One Heck Of A Ride

28 The Making of a Hunter quietly over a small hill to look for him, he was just sixty feet away. That was close enough! I found something to rest my rifle on then waited until my heart stopped thumping and I was breathing normally again. My first shot slammed into the bear’s shoulder and passed through a lung. (The 250-grain bullet actually picked the bear up and moved him more than a foot.) The second shot Author’s first brown bear, “close enough to be a ten-footer,” Aleutian Islands 1982. into the same area got absolutely no reaction from the bear. My third shot was fired offhand and broke his spine, and he fell in his tracks. I was awestruck by the size of the animal when Slim and I approached him cautiously. I didn’t relax until I’d touched the bear’s eye with the muzzle of my rifle and he didn’t blink. This truly was a monster of a bear. After Brad and Bud joined us, we took photos and began the three- hour job of skinning that giant. We soon found fresh tooth bites on his legs, back, and neck and a long rip down the middle of his back. He was fighting another bear while we were This newspaper ad announcing a “big brown bear remnant sale” at author’s floor covering store which drew a lot of curious customers and lookie-loos.Nonetheless, he called the sale a success. looking for him, Slim said, and the other bear may have been the one we saw running over the mountain because he kept looking back to see if he was being chased. “If this bear won that fight, I’d hate to see the loser,” I said. Brad and Slim took turns carrying the heavy hide and head and the four of us headed back to the cabin. My bear was larger than what I’d expected to take. His hide measured 10 feet 4 inches by 9 feet 7 inches, for an average of 9 feet 11.5 inches – close enough to call it a ten-footer – and was as smooth as thick carpet pile. The skull measured 26 4/16 inches, easily qualifying for the SCI record book. Slim and I spent the next day at the cabin fleshing the hide and removing as much meat and muscle from the skull as we could. The following day, Warren flew us back to Bear Lake Lodge