Shoot2Kill
Active Member
Finally! After 3 years of trying to get a black bear, I finally sealed the deal on Thursday night. We had a great year baiting for them, but never did have a bear actually come into the bait while we were on stand. I was trying to get my wife a bear so we passed on 4 that were in the brush around our stand a couple weeks ago. She didn't feel comfortable shooting at one without a clear shot. (I kind of agreed with her..had she shot one and we couldn't recover it she would never hunt again.) We ran two bait sites pretty hard but early on during my vacation time they weren't getting hit very hard. I was invited to hunt a friends bait on the Kenai Peninsula that was getting pounded with bears every night. Well, I hunted one stand and he hunted his other stand. He saw black bears all night and took a 6 footer while I was frozen in my treestand with nothing but brown bears below me!! You can't shoot brown bears or grizzlies over bait so I just had to watch them fill thier bellies for 2 hours. I had a big boar come in and run off the sow and cub that came in first. At one point he was 10 feet from the base of my tree! I measured his tracks after he left...8 inches across the front pad. He was a monster.
After sitting with the grizzlies I came back north and hunted my own baits. At 10:40 Thursday night this guy was laying on his belly on a game trail leading to our stands eating a small pile of dog food we spilled going in to re-bait our sites about 10 days ago. I didn't have a good shot while he was laying down, so when he stood up and started to walk back out of the timber he gave me a perfect quartering away shot at 65 yards. A double lung shot anchored him to the ground after he made it 30 yards and let out a herrendous death moan. With one foot still on the ATV trail we take into our stands we found him easliy only minutes later. I couldn't be more happy with him. I sat on stand for 12 nights, made at least a dozen trips into our bait to put up stands, bait it, re-bait it, etc. He measured 72 inches across the front paws, and 69 from nose to tail...Just short of 6 feet. Not huge, but not small. He had a flawless hide with thick and really long hair that is going to make a fantastic life size mount!!
Recognize the hat!?!
We moved him from where we found him down to the top of a hill where we could take better pictures and have better light to skin him.
An easy haul with the Polaris!
I finally achieved one of my goals in Alaska..3 weeks before we leave! Next thing on the menu...big Iowa whitetails this fall!!!
I hope to finally meet some of you and have some great shed hunts!
After sitting with the grizzlies I came back north and hunted my own baits. At 10:40 Thursday night this guy was laying on his belly on a game trail leading to our stands eating a small pile of dog food we spilled going in to re-bait our sites about 10 days ago. I didn't have a good shot while he was laying down, so when he stood up and started to walk back out of the timber he gave me a perfect quartering away shot at 65 yards. A double lung shot anchored him to the ground after he made it 30 yards and let out a herrendous death moan. With one foot still on the ATV trail we take into our stands we found him easliy only minutes later. I couldn't be more happy with him. I sat on stand for 12 nights, made at least a dozen trips into our bait to put up stands, bait it, re-bait it, etc. He measured 72 inches across the front paws, and 69 from nose to tail...Just short of 6 feet. Not huge, but not small. He had a flawless hide with thick and really long hair that is going to make a fantastic life size mount!!
Recognize the hat!?!
We moved him from where we found him down to the top of a hill where we could take better pictures and have better light to skin him.
An easy haul with the Polaris!
I finally achieved one of my goals in Alaska..3 weeks before we leave! Next thing on the menu...big Iowa whitetails this fall!!!
I hope to finally meet some of you and have some great shed hunts!
