Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Alberta Spring Black Bear Hunt

Congratulations!

Great post I love all the detail you included. Thanks for posting.

Great story and photos Doc. I'm glad Peace country treated you well.

Excellent story and pics Doc, congratulations.

Loved the story. Thanks

Excellent account - thanks for sharing!
And congrats on a couple of gorgeous bears.

I recently booked a wolf hunt for that neck of the woods in late January.

Excellent write-up, made me miss my spring bear hunting adventures. Those big ones around 7' are few and far between, cherish the memory.

Great read and pics. Thanks for posting it.

Good stuff Doc, congrats on two fine bears and thanks also for taking us all along on your adventure

Veddy nice writing and shooting.
Enjoyed the tale immensely.

I went goose hunting out of McLennen not long ago.....
Great country.

Great write up, it made me feel as if I was sitting next to you in the stand!

That was a good one. Unfortunately, the PB pics don't show up now.

Okay, folks... looks like I need to reload the images. I just joined imgur and I'm gonna try this first test image of the Peace River Country farmland...

All righty, then! Looks like we've got us a pic hosting site again!

So, I'll repost the pics that were in the original post. If/when I get enough time, I'll copy and paste the text from the OP into this window so it all hangs together again.

Yours truly celebrating my first black bear in nearly 40 years, with a fine cigar. Note the fine deer-head furniture tacks on the Savage 99's stock.



Recently deceased "chevron chested" black bear with rifle for scale. Bear squared out less than an inch under 7 feet.



Morning after shot. Note the "dished-out" appearance of the top of the skull. The eyes appear small and close together, the ears far apart. Marks of a big bear.



Color phase bear.



Note that rifle looks a lot bigger next to this bear than it did on the big black boar. This cinnamon bear was much smaller than the first brute.

Juvenile color phase bear photographed the same night as the big chevron bear succumbed to my 250-gr bullet. I watched this little guy working the bait for a good 30 minutes, and when he sauntered off he seemed so pleased with himself I swear he should have been whistling, or perhaps humming a Pooh-bear hum...



Barry works the quad up a submerged trail to get to the bait stand. The bottoms of these submerged areas are solid ice, which doesn't thaw out until July. The muskeg I walked over as described in the OP is immediately to the right of this photo.



This is the tree stand I shot the big black boar from. It's also the tree that the juvenile black bear scampered up behind me the night before.



Barry and Cody skinning out my cinnamon phase bear. We dumped the carcass at about noon at the edge of a large woodlot.



Carcass of the cinnamon bear that same evening, after the wolves had started on him.

This is all that remained of the carcass the following morning, and it had been dragged a good 40 yards into the woods. Northern wolves make short work of a carcass.



Barry and Cody skinning out the big black boar.



The "little" bear I saw on my first evening of the hunt.



A closer look at the old Savage, the Weaver K-series scope, and the tacky deerhead tacks that I intend to leave just as they are.

I just ran across this thread. Special thanks for taking the time and trouble to re-post all those pictures. They added a lot to the story.

Jim

Well done and well told!

Having had the unforgettable experience of dropping through a hole in floating muskeg, I don't ever want to do that again! Few things in this world scare me, but walking across that stuff is right near the top of the list.

I wish all of the folks on the 'Fire could hunt bears in that environment. The sights, sounds, and smells of the Far North woods are unique and unforgettable.

Ed