A Girl and Her First Bear (Me!)
 

First off let me say I think this is a huge accomplishment for me, I'd never even thought about killing a bear... Unless it wanted to kill me lol! I had been to this area once before and saw a bear... It followed me and I shot twice to scare it away because I knew it was not bear season. I'm scared to death of bears for some reason... Anyways, I decided to go back and try deer hunting there again. I had only been seated (on the ground) about 30 mins or so when I heard something crashing through the laurels below me. I readied my 30/30 and waited, hoping it was the buck that had been rubbing every tree possible. When it stepped out I think my heart stopped beating, it was only 40 yards or so away and was definitely not the buck I'd been hoping for but instead what I thought was a HUGE bear lol. I clicked off my safety and took aim, knowing it was now bear season here in Northeast Tennessee. I aimed just behind its shoulder and squeezed the trigger. The boom of my gun echoed and the black bear ran back into the laurels. Mere seconds later I heard the most unforgettable sounds, what I later found out was its death moan. Keep in mind I didn't know this and was scared to death and thought I had missed and ticked the bear off... I probably sat there motionless and barely breathing for an hour until I finally got the nerve to check it out. I figured since I hadn't heard anything it must be dead or something. I got down to where the bear was and there wasn't any blood or anything so I looked into the laurels. Sure enough, there lay my bear which was alot smaller than I had previously thought lol! It was a sow, weighing around 200 lbs. Talk about a job dragging her outta there though! Man I was beat, had to call for backup to help me load her on the four-wheeler. When I dressed her out I found that I had made a perfect heart shot, quick clean kill. Some of my friends came over to check her out, then I took her to be processed. I'd heard bear meat was nasty, greasy, stringy... I found its quite delectable and tasty :). Going to try and figure out how to post a photo now... I'm new here by the way lol!

http://i1341.photobucket.com/albums/...ps67abb461.jpg

There's the address for pics, the rest of the album has some more and some of my deer... And my dogs lol

Good story... sounds like you got quite a surprise!

So, you must not need a specific bear tag to hunt bears in TN?

Congrats on your first bear. Cook it well, and enjoy.

nice story...congrats!!! looking forward to pics

Cool thanks for that bit of info, learn something new every day.

We don't even really have them around here, I'm pretty sure they would frown on hunting in the "Bear Country USA" park, lol.

Thanks guys! Yes it was a surprise lol. But I know where I live in TN your big game license includes deer, turkey, wild boar, and bear. No extra purchase necessary lol. We're allowed 1 bear, either sex as long as it's over 75 lbs and doesn't have cubs.

Congrats on your first bear. Thanks for sharing.

Congratulations girlshunt2! Thats was a nice story thanks for sharing it with us. As for bear meat. We usually keep the fact that it's tasty to ourselves.:wink:

Are you having a rug or something made?

ATB

Congratulations Girlshunt! Very cool story! It sounds like you did a superb good job of staying calm throughout the entire encounter. :cool2:

I am having it mounted in either a shoulder or 1/2 life mount... Can't make up my mind as to which though. I thought I'd have a rug made out of a larger bear if I ever get one lol


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Congratulations and way to go. Good story also.

Full Body, ive seen them and they are awesome

Must be nice. We have to buy a license for each animal, each season..... I have a $24 wild turkey in my freezer right now. And a $80 deer. And a $35 deer. I also shot a quail, which ran me $28. Oh and the $18 fur bearer that has taken two coons with. That barely covers the amount they were sold for. And the habitat stamp, waterfowl stamp, etc etc etc.

Oh well,....wouldn't trade it for a thing.

I have $80 moose points, $50 elk points, and $30 antelope points for Wyoming each year and don't get to shoot anything with preference points. Oly a few more years and I can cash in for an antelope.

What exactly is this point system? It sounds alien to me lol! I've honestly never heard of that... Here we buy a resident combo hunt/fish license at$28 which I'm pretty sure covers all small game and any fish but trout which we have to buy a trout stamp for at $18. We have 3 big game stamps... One archery, muzzleloader, and rifle... At $28 each. In my section of Tennessee this year we were only allowed 4 does during bow, 1 during muzzleloader and 4 total during gun if you buy the $21 big game non-quota stamp... Other wise no does during gun. We're only allowed 3 bucks total no matter what we hunt with and can only take 1 per day. Nice bucks are really few and far between in my county, the biggest ever got hit by a dumptruck last year just before deer season.... He was MASSIVE. I got a pic of his rack somewhere, the mass was unbelievable.


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When I was stationed at Ft. Campbell I hunted every chance I got. Never saw a bear but it's beautiful country you got there. Congrats on the bear.

You got it easy. I'm lucky to get a deer tag here every other year, because of the point system. That would be a tag for one mule deer.

The deer would be at 12.000ft, and you won't get him sitting in a blind.

Congrats!
Good shot when excited,that's the way!

What exactly is this point system? It sounds alien to me lol! I've honestly never heard of that... Here we buy a resident combo hunt/fish license at$28 which I'm pretty sure covers all small game and any fish but trout which we have to buy a trout stamp for at $18. We have 3 big game stamps... One archery, muzzleloader, and rifle... At $28 each. In my section of Tennessee this year we were only allowed 4 does during bow, 1 during muzzleloader and 4 total during gun if you buy the $21 big game non-quota stamp... Other wise no does during gun. We're only allowed 3 bucks total no matter what we hunt with and can only take 1 per day. Nice bucks are really few and far between in my county, the biggest ever got hit by a dumptruck last year just before deer season.... He was MASSIVE. I got a pic of his rack somewhere, the mass was unbelievable.


Wyoming, and several other states are set up with a preference point system. Each year you are unsuccessful in the lottery draw, you are awarded a preference point (you can also just purchase a point each year and opt out of the draw for that year). When they go to the lottery to draw tags, people with the most preference points are chosen first, and move on down the line. So people with max points get their tag first. Say the max point for a particular unit is 10. Once everyone with 10 points has their tags, then they move on to people with nine points, eight points, and so on until the tags are gone. For example, a Wyoming Moose tag in certain units lately have been taking 12-15 points to draw a tag. That's 12-15 years of unsuccessful draws, (@ $75 per year) before even being able to pull a tag. That's $1125 BEFORE paying for the out of state license, (another $1000). And that is for ONE elk, and you can't shoot any bears, deer, antelope, etc you just see wandering around.

Antelope take 0-6 points depending on the unit, elk 0-20 points to put things into perspective......

Hopefully that cleared it up a it for ya....

Thank you, that really helped me understand it and made me come to appreciate our hunting regulations more. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't get to hunt for years and years...


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Haha I was thinking that I would be able to cut down on the costs of my meat by hunting. Looks like im better off buying ribeyes at the local supermarket if im worried about costs.

That's for out of state. Residents can hunt cheaper, more often, etc.

Here in Nebraska I hunt three different deer seasons, turkey, and upland game, not to mention furbearers, every year. With tags and such it still comes out to a couple hundred bucks, but I'm not getting the chance to shoot elk, moose, bear, or sheep either....