When you actually see one dead on the ground and are able to absorb the magnitude of what your seeing, then you lift up a front leg and see the paw and the claws, with the giant head laying there. That moment sticks with you forever. How you carry on with the career path and the choices you make, might not be the same as the moment before you had this experience!
This is the same bear I posted with me wearing my infamous blue Patagonia underwear ( I worked up a sweat playing cat and mouse with him in the pucker brush) He had been wounded and charged from under 20 feet when I finally caught up with him. And the 30-06 obviously worked
And the comment about many guides not being gun people is quite true. Most "learn" from the guide they apprenticed under and, like so many here, when they see a bear get away wounded come to the conclusion that a bigger rifle is needed or that the bullet was at fault. There is a Master guide in Alaska, who has even won the Weartherby award, who claims that a 375 is required even for black bears
One of my favorite Finn Aagaard stories is when one of my clients came back to camp after loosing a bear and claiming that he had hit it "on the point of the shoulder" with his 338 and 250 gr Partitions. Finn commented that he was sorry that the hunter had lost the bear but that if he had actually hit it on the shoulder with a 250 gr Partition that it wouldn't have been lost!
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