The Lore of the Net
Not a week goes by that some odd or unbelievable story or set of photos find their way to my email box. On occasion I post them out here but often I just chase down the real story for my own sense of satisfaction. Tom over Black Bear Blog gets many of the same posts and today I saw his post about the young girl shooting the record book brown bear. Although parts of the story are true and some are not I find this story fascinating and that is why it is filling up many of our email boxes. Fern Spaulding – Rivers is the young lady who took this massive (although not a world record or a man eater) brown bear this past May. Here is Bear Hunting Magazine’s write up;
From “Biggest Bears Of 2006″ in the March/April 2007 issue of Bear Hunting Magazine, due on newsstands late February 2007:
If the “biggest bear” is determined as a ratio of the size of the bear to the size of the hunter, Fern Spaulding-Rivers is probably setting records that will never be broken. The 10 year-old from Talkeetna, Alaska has already harvested great trophies of most of Alaska’s major game species, and she is a handloading fanatic as well. Fern’s larger caliber rifles have a muzzle brake and a recoil pad and she also wears a custom-made padded shooting vest from McCoy Shooting Armor to help her withstand big bore recoil. Fern was carrying her Remington 700 Stainless chambered in .375 H&H while brown bear hunting on the Alaskan Peninsula with her father and mother on May 10th, 2006 (when she was 9 years old). As the day progressed she and her father saw 11 bears. At one point, they were charged by a pack of wolves, and they had to dispatch some with the nearest at only 8 paces! Later, they spotted a big bruin in a gully at 32 yards. With all the excitement of the day beginning to show, Fern asked Larry to hold her legs steady while she shot because her knees were shaking. Fern rolled the bear with her first shot, but the bruin regained it’s footing and tore off across the tundra. Shooting again from a prone position, Fern dropped the behemoth for good with a second 270 grain Barnes Triple-shock at 112 yards. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service measured the bear’s hide at 11′4″ from nose to tail. The skull has been officially scored at 29 1/16″ Boone and Crockett. What does Fern think of bear hunting? “Do you know how big an 11′ bear looks at 30 yds? It’s kinda scary! They are about the size of a Volkswagen bus and when they swing their head to look your way they remind you of a T-Rex in Jurassic Park!” Her trophy brown bear now puts her in an elite class. Fern is a tremendous example to young hunters everywhere, and she is a great hunter regardless of her age.
What an impressive young lady and what a story, as I was researching this I stumbled across Fern’s website. She has a very impressive trophy page already going and in this case I think the real story is more impressive then the “urban legends”. Read some of here adventures and see if it doesn’t rekindle the dreams of your youth. It’s great to see the future of hunting is in such capable hands.
That’s a massive bear! They look even bigger when alive.
Comment by BirdAdvocate — January 31, 2007 @ 9:44 pm
[...] on the net there is some truth and a lot of lore. I got many of the same emails Tom got so I chased down what I felt was the real story and posted it out here as well as a link to the Black Bear Blog. It looks like my detective work [...]
Pingback by Moose Droppings » A Bear Story that is Taking on A Life of It’s Own — February 11, 2007 @ 7:31 pm