4feathers

Mike, my brother definitely knows the power behind bears. Back in the 70's he was bird hunting with my other brother and a brother-in-law. The brother-in-law had a side by side shotgun. He doesn't know why, but he put buck shot in his second barrel, and used bird in his other. My brother-in-law also had with him his 5 year old son. they were walking through some very tall ferns (4' tall). My brother-in-law walked in the middle, while my two other brothers flanked him by 50 yards either side. A black bear suddenly stood up right in front of my brother-in-law not more than 20 feet away! She was mad, snapping her teeth and growling. He doesn't even remember thinking what to do, he just brought his shot gun up and fired both barrels. The bear rolled backwards, and never got up. That's when the excitement really started. What was unbeknown to them was the bear was a mamma. She had 2, year old cubs with her; and they went crazy. One ran right at my brother (the one who lives in VA now) and the third shotgun blast brought it down. The other bear ran towards my other brother, he had a single barrel 20 ga shot gun. He fired at the bear hitting it in the face but it kept coming. In shear panic, my brother couldn't load another shell and started to scream. My brother ran over and put two more shots into the bear to bring it down. From what they guessed, the whole account took about two minutes to go down. The year old bears weighted just over 100 pounds. The mother was a big one, she weighted 300 lbs.

By the way, they came back to camp without any birds.

pokenhope

Hey Mike, Nice bear, a shooter for sure. I'm not sure if I sent you this photo or not, even so, others might like to see it:

http://www.bowmaker.net/images/ohmama.jpg

After seeing 5 or 6 bears in 4 days on my elk trail, I made the comment to a hunting buddy that I hadn't seen any sows with cubs. About 8:30 the next morning, here comes this mama with 2 two year olds, only got one of the cubs in the photo. Worried they were going to split on the trail and wind up with a cub on one side and mama on the other, I "talked" to her right after this photo was shot. They didn't spook however, had to say something again and shake a sappling to convince her she needed to go the other way.

That afternoon it sprinkled a little and I stashed the camera in my day pack. I got that feeling something was "looking" at me...Turned around to find a cinnamon sow, 10 yards behind me with two tiny black cubs. Went for the camera but by the time I got it she was in the brush too far to get a good photo. She was one of the prettiest bears I've ever seen.

This has been the year of the bears for sure. I've had at least 12 within 20 yards of me since August. I get to try and fill my second tag starting 25 Sept. Unless they scatter, shouldn't be a problem!....O.L.

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