Going on a Bear Hunt...

The call came right at dusk. It was our friend Ben on the phone (although we could hardly identify his voice for all his excitement.) "I think... I just shot a bear!" He said it in a panicked whisper, but we could tell it was all he could do to keep from screaming it. Lately, Jake and Ben have been spending every spare moment up in the mountains of Island Park trying to bait a group of bears that live up there. Jake was at work this particular night so Ben headed up without him. Lots of planning and anticipation led us to this night ---Thus the reason that Ben sounded like some crazy wild man on the other side of the conversation as he tried to explain what had happened. His adrenalin must have been beating him up inside something fierce! :) Since the sun was all but gone down, Ben explained that he didn't want to go tracking a wounded bear, in the dark, without some company. I mean, his pregnant wife was there with him, but he thought it best they have some back up. He called us and one other friend.

When Jake and I arrived on the scene with guns and headlamps, Ben could hardly contain his excitement! The boys started down the trail and the girls hung back with a walkie-talkie. They said they would let us know when or if they found anything. It was only about 20 minutes until we heard the happy hooting over the radio. "... Huge Bear... mumble mumble... perfect shot... mumble mumble... Come see!" Ben's wife and I started down the trail and met them on their way up. They came back for water and backpacks and all the stuff they would need to pack him out. When we all got down there, with all the gear, it was definitely dark - but this is what we saw:

The bear was in a shallow hole, and his mouth was clamped down onto a log. We figured it must have bit down on it to ease the pain. Poor guy - but the shot was clean under the arm and it probably died pretty quickly.


From Left to Right this is Shawn, Jake, and Ben trying to hold up the bear for a picture. It was ridiculously heavy and you can see they struggled quite a bit to even move the thing.


It took us a very long time to get it skinned and quartered. (And by that I mean about 6 hours.) It was kind of freaky to be out in the middle of the woods that late at night, it was getting pretty cold, and at times we were intensely frustrated. But we tried to remind ourselves that we would probably never get a chance like this again. I mean, how often do you get to go on such a crazy adventure? With the help of a phone call to my experienced Father and a lot of busy hands we finally got it done. We Left the house around 8:00 p.m. and arrived home about 5:00 a.m. Jake slept for an hour then got up to be to work by 6:45. (Wow, that's what you call a real pal! Friend in need... friend in deed.)


Did I mention that Ben was stoked? He was one proud mountain man. And for good reason! The official measurements taken by the taxidermist was 6'5" arm span, and 6'9" tall. That's one for the record books folks!