[ramonmark]

Originally Posted by chuck

Go bear hunting! Lol. But that said, I have the utmost respect and admiration for the institution of marriage. Don’t tax a mother and spouse that is giving more of herself than she should. :-)

Well I did it. I ended up taking yesterday off of work, that way I wouldn’t interfere with the wife’s weekend plans. And had an amazing day in the stand! Just great! I decided to sit all day in the stand since it was my last day before the season ended. I was in the stand at 6am and climbed out at 11pm in complete darkness, skip to the end if you want to know why so late. If you don’t want to read the whole events skip to the second last paragraph.
Not too much happened until noon then, Then I had some really cool experiences. From 12-4pm was just neat, I had 5 different bears come in.

Around noon I had 2 youth/young adult black bears come into the stand area, chasing each other. All of I sudden and quite literally out of nowhere I could hear what sounded like barking, growling and yelping and it was loud and getting louder as the bushes crashed towards my right. At about 20 yards just before the opening where I was sitting a bear ran up a massive spruce tree with another hot on its tail! There was one tree between me and them so it was a little hard to make out but I got great video footage. The first one ran up the tree at least double the height I was at, I'm sitting around 25 feet off the ground. I was surprised the little branches at the top could support its weight. It was walking around up there like I'd expect a cat to do. It appeared very comfortable. For about 45 mins it stayed up there and the other stay about 10 feet off the ground, it looked like the one on the bottom was just hanging out to keep the other one stuck at the top. Eventually the one at the top started to climbed down slowly and the one at the bottom started to climb up to meet it so I started to record. I got a 3-4 mins video of they meeting and making some pretty neat grunts and groans, then it occurred to me that I should probably turn off the phone and weapon up in case they come down and run up my tree next. I have my stick bow in one hand and my phone in the other, not ideal. I turned off the camera and hung up my bow. I then took out the OC and just as I did that tree went WILD! It started to shake something fierce, and the sounds coming from that tree were out of this world. The two bears started to get into it about 20 feet off the ground and literally tumbled all the way down in a black ball of fury, breaking a swath of branches all the way down. They fell to the ground with a thud in a tight black ball of biting and yelping, and didn't stop! They were instantly on a run directly the way the came from. I could hear moans and trees breaking as they made there way out of my life until they were too far away to hear anymore. Man did that get the heart pumping!

Then about 15 mins later around 1pm. A different youth bear, maybe 200 lbs strolled in and as he entered the opening he stopped and winded me. He's not the one I'm after so I didn't even reach for the bow. He sniffed the wind then walked straight towards my free, usually they tuck there head and circle the area a few times and either jet or commit. So this was weird. He walks directly to my tree and starts to climb it slowly. The weirdest part was he was using my tree pegs which was funny to see how clumsy he was. I was shocked! When he was about 10 feet up I stood up aggressively and pointed at him like I was scolding my dog, haha. It was just a nervous reaction to be honest. In the shock I didn’t even say anything. I just stood there pointing at him in silence and he just stopped and stared back. He blinked, I blinked, and that went back and forth for about 30 seconds which seemed like an eternity. I wanted to quickly grab my OC from my thigh rig but I was afraid that if I made any quick movements he might move quickly as well, either up or down. And I wasn’t making that bet. Especially after I just witnessed how fast a bear can climb a tree.

The whole time it was like were had a whole telepathic conversation. It was like this;

Me – NO!

Bear- Come one bro, I won’t do anything.

Me-You take one more step I will spray you in the frickin face!

Bear-You’ll spray me hey? With what?

Me-Oh crap!

Bear-I bet you I’m faster than you are, lets make a bet. You go for the spray and I’ll climb up to you. Deal?

Me-go ahead, you might make it up here as I get the spray out, but I can promise you we’ll both get sprayed. And I’ve been sprayed A LOT of times with OC and can handle it. Can you say the same

Bear-Blink Blink

Me-Blink Blink

Bear-ok bro, you’re boring anyways. I’m going to climb down now.

Me-good, do it!

Bear- I will!

Me-then do it!

Bear-I will when I want to!

Me-good.

Bear-‘starts to climbs down’

Me-bye.

Bear- you didn’t say anything about staying on the ground and lay under your tree.

And that’s exactly what he did. As the bear got to the bottom I pulled my OC and then got out my camera to record our interaction. He stuck around couple mins looking up at me, sitting leaning against the tree, laying on the ground like a loyal dog, then walked off. And I swear I could hear him say ‘See you later by your truck bro, how well if your night vision’?

So that happens. I eat a sandwich in the stand and start to read a book. Around 3 pm I hear a couple branches snap so pull out the phone to record. If you haven’t already figured it out I really like to share these experiences with others. Camera on, one second year bear/cub rolls in and in strolls another right behind it. There body language looked like they weren’t with each other, or maybe they were but just doing what siblings sometimes do when mom isn’t around. This is all hind sight tho. The one in the back gets too close to the one in the front and the one in the front of the line turns and lunges at the one in the back with teeth and claws out. The one in the back does some evasive/matrix maneuvers and avoids the attack and decides to show his size my standing next to small tree and shake it, then lunges at the other bear again and immediately the chase is on! Once they started to bolt towards my general location I stopped recoding right now! With my now PTSD of my previous experiences with todays bear population and was thinking they’d run up my tree and poor old me would be stuck in the middle of a domestic sibling dispute. Long story short they screw off and out of my life. So I thought.

Nothing really happens from 4pm to 9pm. I tell myself that if my target boar doesn’t show up my 9pm I’m backing it in. As luck would have it at 8:58pm (I was counting down the minutes as I was getting pretty some sitting in my small stand) one cub strolls in. It eats bait. A few minutes later the other shows up and goes and eats bait as well. I’m like, ok, they’ve made up now. Wife texts a few minutes later “drive safe, see you soon”. I reply “two cubs just showed up, I don’t want to scare them off. I’ll let them fill there bellies as they need the food (oats and used fryer grease) and I’ll be home after that. See you soon. Boy was I wrong. Those little terds ate, and ate and ate some more. Finally at 10:30 (fifteen mins or so before shooting light is upon me) they start to walk off. I slowly start to pack up, experience has taught me to NEVER assume the hunt is over until the hunt is over! Either it’s too dark or you’re laying in bed thinking of your day.

As I start to unzip my pack slowly I hear a the two cubs who are about 30 yards away in the light bushes to my left run, and fast! I start to think, “did they scent my boar!?” I quickly grab my bow and nock and arrow. I squint to look thought the thick bush behind the barrels and I’m sure I can see something moving. It’s not dark out yet but in the thick timber it gets pretty dark that time of night and even in the day with overcast its pretty dark in the timber. Sure enough a big guy come out half circles the barrel and starts to eat. Perfect broadside. I’m convinced it my boar, and if it not he’s big enough. I rear back, pick my spot and let it rip. I watch as the arrow hits my spot and disappears out of sight. He runs off and I’m tracking him. He runs not 15 yards and I lose him. But not because he ran into the thick bush, it was the opposite. He ran to the lightly bushed scrub to my left, where the cubs were. I lose him with my sight but I hear a crash and a wicked blood curly moan. I was like, no way, where is he!? I can’t see him and I can see into the bush. Where is he? It’s now silent. I’m straining to listen to anything, a swig snap in the distance, breathing, anything. Nothing. As I’m squinting to where I last see him I realize even though it’s not too dark where I am in the stand the whole floor of the forest where I last saw him is as black as coal. If he were there I wouldn’t even see him, right? I pull out the flashlight and as soon as I turn it on, there he is!

Done deal, he was piled up in a ball on the moss floor not even 30 yards from me! I turn off the light and wait the typical 45 mins and make my way over to him in the dark. When I get there I realize right away he had some ground shrinkage, he wasn’t the big one I was guessing in the mid 400’s but he’s still a magnificent animal. He was around 6 feet in length maybe a little longer and around 300-325lbs. I could barely roll his dead weight over. So as a good husband I text the wife, tell her I’m ok just going to be late. Then text the boss and said I’ll be an hour late for work in the am. And get to work. It was so dark by the time I got to him and since I couldn’t move him without help I actually skinned and deboned him where he lay. No pictures either, it was work time and to dark for a selfie anyways. I make 3 trips with my pack and game bags to the truck which was only 5-600 yards away. On my way home drop the skin off at a friends who wants to try his hand at tanning. I already got my 1st bear of the spring and don’t really want to do all the work again tanning anyways. I get home at 2pm, after hanging my clothes to dry out, have a quick shower and in bed by 3pm. I must laid there playing everything that happened back in my head for at least an hour, I can’t be certain. Although, one thing I can be certain of was I do remember falling asleep with a smile I don’t have any pics of the hunt or bear but I do have videos of the earlier experiences and will try to post them if I can figure out how. I do have a pic of the used arrow in the quiver though. It was right where I shot the bear sticking in the ground in a straight line from the stand.

This hunt was done with my other trad bow. A 58” cari-bow wolverine. It’s a reflex/deflex long bow which pulls 58# at 28”. I was a using black eagle vintage arrow, with weighted inserts and topped with a razor hair popping sharp 200gr single bevel alien archery broad head. All in the arrow are 680gr, heavy and silent. Just the way I like’em

Happy hunting and I hope everyone is enjoying their time soaking in everything our beautiful mother nature has to offer.