Fall Black Bear opening day this year, here's the story, enjoy...
My buddy Scott and I are working through a big clear-cut as dusk approaches. It's a beautiful summer evening and there's a lightning storm moving across the sky a few miles off to the west.
Scott's behind me a couple hundred yards and we're scanning down across the blackberry piles to the creek bed, 300yds below us. About a mile or so into our walk, I hear some brush moving about 200yds downhill and moments later, a nice blackie strolls into view. Jet black and medium in size. I drop to a knee and start prepping for a shot. Breathe, size him up in the scope, breathe some more, check the wind... then off to my right...Crack! I look over and there's another bear! This one's about 60yds, but he's tiny, just a little guy maybe 50lbs. Beautiful cinnamon coat but way to small, so I shift my attention back to bear #1. It's moved uphill and a little closer now, and has presented a perfect broadside. I put the crosshairs behind his shoulder and touch one off. My new .270 scores it's first hit and it's a good one. The bear bellows loudly and tumbles off into the brush. Of course the little cinnamon bolts for the treeline, but much to my surprise, a third bear busts out further downhill and heads for the creek, pauses and looks back at the ruckus my bear is making and then disappears into the creek bed.
This is where Scott joins the show. BOOM! I hear his .300mag bark and echo across the valley like the thunder from the lightning storm. I look back but can't see him as he's over the finger I had crossed a few minutes earlier. Then, another one from Scott's cannon. Still nothing to see. At this point, I'm not sure if he can see my bear or not, so I assume he's taking a follow on shot. But, I can still hear my bear moving in the brush, so I watch and wait for my own second shot, which comes a moment later. The bear comes out from behind some brush, limping badly. He tumbles over a snag. I want him down quickly, so I put another one in his shoulder, this one drops him. I'm thinking it's over, when a third shot came from over the hill, and 30 seconds later, another one. Now I'm confused. What the heck is going on over there? I figure I'd better go find out, so I walk back to where Scott was. I find him 300yds behind me and looking down at the creek. As I walk up to him he says: "I got a bear down!", pointing down hill. The huge grin on his face was priceless. "Me too!" I said, "Over there!" I'm sure I was sporting the same ridiculous grin. I give him a big handshake and clappped him on the shoulder.
By now, the sky is just starting to darken, and we know we have a lot of work to do, so we get busy extracting our bears. Although we didn't have to drag the bears terribly far, the going was tough, as we had to negotiate snags and berry piles the whole way. It was 2am by the time we got them down to the truck and back to the house, and 4am when we finally finished and hit the hay. A long, exhausting night, but what fun! This is one hunt I will not soon forget.
So, that's the story of the night I stumbled onto a "herd" of bears. Two bears, by two guys, in two minutes! I really think the pair were brothers. Both were about 150lbs, 4.5 feet nose to tail, and both living on the same hill. I have to give credit to the 150g Barnes TSX I used, the bullets performed flawlessly. One shot actually passed clean through the shoulder blade and exited the other side!
Here's a pic:
