We sat down and took a break to settle our nerves, and let the bear die if he had a mind to. I feared he would not, he was running pretty good when he left the sheep. After about 30 minutes we approached the sheep carcass to pick up the trail. The snow on the near side of the spot showed pretty good blood splatter, but the far side showed none. I suspected that the bullet did not exit, and we were in deep shit with a wounded bear. He left a blood trail you could follow from the air, and we trailed him for about 300 yards across a large avalanche created meadow.
On the far side of the meadow was our worst nightmare, an alder thicket. This thing was so thick a sparrow could not fly through it. You could not see more than a few yards into it, even in the bright sunlight. We stopped for a conference. I was scared, so was my partner. We considered waiting till the next day to give the bear time to die, but the area is crossed by a hiking trail, and the thought of some poor unsuspecting hiker blundering into this pissed off critter killed that idea. We started this mess and it was up to us to finish it.
A wounded bear will often circle to watch his back trail to see or attack what is following it, and that was going through my mind at the time. We decided to separate by about a hundred yards and approach the thicket to see what we could see.
Agreeing to keep each other in sight at all times we planned our approach. I removed the first two 250 grain cartridges in my rifle and replaced them with the 300 Grain Barnes. I also removed the retaining strap on the .44 Mag. Ruger I carried as backup. The holster was new and the snap very stiff and hard to remove. We proceeded very slowly to the thicket, doing more watching than walking, and dreading what we would find.
When we were about 50 yards from the thicket I saw a movement in the brush exactly where the blood trail entered the brush. I hollered to my partner "there he is, right on the trail". In the same instant I raised my rifle to use the scope to see if I could "look through" the brush and see anything.
And he came!
By pure instinct with no thought involved I hit him as he cleared the brush. I saw him "hunch up" as the bullet struck. And who was he "coming for ", not the guy who had wounded him but for ol' Bear Bob. He must have known that I like bears!
He came so fast it was unbelievable, running on less than four good legs, as we would later find. Now remember I was as fast with a bolt-action gun as anyone I know. And I shot this bear as he cleared the brush. This bear died just a few yards in front of me as the bolt handle was on it's way back down. That bear had covered a distance we paced at 45 yards in the time it took me to chamber another round. An action that I had practiced until it was automatic. Talk about fast! Talk about having to take a bath in an ice-cold lake and change your polypropylene underwear!
I asked my partner who was about 50 yards off to the side "Why didn't you shoot" he replied " by the time I got the gun up I was afraid I'd hit you". I retorted that I hoped he would have found the time if this brute had gotten hold of me.
Then the fun was over and the work started. After my bath that is. I dearly love bears and bear hunting, but man skinning one of these monsters is nothing but work, hard, nasty, stinking, and bloody work. The post mortem revealed that my partner’s shot had indeed not penetrated. The bullet had blown up when it struck the shoulder blade and probably ruined the left front shoulder but it did not seem to slow him down much. My shot had entered the opposite shoulder and traversed the entire 9 foot of bear, lodging under the skin on the opposite rear haunch. Fortunately all 4,000 lbs of energy were expended on him but he still covered the distance fast enough to remain in my dreams (or nightmares) to this day.
The skinning proceeded as well as it ever does. The taxidermist only had to sew up a few mistakes when he did the rug. We left most of the paw skinning for him too. We had several days before our plane was to pick us up so we did our best to reduce the weight of the hide.
Remember those pictures of natives carrying "dinner" on a pole between two big men. Well try to imagine the same thing with two guys and a bear hide. It must have been funny to watch if you were not involved, and if there was anyone to watch. We salted the hide real well and rolled it at night. During the day we put it on the rear of the cabin to air out, and get some sun and maybe dry out and lighten up a little. We really did not want to pay for a second floatplane flight to bring the hide out.
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Be sure to check back next week for the fourth and final part of the story.
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