Search the Community

Stay tuned (updated) Thanks guys for your patience, this was a tough pack out last night. Ended up getting done at 3am. I am not the greatest at writing up a story but I will try my best. First off I wanted to thank my buddy Chad for pushing me and giving me hope that we would find this bear. Also its great to have friends that you can call at the last minute and have them drive out to where your at willing to help pack out all the meat. Thank you Brian, Rob and Tommy for showing up last night so quickly and saving me. It was a hot hunt! My buddy Chad and I have been talking about this hunt since last year. I was able to get a few days off work and we headed up Thursday afternoon to a spot that generally holds bear. We glassed these canyons and did not see any bears in the pears. After making camp at another spot, we found some sign so decided to setting in around this area on Friday. Well with still not a lot of luck we ended up in the first spot we started at on Thursday. We made the hike in that Saturday evening just over a mile to this glassing area. About 1730 I started glassing the furthest canyon away telling my self it would suck if there was a bear over there because it was 2 canyons away. I ended up glassing the whole are real quick just to make sure there was nothing black that stood out. Still nothing so I went back glassing that furthest canyon away and caught something brown going behind a juniper tree. At first I was thinking it was a elk because of the color so I kept my eye on it for the next few seconds and long behold this nice cinnamon bear came walking out. I got really excited and called my buddy Chad over. We ended ranging him at 1500 yards, and my heart sank realizing that this was going to be impossible getting over there in time before the bear disappears. Chad imeaditley started ranging the next canyon of saying I could close the gap in half if I got over there. I tried talking Chad in going over because I was not thinking I would be able to make it over in time, but Chad said "no" your going so GO GO GO! So I grabbed my gear and headed over onto the next canyon ridge and ran into a heard of javalina in the middle of mansinta wait high, ugggg I thought I was going to get bit as they ran all around me. They finally took of and I tried to calm myself down as my heart was pounding out of tiredness and excitement all at one time. I found the bear again and range him at 900 yards. I dialed my gun in, shot and missed a little to the left due to the crosswind I did not compensate for. The bear moved out of sight and I thought the hunt was over. As I turned around to find my buddy Chad, he called me and turn around, the bear is about 400 yards away on the bottom of the canyon. As I turned around, I could not believe my eyes, there he was staring in my direction 378 yards away. I quickly dialed my gun in and made the shot. I heard the thump that typically means I had hit him I saw him roll/fall/run down hill out of sight. Chad and I hiked over to this canyon and started looking for my bear not knowing if was still alive or not. We started high looking for blood and then dropping down into the wash with no luck. By this time it was dark and I was nervous about a bear jumping out at us down in this canyon all ticked off. As we continued down this wash in the bottom of this pitch black canyon that was over grown with trees and brush I spotted the bear laying on his side on the opposite side from where he was shot. We both became excited and Chad threw a rock at him to make sure he was dead. I picked up anther rock ( much bigger than Chads) and threw it to make double sure. We noticed a large trail of blood on the other side and realized he was done. It was a perfect shot, dead center in the chest. After 2 pack out trips we where back at our vehicles around 3am after calling a few buddies to help pack it out. Just the cape seemed like it weighed over 100lbs easy. ( maybe exaggerating a little as I literally was climbing out of the canyons on my hands and knees) Toughest packout by far! Apologize for the bad pics, it was late. The bear pic with his tongue out was my fault. I did not realize it when the pic was taken.