This bear was a tough old bastard.

After scouting for elk then antelope, my buddy decided to run his dogs in the afternoon for exercise as it was the first day of bear season. Not expecting to actually tree a bear I left my bow in camp. My buddy had a 7-30 waters contender under the seat.

Damn if we didn't tree a bear and I ran down the mountain for the contender, ran back up and shot the bear out of the tree.

He ran down hill and my buddy released the dogs chasing. I had to reload and grab my pack.

By the time I caught up the bear had grabbed one dog and rolling, the other was mauling it's ass and my buddy was yelling to shoot the bear as it was killing his dog.

I'm running, yelling for jack the rear dog to get off the bear, as I close jack releases, bandit gets away from the bear's jaws and I shoot it point blank behind it's ear. It rolls over and gives a death rattle.

Bandit is torn but ok, but to give insult to energy, we put it's head on a stump to take pictures and a swarm of bees come out and sting the dogs.

Sometimes it ain't about anything else but you and the animal... and once the decision to shoot is made you do what's needed.



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