First bear hunt yields 500 pounder
Joe Fellman of Staples just about gave up on the idea of ever bear hunting. He’d applied for a permit many times but just couldn’t get the lucky draw. A friend convinced him to try again. He did, and finally he got a permit this past summer.
Fellman had never hunted bear and didn’t really know how to do it. He knew he wanted to shoot a crossbow, but he didn’t know how to set up a baiting station. So he learned the key bear hunting techniques by watching YouTube.
He developed his own barrel for baiting and every day for two weeks he restocked his baiting station with his own “secret” concoction of bear food. The plan worked.
Fellman had a trail camera and watched daily as the big bear came to feed at the bait station almost every early morning around 4:30 a.m. and left about 6 a.m. Fellman could tell by the trail camera shots that the bear looked very big, but having no experience with hunting bears he didn’t really know how to determine its size.
The first day he hunted off his tree stand he saw no sign of the bear. He decided to change his approach on his second day. He did’nt bait the day before like he always did, instead, he changed his technique. He put fresh grease on the ground five yards from his stand and had a perfect shooting angle if the bear came into the grease.
He hunted the next morning. No sign of the bear. Fellman came back that afternoon around 3 p.m. and waited for the bear to come for his fresh grease. He waited and waited. Nothing. It was almost closing time. Fellman had a branch rubbing his back.He slowly lifted his arm to get to a more comfortable position and out of the corner of his eye he saw the bear, sitting, sniffing for him, just twelve yards away behind him, but not looking his way. He lifted his bow, slowly turned his body, held his breath and put his sight on the bear.
He squeezed the trigger and the big bear let out a loud roar. It turned and ran into the corn field. Fellman could hear it crashing through the corn but didn’t know if he’d hit it or not.
The next part of the hunt was the scary part for Fellman. He was’nt going to walk into that corn field to see if the bear was there dead or just waiting for him. He called the landowner who came to assist him in looking for the bear. They slowly walked into the area where the bear had crushed down the corn. They looked on both sides of the trail. Nothing. They walked thirty-five yards into the corn field and there was the bear laying stone dead.
It was a beast. Five hundred and one pounds live weight and four hundred and forty pounds dressed. Fellman hunted for only two days and got the bear of a lifetime. He figures it will be his last bear hunt. He doesn’t think he can top this one.
