Well were do I start? I don't think any words I can put down here will be able to describe this trip with any justice, you just had to be there to get the full effect.

We left Edmonton at various times on Friday Sept 1st due to differing schedules. By midnight all of us had arrived at camp. After a few whistle whetters and a quick snack we hit the hay as we would be getting up pretty soon for the first day's hunt. The first day Sat the 2nd was quite warm but we all covered a fair piece of ground looking for sign and getting a general feel for this huge chunk of woods. There was some moose sign but it was sparce and not too recent. The bear sign on the other hand was just incredable and it was fresh. There was lots of dog signs too but none were seen on the entire trip, I am betting the warm weather had a lot to due with not seeing any moose or dogs for the whole weekend. So we had a general idea were to be for the next days hunt. Sunday morning came pretty quick but after a couple of cups of black coffee we were raring to go. We split up this morning, myself and my buddy Ed took an old haul road to an area that had been excellent the prevous year. Here we found good sign a couple of days old but good none the less. Once again we found lots of fresh bear sign and one track that was big enough to give you that feeling that with out having a rifle in your hand you were just another part of the food chain. We split up about one mile in, Ed continued down the haul road and I took a cut line. I poked along for about 1/2 an hour walking softly and stopping every few yards for 15 to 20 seconds to watch and listen. At 7:40 I heard a shot in the distance that I thought was a shot gun ( this area is crawling with grouse I can't tell you how many we saw there were that many). I continued on down the cut line when something took off on my right hand side. Well that got the old heart pumping, the woods here were thick and nasty but I just had to get into them for a look to see what spooked. After looking around a bit I ruled out moose just because of the sheer mass of woods. I believe it was a bear as the sign was everywhere in this area.


I worked my way out and met up with Ed and we proceded out the haul road to another haul road I chose north and Ed chose south. Our pick up was to be at 10:00 am. I have to be honest with the heat coming up and the 25 billion black flies swarming around my head I was starting to loose my zeal for this days hunt. I worked my way out to the pick up point slowly looking and moving as quietly as I could. Charlie and Chad picked me up at 10:13 am. I asked if they had had any luck, thats when Chad told me he had shot a bear. I asked where it was and he replied " I could not find it" Was there any blood I asked? no I could not find any he replied. Well I started asking questions How far was the bear when you shot? , where did you shoot it? did you see where it ran?


The bear came out on the haul road Chad was hunting on. The bear was about 40 yards away and ducked back in behind him tring to get his wind and came back out this time at 30 feet. Chad put a 165 grain SST into the bears shoulder and flipped the bear.The bear got to his feet and took off for the deep stuff. Once we got back to the area we began to search and after 1/2 an hour Ed found the bear in a grassy area stone dead.First blood was found 10 yards from the bear. This bear took a 165 from a 30-06 point blank, was dead on his feet and still made it 75 yards before going down for the count. Because of the thick woods and the steep incline there was no way we were going to pull that bear out. We skinned him out on the spot and 1 hour and 20 min's later he was loaded onto the quad trailer for the ride back to camp to be trimmed and defatted. This bear has no rubs and the fir is of finest quality. To our suprise this bear had no smell what so ever, nice and clean so the skinning and defatting was much more plesant than one might expect.

Here are the pictures.













I post my story and pictures in a second post as soon as I can.

Sounds like you had a good hunt. Black Bears seem to really be able to soak up the lead and still run away like they weren't even hit. Last year I watched one get double lunged by a 7mm weatherby and run 50 yards like nothing happened.

Mine didn't go anywhere. I shot it thru the back exiting thru the heart. Man that meat is delishous.