More bear tales..
September of 2001, same place we have been going for several
years now. There are three of us in camp this time, a co-worker,
my wife and me. Diana and I were not lucky enough to draw
caribou permits but Mike managed to get one. We chased a 'bou
around for awhile and Mike dropped him with a . 338, we get him
skinned and gutted and go get the buggy to load him. Once we
get him loaded we head over to the hill where Diana is spotting
for moose. She hasn't seen anything legal so we decide to head
back to camp so we're back before dark. Back at camp now we
hang the each hind quarter and hoist the front half and hang it
from one leg to keep the ribs open to let it get cooled then back
up to camp which is only a hundred yards from the meat poles.
We build a fire in the barrel stove and fix supper then sit around
the barrel stove trying to out do each others tall tales. Some time
around midnight we head for the tents. The next morning Mike
and I get up about the same time and one of us gets the fire
going in the barrel stove and the other one gets a pot of coffee
going. We've been sitting around drinking coffee for a while and
I'm looking at the meat poles and something doesn't look quite
right I mention it to Mike and there are three pieces of his 'bou
hanging from the meat poles but instead of the whole front half
there is only one front quarter. Diana is out by then and Mike and
I grab our rifles and go down to take a closer look. Once we get
down to the meat pole we can see that the ribs and opposite
front shoulder have been torn off and it doesn't take long to find
whats left of the remainder of the caribou. I have a moose up
on another pole and we go over to take a look at it. When we
get close we can see that the bear has been over there as well
but it is too high for the bear to get the meat thats hanging but
the head is on the ground and the bear has pulled the skin back
and removed all of the soft tissue from the head. Well Mike is a
bit upset that some of his caribou has been taken by a bear.
The front half of this caribou is not big enough to even slow a
bear down if it had decided to run off with it so we figure that our
presence hadn't bothered it enough to take the meat off to a
good hiding place and since it hadn't been finished we must have
spooked it when we got up in the morning. We decide that the
bear will probably be back about the same time tomorrow so we
set about getting ready to take care of our late night meat thief.
I get ready by dressing good and warm and start my stake out
in the wee hours of the morning and well before daylight I hear
activity down by the meat pole but its too dark to see anything
so I just sit there hoping that the sun comes up before the bear
finishes off the piece of meat it started on the night before.
Finally the sun starts coming up and it seems to take forever for
it to get light. Mike and Diana are still in their tents and from
what they told me they were having trouble getting any sleep.
Mike noticed it getting light and wondered if I had gone to sleep
and Diana thought I was the one making all of the noise when it
got light enough for me to see the outline of the bear and I fired.
The zipper on Mike's tent jammed and he just went right through
it and Diane grabbed both of the zipper tabs on the door of our
tent and as one tab is opening the zipper the other tab is pulling
it closed so it took her a couple of tries to make it out of the tent.
I guess every one gets a little excited when somebody shoots a
grizzly close to by and you have no idea where the bear is. My
first shot broke the bears back behind the front shoulder and
took out the function of the back legs but didn't put it down and
now Diana has her rifle but the light still isn't that good and she
can't see the bear at first. Once the bear moves she spots it and
pumps a couple of 220 gr. soft points out of her 30-06 into it. I
hit it a couple with my . 375 H&H including the disabling shot. Our
thief had been stopped!
https://www.turbodieselregister.com/...ht=grizzly+bear
Gus