Around 6:00 oclock, i hear heavy crashing coming the the briar patch to my left. A buck chasing a doe maybe? The crashing and braking sticks continue for around 10minutes and i begin to see streaks of black moving through the trees. A dog is coming oh great! Finally my " dog" reaches open woods and my jaw drops, its no dog its a very large black bear. He worked his way past my stand passing within 20yrds. Im from York county so i' ve never seen a bear in the wild. This is my first year hunting in Butler county and i just cant get over it, seeing one up so close is so amazing.

Pretty wild. Seeing a bear up close is a neat experience

Yeah that' s cool...especially the first time you see one. I saw one this past Sat...came in about 6:30 and piddled around my stand for a while. Way to small to shoot..probably only 100lbs or so, so I passed up the shot. Fun to watch though, and a cute little sucker too. I usually see about 1-3 per year lately. It' s funny, of all the bears I' ve seen in the wild, they all seem to have one thing in common....they have no grace about them. They just come crunching, and clunking along....like they don' t have a care in the world. There is getting to be more and more around where I hunt. We' ve seen a few whoppers the past few seasons and I' m hoping to get to see one of those in bow range.[:-]

Seeing a bear that close has got to be a rush. The only time I' ve been that close was at the zoo. The two times that I' ve seen them in the wild they were on another part of the mountain.