Saw a black bear today

[Spanky]

Took the little guy out this afternoon to do some stump shootin' with his BB gun and I had my versa 22. We were walking along one of the 4 wheeler trails shootin' pine cones and such when we came around a bend in the trail and there stood a young black bear. It was probably about 120-150 lbs. It was just standing there beside the trail looking at us. I told little John to be still and told the bear to "get". It looked at us for a couple seconds and took a couple bounds away from us. It stopped and looked at us again and I yelled at it again. It took off down over the hill out of sight. I looked at little John and said "what did you think of that buddy"? The kid had a smile that you couldn't pry off his face. He said that was the first time he had ever seen a real bear in the woods and it was "awesome" It was only my 2nd time seeing a bear in the wild so I think it was pretty "awesome" too.



Spanky

[streak]

Special moments like that are always great and the kid will never forget it!!
I was up in Alaska the first time I saw a black bear in the wild. My oldest son and I had stopped at a spot near Montana Creek and I had walked up to a dirt road that we had to cross to get to the crreek My son was locking up the truck and I had already walked up to the road and stopped. I happen to look down the road and saw what I thought was a black lab.  Then I saw it turn a it was a black bear and my son showed up just in time to see it. I thought it was a small but my son said that here in the woods that the size is deceiving. The bear went out of site into the woods but we saw its tracks along the creek and they were big!
A few years later while caribou hunting in Alaska with my son I saw my first brown bear, and that was a big bear!!!

[gcrank1]

Yeah! Hey!
Now you be part of the 'bear clan'.

[gendoc]

yep, thats priceless guys....
we don't have many bears around here, and the ones we do have are the small "honey bears"
full grown don't get but around 80-100lbs if that. and they don't defend themselves much either.
dam kiyotes been kill'n a lot of them.... i've been tryn my best to slow the kiyote population down
but it seems like i aint put a dent in them. i see between 10-20 every evening, and sometimes i pick 1 or 2
out if i'm quick before they hit the thicks.

50 years ago, there were more honey bears than kiyotes by far !!!