Pennsylvania Game News - April 2019 - 23

the bear, finally spotting it moving slowly
in the ravine's bottom.
Finding a solid rest, Mike positioned
his rifle and found the bear in the scope at
200 yards, now coming out of the ravine
and climbing its far slope.
"I had a perfect shot in the open woods;
at the shot, the bear stopped in its tracks,"
Mike said.
But the bear wasn't finished. Not yet.
The bear went right a few steps, behind
some trees. Then it held.
After a few long minutes, it came into
the open again and Mike's 760 roared one
more time on the snowy mountain.
The bear went down. And it stayed
down.
Coming up to the downed bear, Mike's
emotions fluttered like a strobe light. He
was tired, soaking wet, euphoric and yet
still trying to confirm the chase was over.
"I was in a state of disbelief as I came
to the bear," Mike recalled. "I knew he
was big, but I wasn't prepared to really
accept - even now - just how big he was."
A half-mile from the nearest road, it
would be too big to try to get out in one
piece. Within two hours, members of the
group converged on the spot to start skinning and breaking down the huge bear
with knives and a handsaw.
The hide alone came in at about 300
pounds and would prove a challenge to
move. The idea it would slide along easily
atop a tarp was put into action, and ended
in laughter, Mike recalled.
Eventually, the hide was pitched over
a log carried out by eight men, about 20
yards at a time between stops to rest.
"Bear fat was on everything and everybody," Mike said. "But after a great deal
of time, in rain and sleet, we finally made
it down the mountain and to the road. It
was well after dark until we got there."
They celebrated the feat, then climbed
APRIL 2019

the mountain to get the rest of the bear,
bringing along a chainsaw to finish cutting it up.
The bear's legs went out individually
with small teams, and the torso was placed
on a stretcher manned by its own team
of carriers. By the time they reached the
mountain's base, they were down to a
couple a flashlights to pick their way to
the vehicle.
But the bear was loaded and they were
headed back to camp by 9 p.m., thanks to
the techniques and commitment of this
hardcore bear-hunting group.
Many of the group had spent about 10
hours hauling bears off the mountain that
memorable day. And yet, the next morning, they were back out driving for bears,
Mike noted.
At 10 a.m., Mike and another friend
broke from the group to take his bear to
the Marienville check station. There it was
weighed, and its weight estimated.
The bear was missing the tooth usually
taken for aging, and its ripped ears suggested it might have been ear-tagged by
the Game Commission earlier in life, but
it wasn't tattooed on the inside of its lip.
After the skull was beetle-cleaned by
a taxidermist, Mike used outside calipers
to measure it and came up with just shy of
22 inches, which would rank it as maybe
one of the Top 30 bears taken in the state
over the past 10 years.
But the bear's weight - 780 pounds
- ranks it as the seventh heaviest bear
harvested all-time in Pennsylvania.
It surely is a rare specimen, especially
for the big woods in a poor mast year.
Its size still exasperates Mike, which
is why he's having the bear done in a full
taxidermic mount.
"I want people to see what only a few
of us laid our eyes on," he said. "I still
don't believe it!"
23
Pennsylvania Game News - April 2019

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