Called a bear with BigB's custom contest call

[Okanagan]

On Wednesday evening a dandy big bear came in to the call BigB made for a fund raiser for Fins and Fur a couple of years ago.  First a pic of the call and then the bear calling story.



A friend had told us about a big bear hanging out in some small meadows beside the main logging road.  I had seen the bear in late afternoon one day through a hole in brush as I drove past.  I had a rifle and tag and in a small regret, I should have shot the bear right then.  I glassed him a bit and he was BIG with a perfect coat, 88 laser ranged yards from me. I raced two miles to camp and picked up Code but the bear was gone when we got back.

Two evenings later, Code's last day to hunt, we went after that bear.  Since it was his last crack at a bear, Code took my rifle instead of his bow and hunted silently through a series of small meadows and timber patches as I glassed.  No bear.  I had forgotten about a small meadow on the other side of the road just out of sight from where we stopped.  Doggone.  Back in the vehicle, we rolled ahead ten feet and both us us saw the big bear 45 yards from us in the left hand bit of meadow, just as he started to lope for the trees.

Code bailed and loaded, a smidge too late for a shot.  He flopped over a log for a rifle rest and I started calling.  I ALWAYS carry a predator call around my neck when hunting or doing almost anything outdoors.  ALWAYS.  That morning I had taken BigB's call mainly because it was open reed and gave me many options of sounds to make.  This is no slight on customs calls I have from other makers, just luck of the draw.

I called off and on for a minute.  No bear.  Code was dying to go after the bear in the timber.  In the previous four days he had gotten good shots (which he passed) at two smallish bears by following a spooked bear into timber, and at 14, he is not big on waiting.  I nodded and he slipped down into the marshy meadow and headed along the right hand edge of it toward the corner 60 yards away where the bear had disappeared into old growth trees. 

I half hid in brush and kept intermittently blowing the call, hoping to hold the bear's interest.  If he would stay near the edge of the meadow Code might spot him.  When Code was half way across the meadow, I noticed that the bear had come back.  He was standing still between two bushes on the left side of the meadow looking toward my call.  Code was within 30 yards of the bear but had not seen him and was scanning to the right where he'd last seen the bear.

What to do?

I simply spoke, "Cody."  He looked back at me and I pointed to the bear.  He saw the bear slip back into the trees too quickly for him to get a shot off.  Soooo close!

But the point of this thread is that the spooked bear came back to BigB's call.

REPRISE: 

20 minutes later I was in the same situation:  A different bear 25 yards to my right watching Code in a clearcut below us, while Code was heading in the wrong direction toward the last place he'd seen the bear.

This time I slipped back two steps out of sight of the bear and tooted a doot do da doot doot -- doot doot on BigB's call.  I was hoping the call sound would not spook the bear as much as my voice had earlier.  Code looked at me and I pointed to the bear.  He went after it as I walked away down a road blowing the call, within sight of the bear but leaving.  Again, I hoped to distract the bear at least, cause it hang around and maybe even follow a bit since the sound maker was leaving.  There is more to it but Code put a good arrow into that bear...

My original use of BigB's call below.

[Dave]

Sounds like you two hunted hard right to the last day.  Those are the hunts you remember for a long time regardless of filling a tag. 

[HaMeR]

Great story!! Glad you shared all the good times with us all!!    Thank You!! 

[Hidehunter]

Great story!! Glad you shared all the good times with us all!!    Thank You!! 

+1  I was thinking the same thing.

[BigB]

Great story!  When I made that call, I never would have imagined it would call in cougars and bears!  I'm glad it can, and really enjoy reading the stories of your hunts.

Brian

[FinsnFur]

I'll bet Cody was stoked. I know I woulda been
Thanks for sharing that trip with us, I enjoyed myself.

[Okanagan]

Yep, he was so pumped after the shot that I don't think he was touching the ground.  He had a fist in the air and a grin to make his face ache for a week.

On that last bear, Code said that he thought my calling made a difference in his getting the shot.   If I'm remembering right Code said that it went slowly up the steep brushy slope, but mostly stopped and looked toward me and the call sound.  That let him slip along in the brush faster than the bear was leaving and catch up enough to get a 40 yard shot.   

After playing the movie in my head many times, I think I have figured out why we didn't find the bear:  I think there were two of them.  When the bear first spooked, it disappeared into brush in front of Code in the clearcut below me.  I moved a few yards to one side and was surprised to see the bear 25 yards from me on my level.  That bear looked smaller, another surprise to me at the time.   Then Code and I disagreed on how the bear was standing and which way it went after it was hit.  That could be different perspectives but a more likely explanation is that we were looking at two different bears.   A boar and sow pair makes all the pieces fit. 

Then we followed the blood trail the WRONG direction, the direction the unwounded bear ran.  In the heavy brush, we only saw glimpses of bear unless it stopped in a hole in the brush, etc.  There was one anomalous pea sized spot of blood ten feet in the wrong place, which has puzzled me ever since.  I surmised it was flung there.  But if it was dripped by the wounded bear as he fled, he is lying dead in the super thick brush out in the clear cut rather than in the woods where we saw a bear run.  I searched the clearcut end of the blood trail but didn't look much because we had seen the/a bear run the opposite direction.

If this sounds like an implausible abundance of bears, it would be most other places.  Here, I killled the wrong bear one time when heading off one my partner had wounded.  Another time I shot the wrong bear on a stalk, starting out after a big one in the fog and shooting a much smaller bear. 

I'd go right back and look some more if it was not so far, just to see the bones.