Score is Giant Bear 1, Me 0.0

[fu2lmao]

Saturday I headed out into the woods and on my way in I notices some fresh deer tracks in and out of a known game trail.  I decided to park myself there hidden behind some fallen tree branches.  After sitting in the cold rain for 4 hrs I decided to move to a new location.  I had recently discovered some new trails which lead to the interior of my property and skirted around a large hill in the center of the property.  The trails were wet and I figured I get in there silently and get some deer to move as I had seen zilch all morning. 

 

About 15 yrds into my walk I run into this huge black bear.  When I say this guy was pushing past a conservative 500lbs I am not exaggerating.  He made a quick trot for about 50yrds into some heavy woods then slowed down a bit and began to walk towards me again.  I wasn't certain if he had seen me and was just looking around.  At this point, I crapped my pants thinking it this is one of those 1 in a million black bears that turns out not to be timid I am in trouble.  At about 60yrds he walks between a V-shaped maple that gave me about a 1ft by 1ft space directly to his chest.  I had nothing to lean on as it was a wide open trail and not possible to kneel down due to the elevation in terrain.  If I was gonna do it it was to be a free standing shot.  The rifle fires and this massive bear darts up the steep terrain.  Half way up the hill he slows down to a moderate trot and it is not clear to me if he was hit or not.  He hides behind some branches but still on the move in my direction on the side of the hill and I thought if I can get a shot he will come rolling down the hill as if he reaches the top there is no way I am getting up there in this rain.  I take a second shot but I knew the second shot was a poor one due to all the cover.  On the second shot he darts up the hill and when he reaches the very top he stops and looks at me for a minute.  If there was ever a more perfect shot that would have been it but like I said it wasn't a good day to climb that mountain so I let him go his way. 

 

Now this all happened in a matter of seconds to minutes.  After the excitement winds down I pull out my gps to turn it on as I still wasn't sure if my first shot was successful and I was going on a tracking mission in deeper woods.  Go figure my battery is dead.  I pull out my iphone and sure enough battery is on its way out.  I look around and see no blood so I head back to camp grab a fresh pair of batteries.  My neighbor had heard the shots and came to see if I needed help dragging something out of the woods.  We both head out and trace my steps.  We saw where the first bullet had hit a thick branch in the tree.  The second shot I had doubts on but we wanted to make sure this awesome animal was not injured by it.  So we treck up the steep hill slipping and sliding the whole way.  We follow his tracks and not a drop of blood for about a mile.  His tracks finally go into my neighbors swampy area and lost it from there.  While on this mission we ran into tons of deer.  A couple were quite nice but it was their lucky day as we were on a different mission.

 

I headed back home with a great story, bruised ego and sore muscles from tackling that terrain.  I hope to run into this guy again someday unless I have permanently scared this giant away.

[landtracdeerhunter]

Nice story and thanks for posting. Good luck on seeing again.