a great stalk and putting a good shot on what I knew was my best bear, then way down with spending so long trying to find it, when I knew he was down and baking in the middle of the day sun. And then finally back to the highs of finding him.
First picture is just showing the mess we were trying to track him in, second and third is the showing how he was when we found him.