WE GOT ONE !! Thanks to All !!

[antlerrick]

Many thanks to all of you who gave us "greenie" bear hunters your tips to success. We learned a lot more about bear baiting and hunting this season in a state where not many bear hunters are lucky enough to harvest. My son arrowed his bear Sunday evening while hunting his bait alone. One deadly shot and the bear only traveled 30 yds. You guys are the best!!! Thanks again for your help!!

 

[MarvB]

Glad to see you patience paid off for ya Rick! Congrats to your son on his bear.

 

[Elkhunter]

A big congrats to your son.

 

[Idaho_Smiley]

Congradulations ,m thanks for showing the picture , so lets hear the story .

 

[antlerrick]

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

 

[Ten Bears]

Congrats all the way around.

Good Bear.

 

[Idaho_Smiley]

Thanks for the story.

 

[Nut]

Great story and pics

 

[Ithaca 37]

Congratulations and thanks for the great story!! See how beneficial it is to be a Hunt Talk member?!

 

[GilaMonster]

Hey, congratulations!
Great bear and great story!
Thanks for sharing it!

 

[maineiac]

Congrats to your son.

Now its your turn Dad.

 

[antlerrick]

Nope, it's not my turn! I had a turn a few years back with a bear that had been raiding cabins and coolers at Utah's Fishlake. The local
game warden had called me since I was the only local who had a bear permit up there, and asked me if I wanted to hunt early. It was 4:50 pm on July 8. I took off from work and headed up to the lake. My son, a friend and myself proceeded to hike up above the cabins that had been being bothered by the bear in hopes of running into him. We had just sat down to scope when I heard a stick break over in the pines. I listened really close and could hear something walking our way. I joked to them that it was the bear! and we all chuckled. Suddenly there his head popped out about 35 yds away. He stood there checking things out for about 5 minutes and we were lucky he didn't see or hear us. He finally started walking right down the same trail we had been on and I dumped him right there. We were back down to the main road by 7:30 and ran into the warder there. He had come up to set the trap to try and catch the bear, but we told him the trap wouldn't work cuz we already had the bear. He was quite surprised to see it in the back of the truck.
I got my turn for fun last year anyhow. I drew a LE Archery permit on the Monroe Mountain unit, one of the premier units in the state, and harvested a nice 350+ bull the last evening of the hunt. A photo of him is on my profile..Check him out!!
Anyway, it is nice to have this forum to get help from others, and the help we got was greatly appreciated!
If we can help anyone who wants to come this way, let us know...

 

[csutton7]

way to go and tell your son congrats--chris

 

[supersider34]

That is awesome. Glad to see another dead bear. Love them bears but love seeing the harvest of them even more. Great story and even more awesome to see it go as planned when not planned.LOL Tell your son congrats on a great bear.

 

[Quick Draw]

Congradulations to both of you...both have nice looking bears.
Quick Draw

 

[IdahoCritterGetter]

congrats!

 

[browtine]

Way to go! Great pics and story.