Between hunting, school and projects I've neglected my blog, but I'm going to get everyone caught back up here on last weekend on Foggy Mountain. As I had mention in this week's TCT post, if you follow me on Twitter you have an idea how I spent last weekend. After a slow start to the day Jay and I decided to do an evening hunt in the same location. Everything was going good, a crisp cool evening and I could hear the deer moving all around me, but as the evening was drawing to an end I figured it would be another uneventful evening. As always I had my cell phone on silent, but for some reason I took it out to see that Jay was calling me as the last little bit of the sun was slipping behind the mountain. I answered it, his first words were a very shaky, drawn out "I shot," then he repeated with more vigor in his voice "I just shot a bear." Here's what transpired.
As you can see the shot looked a little low, after we watched it back a the vehicles we decided to leave it over night and pick up the trail and track it the next day. This was a long night for Jay, at least from what he said.
The next morning a small group of us (Jay, Skippie, James, and myself) assembled to try and find the bear. It started out promising. We found the blood trail immediately and within 50 to 60 yards we found Jay's broken arrow (see right) with a lot of blood and some meat still sticking to it.
After only finding a third of the arrow and the great coloration in the blood we thought the would be an easy tracking job. Well we were right about the track job. It was easy for a while, the Rage 2-Blade that Jay uses sure gave use a nice, red trail to walk stumble down a hillside for the first 500 yards. The next 300 yards were a little more difficult, we started having to actually look but still wasn't to hard. After that it wasn't the best, more of a guess and check for blood for the next 200 yards or so and after that we didn't get to see much of anything. Everyone hates to wound an animal and Jay was no different, but after looking for 3+ hours and completely losing the blood trail in a thicket there wasn't much more we could do.
L to R: Jay, Skippie, and James heading down the hillside looking for the bear.
I'm almost positive that's what happened also.. I thought that as soon as I saw it, but we were hopefully he still managed to clip something else.. I'm guessing the same thing also about him still being alive..
As you can see the shot looked a little low, after we watched it back a the vehicles we decided to leave it over night and pick up the trail and track it the next day. This was a long night for Jay, at least from what he said.
Looks to me like it might have hit him in the leg. Since you didn't find him, he may just make it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Trey, hopefully we're right! he'll get him next time!
ReplyDeleteI'm almost positive that's what happened also.. I thought that as soon as I saw it, but we were hopefully he still managed to clip something else.. I'm guessing the same thing also about him still being alive..
ReplyDelete