Here's the story as I heard it. I had some other commitments so I didn't get to be there. He was going to stop and drop off the bait on Sunday morning and then head home, but ran into another hunter in our area who was baiting also. After talking a bit the subject of the bears only hitting at night came up, and the other hunter said that since the full moon had left, a few bears were starting to show up on his camera during daylight. My son decided that he would stay and hunt the bait that afternoon and evening. He got his equipment together and got the the stand about 3:30. He started small honey burn which lasted a couple of hours. About 6:30 he was looking up the hill to his left where he had thought he had heard a noise. He caught movement from the corner of his eye and slowly turned back to see the bear walking right around "my" ladder stand and it proceeded to walk right to the base of his ladder stand, about 12 yards from the bait. It then turned and started to his right up the hill away from him and at about 15 yards, it turned and stopped on a quartering away angle. My son says he didn't know whether to wait to see if it was just circling to get the wind or was nervous and was leaving so figured he had better take a shot while he had a chance. He drew and shot, only to see the bear just head up the hill and over a small bench about 25 yds up the hill. He could see his yellow fletching in the arrow stuck in the ground and couldn't figure out how he had missed. He waited about 15 minutes and then crawled down and went to his arrow, finding good red blood all over the arrow, other than on the one side of the fletching he could see. He crawled back up the ladder and called me from his cell. He said he had to stand on his tip toes to get cell service from where he was. He told me he thought he had made a good hit. I told him he could wait there and I would hurry and come up if he wanted, or do whatever he felt good about. I asked if he felt good about the hit and he wasn't sure, but was pretty sure he had made a clean shot, just hadn't seen it really clear. I told him to get down when he felt good about it and quietly start following the blood to see what kind of sign was there and to let me know. He got down and went over to where the arrow had been stuck in the ground and could see a 12" trail of bright red blood heading up the hill. He cautiously worked up the hill to the bench and when he topped over, there lay his bear. He called me back within two minutes thrilled to death, but said it was just a tiny bear. Before his call, my wife about had a coronary that I had left my little boy up there alone and now had a "bear with an arrow in him" running around. I tried to convince her that "if he was going to get eaten by the bear, I didn't want to be there to watch!".
She didn't think there was any humor in that comment and she told me to get my butt out the door and up on the hill to help him! So I left as fast as I could dodge the things she was throwing at me!! (not really throwing anything but words!!)...By the time we got upon the hill, he had drug it down, loaded it onto the ATV and had just arrived at his pickup. He was beaming pretty proudly when we pulled up. Said that the bear was a little bigger than he thought as he couldn't lift the bugger up onto the wheeler. Took him over 30 minutes to get him up and tied on before he could start the climb out. His shot took out the front right shoulder and then came out his neck cutting the juggler and main blood vein. He went a total of 25 to 30 yards before he expired. Basically a perfect hunt, other than I missed it! Pretty neat when your kids can tackle something like this and stick to it until they succeed. We're not sure but think this may have been the bear he harvested.
Again, thanks to everyone for support and tips!
Can't wait to do it again!!!
Rick
