The morning of the fourth day started with a search for the “big bear” that The Old Man stuck the night before. They didn’t find much blood that night but the stick looked good on video. That site requires a 20 minute boat ride followed by a back wrenching 40 minute 4-wheeler ride, so they headed out early. For a while they saw no sign of the bear but eventually some blood was stumbled upon and the bear was found a few minutes later. He’d gone 50 yards from the stand but it’s amazing how easy it is for a bear to disappear in that thick bush. The night before they had apparently passed within yards of it without knowing. The Old Man was true to his claim; it was a big bear. It measured better than 20 inches and seemed to weigh twice what the P&Y sized (18 inch) bears did.

With The Old Man tagged out he decided to run video for me over the next three days. It was fun to have someone to talk to but he developed a habit of antagonizing the bears. The fourth day was cold and rainy and we didn’t see much for the first couple of hours. Eventually we see some smaller bears and shoot some video but nothing of size materializes.

When we got back to camp there were dead bears everywhere. One of the guys had bumped into a nice black boar while walking to the stand. The bear had no interest in giving up his site and made several show charges at him and the guide (who had a rifle). He’d back off and come back at them from a different angle, trying to drive them back to the river. After several minutes of this he turned broadside and the rest was history. Unfortunately this was one of the few kills during the week that wasn’t on camera.

His friend also shot two bears from the stand that night. The bigger of the two actually turned out to be a P&Y sized dry sow. He was disappointed that it was a sow but apparently it’s hard even for the experts to tell the difference when they get big. After all the bears I saw during the week I still considered it a coin flip proposition to tell.

After missing when his cam smacked the stand Rick also got on the board with a good black boar. Great shot, saw it fall, all on video. I’ll post it when I get a copy but it wasn’t on my camera.

Now we’ve got 4 hunters done and only 2 without a bear. Everyone is seeing multiple bears at each sitting but with just two days left time is starting get tight.