08/18/2012 CA Archery Bear Hunt Story & Pictures

[bear402]

Our archery bear season opened Saturday August 18th.

After pre-scouting I knew where a good population of bears were hanging out in the local Sierra Mountains around the 6500 ' elevation mark.

I loaded up the Tundra and quad trailer Friday morning with 4 days of hunting supplies My quad and my hunting buddy Marc's Trail 90. I pulled the rig out of Bakersfield around 10:30 A.M.

An hour and thirty minutes later I was headed up the old forest service road towards our bear camp with Marc scheduled to meet up with me Friday evening.

2 miles and 50 minutes later I had eased the trailer up to the camp with only 2 broken ratchet straps on the trailer ! After off loading the 90 and my quad and setting up my limited camp arrangement, I jumped on gthe quad and rode the 4 miles of rough road up to take a quick look around for Saturday mornings opening hunt. Needless to say I was pleased with what I saw . The only tracks on the old dirt road were bear tracks and plenty of them. I saw mutltple tracks that were easily verifiably different bears along with a few piles of scat.

Marc showed up at camp around 6:30 Friday evening and set up his tent and camping arrangements before the sun set. We discussed the quick run I had made up the hill and the tracks and scat that I had seen. After an evening BS session we hit the sack around 10:00 P.M. with an alarm time of 4:15 A.M.

Morning came quickly and after slamming a quick cup of coffee and taking care of other business, we fired up our bikes in the dark and rode the 4 miles up the hill to the hunting area. Marc and I agrreed to a 10:30 A.M. radio check in and parted ways . I was going to hunt the lower part of the mountain, concentrating on the sugar pines and creek bottoms while Marc rode on up the mountain another mile to hunt the mansanita and berry patches.

After stashing my quad in the bush , I headed up the hill to an area that I have encountered and taken bears from in previos years . In still hunt mode I slowly worked my way up with the breeeze in my face, looking for sign as I went.

A half mile up the hill I found bear scat which I tested for freshness with my foot. ( That's an old bear hunters trick that ensures freshness and also makes a nice cover scent.)

Working on around the hill, within short order I came upon more scat where a nice saddle was formed by two ridges coming together with two steep ravines playing off the center of it. With lots of greeenery in them, I was sure that the ravines would lead down to small creek bottoms where the bears like to hang out on hot August days.

Well, I'd seen enough . It was time to plant my rearend for a little sit, to see if "MR Bear" might show up and hang around this obvious "hangout spot". I worked up the rocky ridge on the hill that I had come around to the saddle on, to try and get a higher point of view so's I could see as much of the area as possible. Finding a likely spot I peeled my Badlands sacrafice pack and my extra quiver of arrows off and set them down. I really couldn't find a comforatble rock to fit my south end so I moved up the hill another 10 yards where I found a reasonably shaped sittin rock to settle in on. After setting up I looked to my left and noticed a nice concave bear bed at the base of a large pine down below me. I thought to myself , "Don't think I will find a more likely spot than this one ", " I better sit here as ,long as I can stand it , cause this looks really realy Good !'

After getting set up around 7:00 A.M. I sat and listened to the pine squirrels , jays and falling pine cones for a couple of hours with no bear movement that I could pick up on. At 9: 00 the lack eating breakfast started to knaw on my belly a little , so I slipped the arrow off the arrow rest and put it back in the quiver and worked back down to my backpack . I rustled around in my pack pulled out a turkey sandwich , set my bow down and proceeded to chow down. Had that sandwich half eaten when I heard a twig snap off my left shoulder right behind me, I rubber necked my head around and to see what it was and there stood a bear 20 feet away eyeballin me and my sandwich. I'm thinking" oh crap, he sure caught me with my pants down", as I slowly set my sandwich aside and reached for my bow . That bear stood there and watched me put an arrow on the rest, hook up my release and slowly start to raise my bow. Just about then he got nervous and turned around and skidaddled around the trunk of a big pine and disappeared.

I'm thinking well, that's that, I was caught off guard and it isn't happening. I go ahead and stand up thinking I'll skip around that tree trunk and see if the bear stopped over there somewhere ." I take a couple of steps towards the tree and suddenly the bear pops out between two trees 15 yards above me . I'm already hooked up with my release and slowly come to full draw. I'm trying to settle the pin on a good vital shot and all that bear is showing me is head , neck and chest. As I contemplated the shot with hesitation, the bear decided he needed a little better view of that strange looking critter below him. He took another step and put his nose up in the breeze and sniffed a big Ol' sniff. That's all I needed to put the pin tight on the front leg for the slightly quartering to shot . The arrow smacked him instantly from 15 yards followed by him wheeling around and running back the way he had come from. I heard him run quickly around the hill and a weird kind of sound like he had jumped in the brush or something followed by dead silence.

I gave it a few minutes and listened for any other activity , but stiil nothing but silence. I pulled out my GPS and fired it up to set the coordinance of the shot. I strapped on my pack and extra arrow quiver and headed up the hill to where the bear had been standing. As my eyes search his escape route I spotted my arrow ten feet down the hill in a small depressin in the dirt. I went down to pick it up and as i did , I saw a nest of meat bees ( Yellow Jackets ) start coming to life and buzzing towards my face. Well my mamma didn't raise no fool , so I ran out of there licky split with just a few of the bees on my tail. They seemed satisfied with my retreat and started calming down a little as they buzzed around my arrow. I walked a circle around the nest and slipped in from below and grabbed my arrow and retreated again. Luckily none of those yellow jackets nailed me , cause from previous experience , I know that they can really ruin your day

Examination revealed that I had good blood on my arrow , but the broadhead was completely gone, snapped off at the ferrel, right at the insert. I went back up to the tree that the bear was standing by and saw a little chunk of meat on the bark. A closer look showed that my Wasp Boss was buried in the tree. The search for blood began and to my disappointment all I could find was a single splotch about the size of a nickel and nothing else . Searching carefully , I skirted around the bees and followed the trail away the direction the the bear ran. I still could find no blood sign , but as I cleared some brush there he lay. He had only made it about 40 feet down the trail before he dropped dead in his tracks.

Here is a picture of my boar as he lay followed by another with the The "Killer "Hoyt Element.

This is the entrance wound from the "Wasp Boss" 1 1/8" fixed head

The bear and I. The 3 fingers is a sign that I finally accomplished for the first time in my life what i call a "CA Trifecta" ( Two Bucks and a Bear in the same year with archery gear on public land in CA, DIY. )

After assymbling a make shift "drag" out of paracord and a nice pine limb for a T handle , I proceeded to drag the bear down hill to the quad. At 10:30 A.M. Marc and I made contact and as I told him I was dragging my bear to the quad he said that he also had killed a bear , but needed my assistance dragging it up to the road. After dropping and hiding my bear near the main road, I rode up the hill and hauled Marc's bear out on my quad on a old steep fire road.

Marc had watched two bears feeding in the tall berry patches from 6:30 A.M. until 8:00 A.M. with them being as close as 7 yards in the brush with no shot. Finally one of them broke out on the old fire road and presented a shot.

Here's Marc and his sow.

 

We hung and skinned out our bears , loaded up all the parts and pieces on my quad and made it back to camp around 4:00 P.M. We were a bit tuckered out so we spent the night . After loading every thing up we were Outa there early Sunday morning and headed home .

Here's a few more random Pictures of our bears.

It was a Good Hunt ! 8)

 

My bear on the Quad and Marc smiling !

My bear on the quad with Marc's in the background.

[Will K]

Very nice.

[ready2hunt]

Awesome pics and story...congrats on the great hunt!

[reganranch]

Great story and success.

[Mocha1545]

Congrats on the bears! Nice story and pictures. Enjoyed the read.

[trophyhnter]

Great story and congrats on your bear with stick and string! Thanks for sharing!

[kidso]

You have an uncanny ability to still hunt bears over there in CA. Great job!

[AZLance]

Great job, nice looking bears.

[bear402]

You have an uncanny ability to still hunt bears over there in CA. Great job!

 

Thanks, Ive been at it quite a few years .

 

I still Learn something new every year !

 

Thanks for the positive comments Guys . I appreciate It !

[bonecollector]

What an awesome hunt, congrats to both if you guys. Very nice write up also.

[Coues Kid]

Awesome job good looking bears you guys got.

[tjhunt2]

Congratulations on both your bears and thanks for a good story as well. You made it sound pretty easy but I know it wasn't.

 

TJ

[AZkiller]

Congrats! Great story, I wish that I had that ability. It sounds like it was a fun yet a little spookey hunt. I know I would have been freaked out!

[cvw789]

Nice job !

 

Cole

[WHT_MTNMAN]

That is awesome, I'm working on my own personal Trifecta so I can relate. Bull elk, Coues and Mulie with archery tackle. So far it seems the limiting factor is getting drawn for Elk the same year that I kill the other ones.

 

Great story and pictures well done.