Virginia Bear
I have the good fortune to be allowed to hunt the woods surrounding a vineyard outside of Charlottesville VA. I go there hunting Deer and Turkey. This year, they suffered a great deal of crop damage from Deer, Bear, Turkey, and Raccoon. Mostly from the Bear who would come in and gorge themselves on huge amounts of grapes every night. For that reason, the owner broke with his previous stance and asked me to try to take a bear if I had a chance. He didn't have to ask twice, but since I have not seen a bear in 23 years I wasn't holding my breath. The deer are plentiful and any large game I can take off the property helps them and and helps fill my fridge as well as some family members.
I was in a ground blind about 40 yds from the edge of the vineyard fence. Grapes were picked more than a week before. I had seen 4 deer Saturday but only had a shot at one. I used the 20 yd mark on my crossbow scope and it was 30+ yds. a clean miss. Around 530 I was thinking that if I didn't see anything by 6 I would probably head over to a family member's house for dinner. I leaned forward to get a better look at something I noticed thru the woods. As I was easing backward in my chair, I caught something out of the corner of my left eye. Black movement and I knew immediately that it was a bear. As I turned my head in it's direction my mind began to work at warps speed. It was about 4 yds from me and had come up from directly behind me. I never heard it. First thing I noticed was that this was a smaller bear. I looked for other bears. It was alone. I judged it to be an adolescent. It was of legal weight and I was going to take this bear if I had a shot. it was walking away at an angle that was giving me a very extreme quartering shot. it would shortly be out of my small shooting lane. I placed my 30 yd pin on a spot halfway between his front shoulder and his rump. I shot but felt like it hit too far back. He snarled and snapped at the air over his right shoulder when he was hit, then took off running. I recocked the bow and loaded an arrow. About this time I heard two low moans. Like Chewbaca from starwars. I would have sat for at least an hour but it was raining and had been all day. I waited 20 minutes then went to the spot I shot him. I found nothing at all. no arrow, no blood, no hair. I started searching and spent the next 3 hours traipsing around the side of the mountain finding nothing at all. I decided to come back in the morning. it took less than an hour in daylight, working from the spot of the shot to find him. He was only about 150 yds from the place he was shot. Hit high on his right rump, arrow crossed internal cavity cut open his liver and punched a small hole in his left lung, near the rear before exiting high on the left side. First assessment was that he was small. Legal weight here is 100 lbs live weight. His weight was estimated at 170. Certainly not a beast.
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