Some of the Excalibur guys have seen this post already but here it is for the Graybeard gang.
This is my first Bear...gona be real hard to match this one again
The story goes like this.....
I left home sunday morning @ 3:00 am, drove thru to bufalo New York from west central Ohio. This took about 5 hrs. Border crossing was great no hassles at all. Hit the QEW and all was well. got hung up in traffic in toronto for awhile but made it out the north side on the 400 around 2:00 PM. I arived at BJ`s place (Archery Plus) about 4:00 and met with he and Brenda for a short visit ( Very Nice People ). Made my way on up to Ron Stinsons House and got settled in. Ron and Pete Allen run Bucklake outfitters, its located 18-20 km outside Huntsville Ontario.
For the next two mornings i would be running and baiting stand sites with Pete. I was real impressed when i found that every bait except one had been hit, and had been hit most every morning since mid august.
The evening of the 7th finally came around and i was in the stand and very excited, but as the evening came to an end nothing had shown up and i was a little disappointed but very opptomistic.
When we ran the baits the next day my stand had been hit as well as all the others so when the afternoon rolled around i was pumped again and ready to hunt.
I had a 1 mile atv ride back into the bush from the end of a road and about a 300 or 400 yrd walk down the side of a ridge and parallel to a huge bog. I couldnt wait as i settled into the stand, but again nothing came. Light was beginning to fade so i was digging in my pack for my head lamp and my gear rope, i thought i heard something up the ridge but dismissed it as a raven. Once i had the rope out i began attaching the rope when i heard the same noise only closer this time. I couldnt believe my eyes this time as from down wind and behind me i saw a bear approaching through the Maple saplings.
Funny how your mind begins to race with such a shot of adrenaline, all i could do was look directly behind the shoulder. I figured very quick that this must be a boar because it was alone and nothing following behind.
He circled around as i sat back down and slid the safety off on the tigerstocked exomag and prepared for the shot. He was slowly walking into the bait when at about 30 yrds he froze. Everything was cool up to that point, now my arms felt like lead and my heart was in my throat and Pounding so hard i thought he could hear it. He began walking again and every thing went into slow motion for me, at three feet from the bait he was quartering away, the dot in my scope had been glued to " the spot " when the bow made this sudden thump. All Hell broke loose, the bear lurched sideways snapping and gnashing his teeth at his side, the small maple trees were shaking violently as he bolted throught the bush behind the bait, after a short run a whole bunch of saplings were shaking in one spot for about 30 seconds, then all went still and quiet. I suddenly remembered that to live i needed to breath i had taken about half a breath when this bear let out the most intense noise i have ever heard. I couldnt finish the breath. This is unreal , it seemed to echo for ever and went on for what seemed like 5 minutes.
The first thing that ran through my mind is that i have to walk out and get to the atv, so i called Pete on the radio and told him i had one down. He told me to come out and pick him up and we could give it a short while to die.
It took forever to get out to Pete he asked if it was a nice bear, i told him you would have a hard time putting him in three barrels and Pete just laughed and told me he didnt think they made em quite that big.
We rode back in a while later and began looking for signs from the shot, we found nothing, no blood , no arrow, and no bear. I climbed back into the stand and realized in my excitement we had gone too far to the left of where the bear had run, once we had a better line we walked right to him. I will never forget what that bear looked like laying there, but even better was the look on Petes face, and the comment he made " you dont have a clue what you have just had happen do you ". I did by then but it didnt matter at that point i had a bear . Pete and i tried to get him on the 4 wheeler but we could only get his head and paws up to our knees. Pete called out got hold of Ron to get help, i rode out and picked them up, it took 5 men to get him on the atv . At 11:00 pm we made it out to the trail head and the rest of the gang was all waiting there, hand shakes and back slapping and lotsa smiles all round.
Man am i hooked on bear hunting and ready to go back next year....Anyone up for it!!!!!!!!!! give me PM we can definetly get it set up!!!!!!.
Mark
