Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game CO Bear Opener

Today was the opening day of the CO bear season and I had a special limited tag in my pocket for the Bosque de Oso State Wildlife Area. This is an area they manage for trophy animals so it takes a lot of preference points to draw. I burned 14 points for my tag. I have been doing a lot of scouting and found several areas with a lot of bear sign. I decided to focus on Leon Canyon and at 4:30 a.m. I was making my way back. This area has a lot of gas wells so there are plenty of roads but you can't drive them, walk or horseback is the only way to hunt it. It is an hour and a half walk from the parking area to where I wanted to sit and I wanted to be in place before first light.

Everybody knows that when it comes to hunting and fishing things don't always go as planned, but today it worked our perfectly. 20 min after first light this big fellow stepped into an opening in the oak brush.


I was sitting on a hillside by a gas well that gave a good view of 3 different hillsides. The shot was about 250 yards at a sharp downhill angle. I was shooting a T/C Compass in 308 Win that by wife bought me for Christmas last year and it was loaded up with handloads using a 130 gr Barnes TTSX bullet. The bullet hit exactly where I aimed and the bear dropped to the shot for an instant kill. I was sitting where the yellow star is and the bear was at the red star.


This is magnificent country and this was the view from the kill site looking west to the hill I was sitting on. Those are the Sangre de Christo mountains in the background


I spent the rest of the day getting the bear taken care of and skinned. I really wanted to do some fishing but the meat care took precedent so I am back in Amarillo with 2 coolers full of meat and cooler full of skin filled with ice so I can work on it tomorrow.


Cheers Y'All. Life is good!