Calling Bears

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Calling Stories

Hunter:DT
State:WA
Call:Jay Distress

So the morning started with my alarm not going off and my dad calling me at 5:00am. I get up and grab my hunting gear that I had laid out the night before. I run out and fired up my bronco, throw my gear in and go get my son up and ready. I make it to my patents place at 5:45am and load up my gear in to my dad’s truck and got my son inside and back to bed. My dad grabbed his AR just in case we called some coyotes and I had my Weatherby vanguard .338win with a Pentax 4.5-14x42 on it. I took my 225gr accubonds loaded up in front of a healthy does of imr4350. We check our gear and make sure we have the guns ammo and that the FoxPro fx3 has new batteries and off we go toward Rimrock where I had seen lots of sign of bear.

We get to our first spot at 7:25am and there was someone parked there so we go up the road to another spot that was a old clear cut with a small stream running the edge. We hiked up the hill about 600yds and set up with use in the timberline and the caller by a small group of trees in the clearing. We called for 20-25min when I hear something coming from the timber and turn to see a coyote 25yds away. I pulled my 44mag out and shot just high over it's back. So we packed up and ran up the road to a berry patch and set up at 9:00am.

We set so the berries are to our right and the heavy timber to our left. I started with a woodpecker in distress and after 10min we heard sticks popping in the timber. I move so I can get a shot if it's a bear but nothing showed after another 25min and the wind shifted toward the timber so we packed up and get back to the truck around 10:30am. We then grab a snack and sit to talk a few mins about what to do next. It was starting to get hot and I wanted to head home but my dad persisted we should try this last spot we know bears had been.

So we get to the spot around 11:10am and walk off the road a few hundred yards to a clearing with a little bog on the backside that's set in the heavy timber about 150yrds. I set the fox pro up in the middle of the clearing on an old stump. I walk over to a group of old aspens and set down with a small pine tree behind me and with my dad up a small hill about 30yds to my left. As a settle in the bugs just swarm me and I push jay in distress but hit screaming jay instead. I turned the fox pro off waited about 30sec and turned on jay distress. I was sitting there killing the swarm of deer flies and other bugs when I catch movement start behind the caller on the trail that leads to the bog.

BEAR! Big Bear, I sit there for five min watching the bear and make sure it's not with cubs. The bear starts to feed back toward the timber and it looked like a boar so I click the safety off the weatherby and find the bear in the scope. I take a breath put the cross hairs behind the shoulder and squeeze the trigger. BANG. I recover from the recoil to see the bear peeling out and turning my direction. I cycle the bolt, take a breath and as the bear runs by the caller which was 40yds from me BANG. I feel the recoil again and see the bear do a front flip. I cycle the bolt again and get back on the bear and see it's chest moving but it's down. I then jump up very excited and my dad gets up and comes over to me. We walk over to the bear and it was still trying to breath it looked like. So we kept are distance for a few more seconds and it was still. I take my pack off grab the FoxPro, which was only a few yards from where the bear was. We walked up to the bear and the smell of nasty mud and water fill our noses. It was now around 11:30am and I had my first bear on the first day on season.

I get to work gutting the bear to find he had no lungs or heart left! The first shot had turned the lungs and heart to jello! But it still ran 30-35yds like it wasn't hit. The second shot entered just off center to the right and was under the hide at the end of the ribcage on the right side. Dad had taken the rifles and backpack back to the truck and had pulled as close as he could to the clearing as legally possible. I see him enter the clearing when I hear another bear. I jump up and pull my 44 and start getting nervous. Dad sees me and hurries over to see what's going on when we hear the bear again. Dad pulls his desert eagle 44 and tells me to hurry up and finish. I pack up my knives and start dragging my bear out which wasn't easy as the bear was around 300lbs. Dad fires a round in to a stump and hurries to me and we drag my bear to the truck. I jumped in to the bed and start to pull the bear when dad hears a stick break just behind us in the trees. He pulls his Eagle again and I horse the bear in to the bed alone.

We jump in the truck and down the mountain we go. We stopped about 5miles down the road so I can wash up in a stream. When I get out and over to the stream there is a bear track there. I washed up some and we ran to the little shop on the way down and grabbed a few bags of ice throw them inside the bear and after a bunch of people taking pics and questions we where off to get home finish cleaning and getting the bear to the butcher.

The bear was 250lbs hang weight with out hide head or paws. It's paws where 5.5" across and it's skull was 1/16 over min state record score but had cracked and wasn't able to be used in the books.

DT