Here's a nice black bear taken over bait.

Couldn't weigh it whole because there's no way me and my buddie could get it up onto the 4-wheeler in one piece. Head and hide weighed over 100#, carcas weighed 220#, and I didn't weigh the gut pile, but it was probably in the 50-70# range. That makes this bear real close to 400#, which is huge for upper Michigan.

Oh yeah, he was 10 1/2" between the ears.

Shot at 33 yards with a 450 Marlin. The 450 Marlin shoots a 325 grain bullet at 2045 fps over my chronograph. Hit right on the point of the sholder, it wrecked the onside sholder and all the vitals up front, then exited through the off-side sholder. Yanked the rug right out from underneath this guy for about 5 seconds, then he got up and headed for the thick swamp. 4 more of those 325 grain slugs stopped him for the count.

It was really a pain to skin this thing in the lights of the 4-wheeler. Next time I'll be more prepared.

Yep. with the weights you give he was over 400# on the foot. Very nice one! Looking forward to seeing how the skull scores too. Guessing 18 3/4-19 3/8. Very fine skull indeed. Not to mention some very large backstraps of my favorite meat on the planet.

very nice!

Cold Rider. Nice bear.

Get yourself a Petzel headlight. Makes skinning, or anything else at night, much easier as the light can be adjusted to shine where you are looking.