My 1st Bear - Bear Hunting - Bear Hunting

Well, where do I begin to tell you the story of the day I shot my first Minnesota bear. I guess I will begin by telling you that baiting began when we happened to be gone on vacation to Colorado, so we asked Bob’s son, Bobby, to start up our bait site and get it ready for our hunting to begin when we got back from vacation.
He proceeded to bait it up with donuts, chips, frosting, beaver meat and all kinds of good stuff that bears like to eat! Well they hit it hard and we knew that it would be a great site to be hunting on when we would be able to start our hunt.
When we got back from vacation, we continued to bait it every weekend that we could make it up there and keep it full of food for the bear. We wanted to keep them coming back for more! We put up a camera at the site and got several pictures of big bears coming in and eating the food, so we knew we had it made in the shade with a few good shooters in mind! We just had to hope that they would keep on coming in and be there for me when it was my time to hunt.
I just can’t thank Bobby enough for getting my bait up and started because without him, I wouldn’t have had a place to hunt and a bait for my bears to come to!
Well, we had sat at the site for three nights and were unsuccessful in seeing any bears come out in the daylight to be shot at. I was getting discouraged, to say the least. I was beginning to think that the bears got wiser and smarter and knew that we were there because after checking the camera pictures one night, the bears came into the bait not even 10-15 minutes after we had left!! That really made me think they knew we were there and had caught onto us!!
On the fourth night of our sit, we were sitting on the ground, and Bob happened to turn around and look behind him and his eyes were met within 10 feet of a black bear right behind us!! He turned around, looked at me and said, “Don’t move but he is right behind us. Get ready.” Well immediately my WHOLE body began to shake. It was go time and I was not ready for this!!! There was no shooting stick that was going to hold a gun still enough for me to shoot a bear with the way I was shaking!
The bear then disappeared into the brush behind us for about 15 minutes and then came back walking in beside me heading towards the bait. Now mind you, my body is shaking all over and I need to try and get this gun up and sited in and attempt to get a shot at this bear! Bears to me are such a majestic animal and scary at the same time!! So he is walking in beside me heading for the bait, I am following him with my scope and Bob is telling me to shoot him. He saw us sitting there and was not fazed by us at all, he just kept heading for the bait. I just didn’t feel comfortable trying to shoot him walking due to the fact that I was shaking so bad that I didn’t think I could make a good shot to kill him moving. He then made it to the bait and laid down to eat. I had my scope on him and kept it on him. But where he was laying, brush was covering him and I couldn’t get a decent shot at him either. By this time, Bob had just about had it with me!! I had passed up two shots at this bear and you could just tell him was mad at me. But I just felt that I couldn’t make a shot at him that would kill him, I was shaking way too bad. He laid there on the bait eating and then decided to get up and leave. As he is leaving, he is looking up at us where we are sitting and I am hoping for him to stop walking and maybe make a good shot at him. Well, that didn’t happen for me.
Well, by this time, I guess in my mind, and in Bob’s for sure, I figured my year was over and I would not get another chance to shoot a bear. I was angry at myself and I knew Bob was angry and disappointed at me for not shooting because I did have the opportunity and didn’t take it at least twice!!
Well low and behold, we were sitting there and Bob spotted two bears circling us from the west. The wind was so bad that evening that we had the Ozonics cranked to help keep our scent down from the bears. He said, “Get ready. They are coming in behind us and you need to be ready.” So I got my gun ready. I spotted one bear behind us coming in. I just threw down the shooting sticks because they were going to be of NO help to me at all. My whole body was shaking so bad I didn’t know how I was going to make this happen. I kept following this bear with the scope holding the gun standing up and I have never shot a gun standing up before. I had the crosshairs on the bear and I just froze, I couldn’t pull the trigger. Finally after a few VERY choice swear words from Bob yelling at me, I pulled the trigger. That was the only way that bear was going down was for Bob to finally swear at me and get angry with me to pull the trigger! The gun I shot was a 300 Ultra Mag and it threw me to the ground! I had no idea if I hit the bear or not. In the meantime, I’m laying on the ground, Bob is yelling at me to get up and shoot him again!! So I stand up, look at Bob and say, “Did I get him and he says, “Well I don’t know. He is still running!” Come to find out, there were 2 bear in the brush and he was watching one and I shot at the other one. So in the midst of our arguing with each other, all of a sudden we hear a death moan. I KILLED MY FIRST BEAR!!!! BBD!!!
Our good friends Todders and Kooty were back at the cabin waiting for us because we were suppose to have a BBQ supper with them when we got back and all of a sudden a couple of text messages came through- “Please tell us that shot was from you guys??”
We sent them a message back saying, “You bet it was.” with a picture as soon as we found the bear. It didn’t go but maybe 10 yards from where we were sitting. Very little blood to trail but Bob found him in the brush! What a rush!!!!
So we headed back to the cabin and Kooty jumped right in there to help Bob haul it back home so that we could get it taken care of meanwhile Todders and Scotty Hansen were cooking elk steaks on the grill.