Calif. Hunter
Active member
Wrightwood
hunter kills
record bear
By JIM MATTHEWS
Outdoor News Service
When you read about hunting for trophy black bears, you never read about
the southern half of California. The magazines have stories about exotic
locations in Canada and Alaska. There are occasional pieces on the Midwest
or even the odd piece about bear hunting somewhere in the Rocky Mountains.
But never about California.
Veteran bear hunters know better. The foothills of the southern Sierra
Nevada and the transverse mountains ranges of Southern California have
always grown some of the biggest bodied bears in the world. Taxidermists
here often have to use modified brown bear forms when they do life-size
mounts of bears from this region. California is well represented in the
Boone & Crockett Record Book's black bear listing.
That point was demonstrated again this winter, when B.J. Patterson of
Wrightwood was hunting in the Sequoia National Forest with long-time friend
and hunting buddy Harvey Stephens of Tehachapi.
The pair has seen four small bears in their first day of hunting with
Stephens' six Walker hounds, but while they were sitting on a road watching
two coyotes, they spotted a big bear beyond the coyotes and across a canyon.
The pair sprang into action immediately, leashing two dogs, and literally
running them across the canyon and putting them on the fresh track of the
big bear.
The pair ran back to the truck and tried to drive closer to the chase
and put the other four dogs on the ground so they could join the chase.
"We did a lot of running that day," said Patterson.
The dogs chased the big bear three hours, and he kept moving farther and
farther away from the roads, while the two hunters followed through the
rugged terrain, listening to the chorus of dogs. Three hours and six miles
later the big boar "bayed up on a hillside in a sage thicket," said
Patterson.
"He was a bigger, older bear, and he passed up a bunch of trees and
bayed up," said Patterson.
A single slug sent into the neck of the bear from Patterson's .30-30
Marlin rifle ended the hunt. The 400-pound class bear was seven-foot,
one-inch long from tip of nose to the top of its tail, and the boar had a
huge head that would later green score 21 1/8th points on the Boone and
Crockett scoring system. The minimum score for a bear to make the record
book is 20 4/8s. The score is base on the length and width of the bear's
cleaned and dried skull.
The big old cinnamon-colored boar also had three white diamonds on this
hide from the chest onto the belly, and Patterson is going to have the bruin
made into a life-size mount so he can show off those diamond blazes and the
bear's size.
Patterson's 400-pound, record book bear in big, but certainly not
uncommon for this region. There are bears in this weight-class taken each
hunting season. But in my files there are stories about at least four other
bears that have topped the 600-pound mark and two that have been right
around 700 pounds.
There is no place in the country that has bears as big.
No place.
(Now he IS talking about black bears, of course.)
hunter kills
record bear
By JIM MATTHEWS
Outdoor News Service
When you read about hunting for trophy black bears, you never read about
the southern half of California. The magazines have stories about exotic
locations in Canada and Alaska. There are occasional pieces on the Midwest
or even the odd piece about bear hunting somewhere in the Rocky Mountains.
But never about California.
Veteran bear hunters know better. The foothills of the southern Sierra
Nevada and the transverse mountains ranges of Southern California have
always grown some of the biggest bodied bears in the world. Taxidermists
here often have to use modified brown bear forms when they do life-size
mounts of bears from this region. California is well represented in the
Boone & Crockett Record Book's black bear listing.
That point was demonstrated again this winter, when B.J. Patterson of
Wrightwood was hunting in the Sequoia National Forest with long-time friend
and hunting buddy Harvey Stephens of Tehachapi.
The pair has seen four small bears in their first day of hunting with
Stephens' six Walker hounds, but while they were sitting on a road watching
two coyotes, they spotted a big bear beyond the coyotes and across a canyon.
The pair sprang into action immediately, leashing two dogs, and literally
running them across the canyon and putting them on the fresh track of the
big bear.
The pair ran back to the truck and tried to drive closer to the chase
and put the other four dogs on the ground so they could join the chase.
"We did a lot of running that day," said Patterson.
The dogs chased the big bear three hours, and he kept moving farther and
farther away from the roads, while the two hunters followed through the
rugged terrain, listening to the chorus of dogs. Three hours and six miles
later the big boar "bayed up on a hillside in a sage thicket," said
Patterson.
"He was a bigger, older bear, and he passed up a bunch of trees and
bayed up," said Patterson.
A single slug sent into the neck of the bear from Patterson's .30-30
Marlin rifle ended the hunt. The 400-pound class bear was seven-foot,
one-inch long from tip of nose to the top of its tail, and the boar had a
huge head that would later green score 21 1/8th points on the Boone and
Crockett scoring system. The minimum score for a bear to make the record
book is 20 4/8s. The score is base on the length and width of the bear's
cleaned and dried skull.
The big old cinnamon-colored boar also had three white diamonds on this
hide from the chest onto the belly, and Patterson is going to have the bruin
made into a life-size mount so he can show off those diamond blazes and the
bear's size.
Patterson's 400-pound, record book bear in big, but certainly not
uncommon for this region. There are bears in this weight-class taken each
hunting season. But in my files there are stories about at least four other
bears that have topped the 600-pound mark and two that have been right
around 700 pounds.
There is no place in the country that has bears as big.
No place.
(Now he IS talking about black bears, of course.)
