About 15 years ago, i realized that i was forgetting the dates of some of my more memorable hunts. So, i started a word doc that recounted the stories of my hunting and inserted pictures from the hunts. I update every year and read through the now 54 page 70 MB document. As it turns out, i have had a great time hunting...go figure. One story almost always gives me goose bumps.
Short version: My 13yr old shot a bear that measured 18 4/8 with a 9.3X62.
Longer version: He's a little competitive with his older brother and thought he had to have a bear since his brother didnt have one. But, bear hunting can be a low percentage hunt so keeping him motivated for days took all the calmness and patience i could muster. 3 days into the hunt, a bow hunter (a very kind bow hunter) gave us a tip that a bear was hitting a gut pile about an hour drive from where we were. In fact, there were two and all he asked is that we didn't shoot the blonde as he had a bear licenses. We broke camp and headed out. We didn't arrive until late afternoon. We met the bow hunter at his camp who showed us basically where to go...just below timberline. Being late and looking at a climb, i dumped everything out of the pack except the absolute necessities and off we went. It took a while to climb and get into a good prone supported position below the pile. Once there, it started to rain and of course, we didn't have any rain gear. Laying there now with cold rain soaking us, my son began to shiver and finally said "dad, im cold, can we go". I convinced him that the bear would come, we just had to wait. This happened two more times and after a total of 40 min, he had enough. I had to do something to get him to stick it out till dark. So, i decided to climb above the gut pile which would take 20 min but would warm us up. From the new spot, best we could do was a sitting position. After only 15 min of waiting, the bear showed up 200yds below us...almost where we were before. He was using a Savage 99 in 308 Win that i downloaded a little to reduce recoil for him. It was zeroed at 100 (the only distance we shot it before the season) which was also our self imposed max range. I had the 9.3 which was zeroed at 200 (I had a bear license as well). He asked if he could shoot and i said "no, it's too far". Then he asked if he could use mine and i said, "no, the recoil is too heavy, it's likely to really hurt you". While we are talking, the bear moved back into the woods and the disappointment fell over my son like a coup-de-gras to the cold rain. I again had to convince him to be patient, that bear really wants to get at that gut pile which was only 40 yds below us. After thinking about the past 3 days, the last 2 hours, and knowing that this was as good a chance at a bear as you could get, i decided (convinced myself) to let him use the 9.3...hoping that from a sitting position over crossed sticks, he would roll with the recoil. Yeah, what dad gets it right every time...i immediately started working the story i was going to tell his mom. Anyway, with light quickly fading i myself began to doubt if the bear would show up in time and knew what a bitter, cold, wet, defeated and long drive home it would be as this was our last day. Then i saw the bear step back out at the same place 200yds away. As i pointed it out to my son, he asked if he could shoot it. I said only if it stops and is broadside and i continued to coach him in being very, very certain the crosshairs were steady and exactly where he wanted the bullet to go and to be very "BOOM!!!", he apparently didn't need to hear the rest of the story. I looked to see the bear spinning in circles and rolling and knew it was a good shot then I realized I needed to see how much damage he incurred. When I looked at him, it almost brought tears to my eyes, in fact even as I write this im getting "misty". He had the biggest smile conveying the most excitement i have ever seen on him and no blood. He said he never felt the gun but his ears were ringing a little and then proceeded to thank me profusely for talking him into waiting. I doubt he will ever thank me like that again. We didn't get home until 4:30 AM and of course, i didn't have a camera with me on the side of the hill; it didn't make the weight cut. The picture is after it was skinned and everything packed back to the Jeep. Like i said, a long story but one that gets me every time.
