NJ Bear

[Mr VJP]

Well fellow hunters, this year  my main objective was to bag a bear in NJ.  I could’ve hunted for deer during the 6 day season down there in Hunterdon County where a lot of B&C class deer  are taken every year.  But I was lucky  enough to draw a bear tag.  I told my buddies  I would be in Northwest NJ instead, in Stokes State Forest on the opener and  the final day of the season, the only two days I could get out to hunt.

I know this story doesn’t qualify for the contest because bear are not allowed in it this year,  but I thought you all might like to hear the story.

The opener was cold  but still.  The temps were in the high  20’s and the sky was starting to lighten up.  My friend Nick (who also had a bear tag) and I, had a plan to wait until light before we went into the woods so we could see the bear if we pushed one out.

For years, the number of hunters in these woods has been declining and few deer get pushed  around anymore in there.  In the 60’s and 70’s you had trouble finding a place to park.  But this morning we counted only 12 cars on the two miles of road we  traveled to get to our spot.

There is a real  thick swampy area about 300 yards in, downhill from the road.  It always attracted deer when the hunting  started.  We took many good deer from  this spot over the years.  But without a  lot of hunting pressure in the last decade, we had not taken a deer here since  2001.  We did see a bear every now and  then though, so I started scouting this area while hunting to learn the habits  and locations of the bears in that area.  They had nothing to fear though because NJ would not allow bear hunting.

We learned a bear had a nest on the edge of the swamp.  It  would watch the area hunters approached from the road on the opener.  It learned over the years to sneak through  the swamp at dawn when hunters moved in and head deep into the woods for the  rest of the deer season.  Our plan was to  have me swing around the back of the swamp to head it off if it tried that this  morning.  My buddy Nick would still hunt  towards the nest area in hopes of getting a shot should it offer him one.

At daybreak, we  moved in.  Both of us were still hunting  and were fortunate enough that no other hunters were hunting near enough to spoil our plan.  When I got into  position, it was 7:30AM.  There was enough light to see 200 yards and the wind was in my favor.  To my left about 150 yards away, at the far end of the swamp, I could see deer slowly moving to my left, away from my friend, and looking back in his direction.  I raised my 12 gauge Savage bolt action slug gun and could see a decent rack on the head of the last big bodied deer in my Nikon 2x7 scope.  No shot was possible though as there were too many trees between us and the deer was moving.

After 30 minutes I  moved to my left to meet up with my buddy.  The bear did not appear that morning.  We hunted the rest of that opener, but without success.

We returned the following Saturday, the final day of the season to try the same plan.  The results were the same, except the deer we saw at daybreak were all does.  I called my buddy’s cell phone at 8:30AM when he didn’t show at the meeting spot and  told him to head back up to the truck so we could try something else.  He had decided to push another area just a little further north of my spot in hopes of driving something my way.

When we got to the  truck, it was very sunny and getting warm.  The ridge above the truck was very rocky and loaded with rhododendron.  Not an easy place to hunt,  but perfect for bear to hang out in.  I suggested we head uphill 200 yards and still hunt north along the ridge, into the wind, and see if we might get lucky before lunch.  Nick wasn’t impressed with the idea but agreed with a “Whatever” reply.  I had him stop 100 yards up the hill telling him to wait until I was 100 yards further up and then start moving north very slowly.  Once I was in position we started moving.  That is some real thick brush in there.  It is very rocky, with some big boulders too.  It is not easy to see far at all, so it’s best to move slowly.

At 9:30 AM I spotted a bear’s face in the bright sunlight, looking right at me, 75 yards away.  It was directly in my path but the  brush was obscuring it’s body and vitals.  I cranked the scope up to 7X and dropped into a prone position.  I could see the bears body now, and had a  real steady rest, but the brush left me an opening only about 6” wide to shoot  through.  At that moment, the bear turned it's head away from me and looked down hill.  I knew it was about to run so I put the cross hairs on it’s shoulder and squeezed the trigger.

I was amazed that I could see the slug strike the bear in the scope exactly where I was aiming as the gun recoiled.  The bear took a flying leap, as if it was diving into a lake, and landed behind a big boulder where I could  no longer see it.  I could see it didn’t run out from behind that boulder though.  Now I was starting to wonder if it was dead behind that rock, or lying  there in wait to attack whatever it was that was going to approach it.  I called to Nick, told him to come up to my position and back me up on this bear.

We approached it slowly and circled wide of the rock on the uphill side.  At first we couldn’t see it at all and were wondering where it went.  Then I noticed a thin crack of an opening under the boulder with a black area I thought was a hole in the ground.  As we got closer we  could see the bear's hind leg and then more of the body, but it had squeezed itself under this rock somewhat.  I told Nick to be ready and back me up as I poked the bear a number of times with my muzzle.  It never even twitched.

We took out two deer drag ropes, tied them to the hind leg we could see, and dragged it out from under that rock.  The more it started to show as we moved it out, the bigger it seemed to get.  We were giddy with excitement when we had it in the open.  Fortunately, we had a downhill drag from here and it only took a short while, with both of us working to slide it down to the truck on the dry leaves.

The bear had taken one shot to the heart from my Savage 210F fully rifled slug gun and it only went 10 yards.  It had a beautifully thick, jet black color to it’s fur with no white mark on the neck, and no rubbed areas at all.  When we got it to the check station, the rangers said it didn’t have any tags or tattoos, meaning  they had never captured this bear at anytime in it’s life.  It weighed 260 field dressed and approximately 300 in live weight.

After about 10 years of bear hunting, I finally made it happen.

P.S.  For all of the Blaze Orange lovers on here, I took off the b/o hat and vest for the pictures because it was warm by the time we finished dragging it down to the truck.

[wooly]

I don't know squat about bear hunting but I know a good bear when I see one!

Great story, congrats on a sucessful hunt!

[outdoorstom]

Nice job, beautiful bear!!