Mine would have to be an over OTC bear tag in Colorado I bought the day before the opener of the third season in 2010. I had drawn my deer tag after the third year of applying in that unit. We?ve taken some nice bucks in the past and had high hopes! My brother came along for the first time, and he had an OTC bull tag. On the first morning out, he was complaining of not seeing much elk sign (I'll agree, but I was in my deer honey hole). After the complaints continued, we pull out and headed for some higher country. As soon as we started out, I noticed about every 20 feet, we were stepping in piles of bear crap loaded with acorn shells, again not thinking to much of it even though I had the bear tag in my pocket, I was after a stud buck! We got to a vantage point and started picking it apart. After 45 min of glassing my brother swears he just seen a bear about 1,000 yards out. We move the spotter and sure enough, a solid blackie was already out feeding with a couple hours of light still left. Knowing we had to get closer but still giving us a shooting lane, we would have to drop off the cliffs we were on and get to the next vantage point. As my brother is walking along the cliff, he peers off in disbelief to see a chocolate color phase bear no more then 30 yards away. In excitement, he turns, and ?yells?, come shot this bear right here!!! Well, ya, right, that dude was gone. The only glimpse I had got of him was all rump heading to the bottom of the canyon... Now my brother, realizing what just happened (what he did), would not make eye contact with me, and I kind of let it go for the moment? He started walking away along the cliff, trying to make sense of what just happened (we of course know what happened). I just stared in the direction of where the bear went in disbelief, when ?again? my brother yells, the bears right here!!! The bear had run into the bottom of the canyon, and made a bad decision to come up the other side. Now it would have been a little easier shot had my brother not spooked him again, it took him a minute to slow down, but I was able to put one in him right at 500 yards... As the bear expired, he rolled all the way to the bottom of the steepest, nastiest, canyon I had ever been in. When we finally got close to where he was, light was fading. As we were approaching the bear, my brother seen him first and said he's right here. Now I couldn't hear my brother walking anymore, and I couldn't see him, because we had formed a line to find it, with how thick it was. So I asked again where my brother was, and I walked over to him. Well, where is he? He points about 60 yards away, not wanting to get any closer and says, ?do you think it's dead? and ?are you sure there's not grizzlies around here?, hilarious!!!
Now I've never hunted bears before, so by the time we got it skinned out and the meat taken care of (which by the way we did with head lamps), it was 11:00pm, and there was no way we were getting it out that night. We decided we would come back first thing and get it out. Now my brother in law was also along with a deer tag in his pocket and was hunting his normal area. When midnight rolled around and we weren't back in camp, he was assembling a search party with the local law enforcement, and had called my wife telling her of the situation. Well, luckily they held it off and we rolled into camp about 1:30am. After calling the local law enforcement, and my wife, letting them know all is well, we got to bed for the task we had the next day. Like I said, I had never hunted bears, let alone even see one in the wild, this bear was big! He went awards at 20 9/16?. He was so fat from the acron crop that year, he had to be pushing 600lbs. What a chore, but the most satisfying pack out ever!!!
Never did kill my deer that year, but my brother took a small 5x5 bull, and brother in law took a good 3x4 buck!!!
Best trophy/hunt ever!!!
Sorry for the drawn out story, but that's one I've never shared on a forum like this, and I got into the moment...
Thanks for reading!!!
