So I went up to my moose hunting country, a long muddy ATV ride, off a remote logging road in the Swan Hills. We go 40 kms up the logging road and then it's another 35 kms by ATV, so it's quite a ways.
On the weekend of May 30-Jine the nephew Matt went with me. I was solo for the weekend of June 6-9th.

The weather was awful, this past weekend! It was raining off and on. Bigger creeks were impassable.

I'll cut to the bear.

On Friday I had been riding checking out some cutblocks and busted a 6' blackie on the trail, right by my camp. After he buggered off, I decided to try to ride through a trail we cut through the bush a few years ago. It was a f**king quagmire and I turned around. Insane mud holes.

I pulled back up to my campsite and stopped to have a snack; first mistake.
I wasted 5 or 10 minutes sitting there, then decided to head up the trail to a vantage point, where I could look over the cutblock where the 6' blackie had gone.

As soon as I rolled up there I saw a MONSTER black bear. This bear looked like a goddamn Black Angus standing there. I am saying based on all the bears I have seen in person, shot, pics on the internet etc... I have maybe seen a handful of bears that were bigger. My guess is 7-1/2' and 500 lbs. He had a coal black face and a massive head. I will stake my testicles that he is a record book bear.

But he was moving along slowly and near the end of a skidder trail, and then there was a thick stand of pines 7-10' tall. He was probably 500 yards away, plus he was across a valley, with a little creek flowing through it.

Second mistake: I was packing the stupid 8x57, when I shoulda had the .338WM. Because I had the 8x57, I had to get a lot closer. I had to get down across the creek and then climb up the hill to locate the bear. With my .338WM I coulda took a long shot; 300-350 yards across the valley...

Anyways, I get over there and I had one opportunity. I got up on a small stump and I could see him something like 150-200 yards away, but he had his ass to me. He looked back over his shoulder at that point; I think he had caught my scent, cuz the air was swirling.
That was the only chance I had. I should have stayed up on that stump and yelled to hopefully have him turn sideways, then shot. But I thought I needed to get closer. The bear was so big I could not afford to make a poor shot and wound it.

End of this story, I got over the hill to where the bear had last been and he was gone.

So now I've named this bear Angus, and I hope to see him again. I have only a few days left and I'm not sure if I will get back this year. You can bet that I will be looking for him; we will be up there in Oct hunting moose and maybe I will bump into him then. I will definitely be back there in 2009.

A few pics.


Matt shooting the .458 Lott.


June 1 2008. This snow bank was still there on the 8th... of June!


Tracks of a 6' chocloate bear that circled my quad while we were stalking another bear. It was standing beside the ATV when we got back to it.


A shed of a 50" class moose that I picked up near our moose camp.


The arsenal: M-700 8x57, M-1895XLR .45-70 and the CZ-550 .458 Lott.


Grizzly hind print; 7" x 12". May 30 2008.


Matt's size 13 will fit inside the hind footprint.


Front print...


Sunrise in the Swan Hills. May 31 2008.

Enjoyed your pictures very much , I hunted with Don Ayers north of Swan Hills for sure alot of swamp and mud . I remember winching the argos from tree to tree. Bill

I've got good news and bad news...

Bad news is the wife is pissed off, good news is she said to get the hell out of the house and go hunting!

So I work O.T. tonight then I have another day and half up in the big bush to get a shot at a monster bear.

Oooooooo Yaaaaaaaa!!



Edit:
Don Ayers, now there's a name I have not heard in a long time. I wonder if he's still in the guiding business?

The Swan Hills are high enough, that they have a climate of their own. When I had a Grizzly draw there in 2004, it was an exceptionally cold year. May 31, things were just starting to green up and Christina lake was still mostly frozen. Not much for bear action. You seem to be seing a lot of good bears. How come no Kill pictures yet? Do the moose there, actually glow in the dark?
Grizz

Thanks for the pictures! When are you finally going to nail that big bear! I want to see if the ones I think are big are actually big bears or not!
Good luck hunting,
Graham

I would say this bear is pretty close to the bear I saw Friday, but I am not sure this guy is quite as big.



This bear is kinda like him, but I think this bear is heavier.

It's very hard to find pics of bears on the internet that are as big as the bear I saw. I can only find a couple that are bigger.

I have a chart that I found on the internet (from Pennsylvania Game Dept I think), that you measure the chest girth and it gives a very close estimate to the bears live weight.
I have that with me and if the Lord is willing, and I get the bear, then I intend to take that measurement.

One thing I will say, is it's hard to describe the effort I have gone to hunting these damn bears. It is a 35km ATV ride to get into my hunting area. It takes an hour and a half of pounding on that trail through the mud and creeks etc... I have gone back and forth on that trail now about 400 kms, and I am going to run that number up over the next 2 days.

It has been raining steady, mosquitoes and black flies and I had no bug dope. Water in places I have never seen it, creeks swollen so that some are impassable, blah, blah, blah.
I ended up putting an extra shirt over the back of my head and neck to ward off the bugs, that worked very well btw. So now I have a hoodie, that I will wear, in case the bugs are still bad (very likely), but I don't like insect repellent so I still don't have any.

Whatever the outcome I will post an update.

I am already looking forward to next year. These goddamn bears are so much fun to hunt.

Nice photos!! I especially liked the Grizz tracks!! Reminded me of Pink Mountain. Everyday and everywhere you went there was fresh sign! Loved it!!!!!!!

Good luck finding that big guy!!! Maybe some bait this fall will tempt him.

the chef

I did not find the bear called Angus.

I went to the spot where I saw him and used a GPS to calculate the distance across the valley, to the skidder trail he was on. It was 299.2 yards.
I had a box of 200gr Nosler Accubonds in the box of my ATV and if I had not been so brain-dead, I would have swapped the 220gr Sierra's for those Accubonds and then raced up the trail so that I was straight across from him. With those 200gr Accubonds I coulda had a long shot.
The decision to stick with the 220's was a bad one, plus I approached him along the angle, where I had seen him, which was the longest, slowest way to approach him.

And my bear hunt is done until fall. I expect to be up there moose hunting and I might just go up in early Sept, when the fall bear hunt opens. Maybe catch him out feasting on berries.

I intend to camp up there in spring 2009 regardless. I'm counting the days...


Edit;
calgarychef1 baiting is not allowed in the WMU where I hunt due to grizzlies in that area. It's strictly spot and stalk along logging roads or cutblocks.

great photos thanks for sharing