'04 brownie.
.30 S.A.U.M. in Model 7. It took 6 thumps to bring him into this picture, so I got away from .30 cal for the big boys. I happened to be on a black bear hunt at the time, and we were looking for a large black bear rumored to be in this area. Anyway, I shot this guy at midnight-thirty, under a half-moon. We weren't seeing any movement of big bears in daylight, so decided to stay out after dark. This guy followed a sow his size and three other bears by about 15 minutes. We were still giddy from the encounter with that many bears close up, and there he was.
Some things worth explaining: 1) You can shoot after dark in Alaska. As long as you can see your target without artificial light. 2) You didn't want to shoot that sow because she was with 2 other 3-year-olds and a cub. Who does the cub belong to? If you shoot the bear that the cub belongs to, then you have done a big no-no... So we just sat there with our jaws hanging.
We only got one good shot on him that night. We heard him rolling around in the alders after the shot, but we weren't going in after him under any circumstances, so we decided to give him all night to expire. No sleep for us...
We started tracking him at dawn. We "bumped" into him after a hundred yards or so, and HE WAS FULL OF LIFE!! At about 15 yards we put a couple in him and he exploded in a rage... Away from us, thankfully. He could have gutted us if he chose to.
About another 2 or 300 yards of trailing blood and I came upon him. He was trapped in a large alder, raging. I put 3 more into him before he finally gave up the ghost. Scary pelosi. Really. These bears are harmless usually, especially in areas where they are hunted, but if you get them riled you get to see how explosive they can be. It's really scary and I aint scared by much...
Needless to say that was the last time I took a pea shooter to a bear fight. From there I went to .375, then to .45-70 after I won "Death Moan" at a banquet.
Now I'm SOLD on large exit wounds and feel that a recovered bullet is a failed bullet regardless of weight.
Check out my books, guys, if you want to know the entire story of Marc in Alaska. I've written what I've been told are two pretty good books and sell lots of them...
Taylor
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