Tough going

2 days into the hunt , tough going so far . Shall try further north starting tomorrow. .

Day 5. Still skunked

Was not easy . Traveled a little over 3000 miles round trip with 900+ miles being forest service roads ,some extremely rough, but my Jeep did good.
i was going to post a complete log of the trip but guess I will just give the bare facts and spare you the details.
spent 12 days hunting ! 900 miles on forest roads checking clearcuts and looking for sign. Walked about 75 miles of gated roads and even tried calling about a dozen times or more .
some days were extremely discouraging and others were greatly encouraging, especially when we found some fresh scat . Wasnt a " steaming grogan"but was darn close
to make a long story short I was about to give up but I had told myself that after getting skunked 3 years ago that I was not going home til I shot a bear .talking about putting pressure on yourself.
plan A had not worked and neither had plan B . I didn't have a plan C, at least not yet
But once I heard rumors of a small bear down in the area where I had went target shooting with Lewis 3 years ago , plan C begin to form in my mind.
I figured I could no longer be picky. The first legal bear was a shooter. I didn't care how small . So don't be judgemental when you see the video of the kill shot and pics.
my load ws 290 gr hornady bore driver ftx pushed by 130 gr triple 7 out of the Redemption. It was a very accurate load though upon examining the exit wound I was concerned about a lack of expansion. The penetration could not have been better though . A complete pass through . Range was a little over 60 yards.
it happened like this : we headed down to the area where the bear reportedly was seen wandering around. He was on the verge of being a nuisance bear, digging in trash . We saw fresh sign so we set up to call. Within 15 minutes he came sneaking in. He didn't wind us so we patiently waited til he stepped into the clearing ,sniffing around. I slowly squeezed the trigger and ..BOOM... the 50 cal Redemption barked and puffed out smoke that obscured my vision. I quickly reloaded before checking.
Now I could keep my word and head home . I had just shot a bear.
video of kill shot and pics of the bruin below just click the link . He was not the biggest but he was a beautiful color phase bear. Idaho bear hunt was in the books .Heading home

https://youtu.be/4_3mb9ekil8

Good for you!  Way to hang in there!
That stuffing might be dry, I’d try a slow cooker!

1874sharpsshooter wrote:2 days into the hunt , tough going so far . Shall try further north starting tomorrow. .

Now that was a damned good shot...well placed. Didn't even knock the stuffing out of him
Okay, now how you going to explain that hole in your grandaughters teddy bear
Hope you at least had some fun on the trip and scenery.

Great story, glad to see you have a great sense of humor! Also glad to see it wasn’t too far and strenuous of a drag for you to get it to your jeep!  LOL