Demonicals Bear

[Demonical]

I shot this guy today at 7:55 AM. In a "secret spot".

In this "secret spot" there is a creek that is a bitch to cross with the ATVs... ya gotta winch every time. I was walking and I went to check out the west bank to see if there was a good crossing there.

Well just as I was walking up  I heard, "Grrnnnnk! Grrnnnnk! Grrnnnnk!" And I could hear an animal in the heavy tag alders along the creek. I stepped up to see what it was and right away I see this black bear. I could see the bear was not moving but was swatting at something. I thought the bear looked like it was caught in a snare...

Then I see the paw of another bear swipe at this guy and I realized that I had just happened on a boar breeding a sow!! The sounds I had heard was the actual mating!! And then the sow started to fight with the boar to push him away... business was done...

Well I knew immediately the bear had to be a dominant boar to be breeding sows in that area and I put the .338WM on him and made sure the sow was clear... she was actually still under him when I fired.

Immediately both bears ran. The sow went left, the boar went right. I was certain I would find him dead. In the area of the creek where the bears were, I could not cross it and it turns out they had actually been on the opposite side of the creek. So I detoured around to a place I could get across and went to look for my bear.
He had made it just up out of the creek bottom and expired on the hillside. Thank God he did not die in the damn bottom!!

You can see where my bullet (225gr Nosler Partition) hit him just in front of the left hind leg. It angled up to the "off" shoulder, right through the center of the liver, through the diaphragm and stopped somewhere in the heart/lung area. I didn't find it though.

I put a tape to this bear; Nose to tail 6'10"... maybe 7' even. Front paws are 6" across and the back paws are also 6" across and 9" long. I think the skull will go 20". The head and hide weighed 75lbs. I had to go buy XL garbage bags to handle the damn thing!

When I got him home and tried to square the hide I got 6'7" but I think all the fat and muscle on the hide has "pulled" the hide a bit. I believe the square will be closer to 6'10"-7'0" after it's fleshed.

FYI the 3 bottom pics are exactly as I found him after I shot him. Check out how thick this bear is through the chest, shoulder, neck etc...

I'll let anyone take a guess at the weight, I did not keep the meat.

 
Every measurement I took on this guy I will swear to. The skull measurement is conservative at 20", it might be bigger. Jeff thinks it could be 20 1/2".


Btw, it was my idea to go hunting up in that country where we went, but Jeff showed me this particular spot. He said this was the place to get a bear. Good bear guide!!

Jeff is a buddy and a damn good bear man!!

[Dusty Miller]

Nice bear, now, give us an honest appraisel of your shot placement.

[Demonical]

Nice bear, now, give us an honest appraisel of your shot placement.

I don't know what you're getting at Dusty.  The way the boar had turned away from the sow, I had a perfect shot to the vitals on the angle I fired at. Not my first big game animal ya' know... I knew where my bullet was going. I guess the results speak for themselves.

Dusty if you had seen the Hell Hole that creek bottom was, it was a damn lucky thing I shot the bear "so poorly". I would have hated for it to have gone down in there!

[Mik1]

Thats a good big bear but you could have at least given the guy a chance to finish his cigarette;)

[totallycustom]

You say you didnt keep the meat?  If not, why and what did you do with it?  I sure hope it was not wasted.  That would set a terrible example to the world of what hunters do, especially on this public message board.

-TC-

[Demonical]

Alberta does not require hunters to keep the meat from bears. I did not keep the meat.

Fire away...

[Matt in AK]

Spring black bear meat is surprisingly good.  Almost veal-like in tenderness since they've been cooped up in a den so long.  That said, my bears haven't been 7-footers and those big-uns may be a little tougher.

[Demonical]

For information, I have had several bears butchered and I agree bear meat is very good. I intended to keep the meat from a bear this spring, for sausage and burger. This bear was different due to the extreme size. I think if anyone looks at the size of the body they would agree with that!

I have skinned a lot of big game animals and I can usually skin a bull moose in 20-30 mins, but this bear took me nearly 2 hours; 1hr 50mins to be exact. I could not get over the effort required to handle this hog-fat bear. It seemed like I was never going to get done skinning the thing!

When I was finished it was all I could do to roll the carcass over. I was 30 miles from the nearest logging road... I was in very remote, wilderness and hunting alone on foot. I did not have the means to handle the great size.

So regretfully I chose to leave the carcass. My only consolation was the meat from this bear would feed the other bears in the valley.



FYI:
When I take this bear to the taxidermist I will insist that he does nothing that could shrink the skull. It is possible this is a record book bear.



Jim.

[totallycustom]

Legal or not, I think that your decision was unethical.  To just kill for the trophy is very unsportsmanslike it is the kind of act that anti-hunters use against us(hunters) to shut us down.  I think it is every hunters responsibility to not waste the animals we take from the forest.  Granted it was a large bear but you chose to take that animal you should have been prepared for the consequences of harvesting such a great trophy.  I do understand that sometimes the meat isn't always the best but it makes good sausage or jerky, imo. I dont mean to be insulting but it is just very upsetting to me to see such waste from fellow hunters.

-TC-

[Dusty Miller]

Lets see.  The bullet hit in front of the left real leg, angled across the body in the direction of the far shoulder, passed thru the liver and diaphram and came to rest "somewhere" in the heart/lung area.  Uh, that most emphatically is NOT anything close to the classic bear stopper shot I'm familiar with but you might want to check with somebody with more experience than me (but probably not!).  I'm curious, if he'd been pointing directly away from you would you have taken the shot anyway?  Also, I'm not at all sure about the ethics of shooting an animal of ANY size in an area where you know you can't pack out the meat.  I know it is terribly difficult to pass up a shot on a trophy animal but under the circumstances you'd have shown a lot more character if you'd taken a picture and let the bear go.

[Graybeard]

Legal or not, I think that your decision was unethical.

Ethics are NOT written in stone, they are personal. Your ethics belong to you and NO ONE ELSE. I'm getting REAL TIRED of the holier than thou attitudes around here. If it's legal it's ethical IF the person who's doing it thinks it's ethical.

YOU do not set the ethics for anyone on this site other than yourself. So speak ONLY for yourself in such matters. If trophy hunting is legal then it's fine. Some folks hunt for one reason while others for yet a different one. To say ONLY your reason is acceptable is worst than the anti's. At least they are against all of it not against all but their own way.

[Demonical]

I actually see little difference between the carcass of that bear feeding me or feeding the other wildlife in the area he was born and raised in and came to rule...

And I do not struggle with the decision.

Thanks for the opinions though, I respect the viewpoints whether they agree or disagree with what I did.

[tundragriz]

For me, I don't see any difference between a black bear, grizzly bear, cougar, wolf, coyote, fox, wolverine, lynx, or any similar animal.  I only take them for trophy and management purposes. I don't eat any of them.  Anymore, when I hunt black bear in Alaska I do it during the fall season (anytime after May 31) so legally I don't have to salvage the meat.

I don't worry about the anti's much in this regard, I am not going to convince someone that it is OK to shoot a deer because I will eat it.  Everyone understands that I don't have to kill a wild animal in order to put food on the table.  Sport hunting cannot be justified because we eat the animal.

I took 3 buffalo in Australia, around 6000 lb. of animals, the head is cut-off and the rest left behind.  This is the norm and custom in that area, so be it.

[Matt in AK]

Nice response, Demonical.  Hope the bear scores well.  Heck, if nothing else, I can guarantee a few more cubs will live until Summer without that cub-eater trying to bring momma into heat by munchin' on her young-uns :wink:

[Gregory]

And I do not struggle with the decision.

And you should not.  

Good job on the bear.

[Old Griz]

:cb2: I agree with Greg, Matt, tundragriz, et al. I only wish I had such an opportunity. I sure would hate to have to eat every coyote or pain-in-the-@$$ raccoon I ever shot. Now I hear that opossum ain't too bad, but I could never get it out of my mind that I wuz eatin' a giant rat.

Congratulations on your trophy! And thanks for the pictures.

[Demonical]

Nice response, Demonical.  Hope the bear scores well.  Heck, if nothing else, I can guarantee a few more cubs will live until Summer without that cub-eater trying to bring momma into heat by munchin' on her young-uns :wink:

Matt that is probably true.


Adult male black bears are also hell on moose calves. A big boar like that will eat a bunch of them every spring. Saskatchewan Fish & Wildlife did a study about calf moose mortality and found that 65% of all calf moose, in the Cumberland Delta region of Saskatchewan, were being killed every spring by those big boars. Check out the footage on www.huntingfootage.com of the big boar dragging off the calf moose. Kinda proves that nature is a harsh mistress!!


Now having said all that, of course I wasn't shooting the bear to protect cubs, calves etc...


Besides, like I said the area is very remote and the bears up there are only killed by OTHER BEARS or OLD AGE. Really. I have hunted moose there for years and I know, nobody goes up there for bear. It is just too far and too much work. In other words, there are more boars that big OR BIGGER up in that country.
I do know of a couple of bears that have been shot up there during the fall moose hunting season but those bears were just bears that were "incidental opportunities".


I have a second tag and if I get a chance I am going back up there again in the next week. Season closes June 15th.

[Jaydub in Wi]

Nice bear, demonical. You said you used a 338 win with a 225 gr nosler partition. Was it a handload or factory round? I have a 338 and was going to use that bullet when I get a tag in a year or 2. I hope to get one just like yours.

[Dusty Miller]

Well I'm sorry GB but it appears you and I will never reach an agreement on the issue of ethics.  From my point of view ethics are both personal and universal.  It isen't just my personal viewpoint that makes murder and incest immoral, those are universal values held by almost every culture on the earth.  It is also a universal value that living things not be destroyed and tossed away for somebody's sport.  Killing for killing sake is flat out immoral and you'll find that view in place almost everywhere there is a real civilisation.  I know that for well over a  hundred years sport hunters in Africa have killed big game and the meat has been given to the locals who need it.  When I shot a pig in Russia a local hunting club took the meat and gave it to some of their less fortunate friends and acquaintences.  This is my personal ethic and I've been around long enough to know that it is widely shared all over this planet.  It really blows me away that you say ethics are strictly personal, that's just flat not true.  ALL our values are influenced by he culture we live in.  I'm not talking here about the extremists on the far left and the far right, they'll always find a way to justify killing for killing sake.  However, at the center of almost every culture on this earth there is, among other things, a prohibition against waste in general and against senseless killing of living things in particular.

[Demonical]

Nice bear, demonical. You said you used a 338 win with a 225 gr nosler partition. Was it a handload or factory round? I have a 338 and was going to use that bullet when I get a tag in a year or 2. I hope to get one just like yours.

Handload.


67grs IMR-4350, Magnum primers, Federal cases, through the Chrony avg MV = 2800fps.

[RemingtonMagnum]

I enjoyed your pictures and sharing the information. Please keep sharing. I would venture to make the guess that more bears are left to the wild animals to eat the meat than man. May all his cubs be as large as he is one day.

Don Jackson Remington Magnum/Ultramag

[Graybeard]

It isen't just my personal viewpoint that makes murder and incest immoral, those are universal values held by almost every culture on the earth.

Universal? No not really but nearly so. However it's LAW not ethics that guides here. In Africa and in all Muslim nations it's neither illegal or an ethics violation it seems. So it's not really so universal as you'd have us believe.

It is also a universal value that living things not be destroyed and tossed away for somebody's sport. Killing for killing sake is flat out immoral and you'll find that view in place almost everywhere there is a real civilisation.

Sorry but I'm gonna hafta raise the BS Flag on ya on this one. You are just flat wrong and know it.

If you get mice in your home do you:

a. welcome them with open arms and share your food and home with them?

b. Kill and eat them?

C. Kill and toss them?

Don't lie to us, be honest, which do you do? I'm thinking if you say A. I'm not gonna believe you. If you say B. I'm for sure not gonna believe you. IF you say C. then you are a hypocrite. That's killing for killing sake is it not?

Do you eat the flies and mosquitos you kill? Or do you just let them be and let them do as they wish? What about the bugs eating up your flowers or veggies?

What's the difference?

Sorry but there is just NOT a universal feeling of ya gotta eat it if you kill it. You might feel that way but the MAJORITY do not.

[victorcharlie]

To much animal planet I suppose.

Heck....even if it's legal some refuse to believe it......

So, I guess that not only do you have to eat part of it you have to eat all of it.......toe nails included?

All of us must clean our plates each and every meal and never throw any leftovers away...........remember....there are starving children in China who would love to have what you throw away.........

I agree with you GB.......we're on the same page on this one for sure!

[Demonical]

Nice bear, demonical. You said you used a 338 win with a 225 gr nosler partition. Was it a handload or factory round? I have a 338 and was going to use that bullet when I get a tag in a year or 2. I hope to get one just like yours.

Handload.


67grs IMR-4350, Magnum primers, Federal cases, through the Chrony avg MV = 2800fps.

Jaydub I think there are several good bullets available for the .338WM. Both the 225gr & 250gr Nosler Partitions; 250gr Hornady RN Interlock; 250gr Speer Grand Slam as well as the various Barnes X Bullets. If you can afford the Beartooth or the Swift A Frame those are also great.

Pretty hard to beat the Noslers though. Dollar for dollar it is the best value out there!

Kinda funny thing, for years I have always figured a .30-06 with 180gr bullet would be perfectly adequate for black bear, but after shooting this brute I am damn glad I was not carrying a .30-06 (or smaller).  :eek:


Hey I wish you success.  

[Jimi]

It is interesting that D. preaches about how wrong it is to shoot at longer ranges, presumably because it's "it's shooting, not hunting" and because of the higher risk of injuring the game. So here we see him shooting point blank at:

1) a mating animal... hopefully he completed the act as D. says he did, but there really isn't a way to know, is there? And in any event, whatever you call that situation, it sure isn't "sporting." Now, if he were a meat hunter I could forgive it... but that's not the case either;

2) the bear without having a good shot.

Thankfully the bullet found its way to some vitals so I guess one can be Machavellian about it, but I've never heard anyone brag about taking a poor shot just because that was the shot presented. Going back to D.'s previous arguments I would have expected him to demonstrate that superior hunting skill and stalk his way into a better position for a proper shot. I mean, what a great opportunity for a true hunt on a monster black bear!

But hey, the bear's dead so what in the world, right?

And it is a beauty. No question of that.

[Demonical]

Preach? I do not preach.

Opinion? I will not shy away from expressing my opinion.

Lie? I am not going to embellish this story to make you or any other bleeding hearts happy.

Jimi that reference to my criticism of long range shooting, Re: Sourdough's .338-378 for wolves and caribou; point taken.
I stand by a dislike of the idea; I give Sourdough the benefit of the doubt and I have left that discussion.

FYI, I was probably about 35 yds when I shot this bear; give or take 5 yards, but there was no need to stalk closer. I plan on going up there Tuesday. I am interested in reviewing the whole situation; shot distance etc... I'll let you know.

I did admit that I was not aware this bear was so big, when I took the shot. My choice of caliber and bullet weight did help immensely in this situation. I subscribe to the Elmer Keith idea of using a heavy caliber/bullet for the game I am hunting. But as for a poor shot, that is BS. I am no novice and I know the shot angles to reach the vitals, so let's put that stupid point to bed alright!?

And yes it is a helluva bear, but all the credit for that fact lies with his bloodline.



Jim.

[Old Griz]

:cb2: Now children . . . Everybody play nice, or Uncle Graybeard is gonna get mad and make us clean his guns all weekend long. Once we're through with that, he'll make us wash his dogs. So please, remember where you are and behave.  :bye:

[Demonical]

AAAARRRRGH!!!!!! I did indeed screw up!  I was in such a hurry to get to the action scenes that I skipped over much of the introduction. SO, what happend was that the guide ALLOWED a second hunter to stick a bear while a wounded bear was in the area. I'm not sure this is a question of ethics as much as it is a question of intelligence!! Keep in mind that I have absolutely NO (as in "zilch") experience hunting bears but I'd be really jittery going after a second bear if a fellow hunter has wounded one in the area I was hunting.

[Dusty Miller]

Mice?  How in the name of heaven did our discussion degenerate to disposing of RODENTS??   :roll:

[Dusty Miller]

Demonical, you will notice in my original post that I suggested you find somebody with more bear hunting experience than I. BTW, I see that you went to the trouble of looking up one of my old posts, that makes me think I've  hit a sore spot.  However this discussion is not about bear hunting per se but rather about the ethics of leaving an edible carcass in the woods, rodents excepted!!