Since I’ve been a kid, I’ve always wanted to either go on a black bear hunt or an Elk hunt. I figured neither of them would ever happen and if I did get the chance to it wouldn’t be until I got older. Well, my whole mind set on probably never being able to go on one changed when I met a guy named Bobby Barker. He’s a professional hunter and has a TV show coming gout in January called Big Game Rush. I showed him my property where I hunt and he told me about a bear hunt in May of 2014. I was so excited that he asked me to go I could barely talk. The only downside was it was going to cost me $2,500. Long story short he got it down to $1,500 for me and I went.
We left on May 23rd at eight o’clock in the morning. I was so excited about leaving I didn’t fall asleep until four A.M and woke up at seven. I don’t remember where we crossed into Canada at but it only took about an hour or so to get there. Once we got to Canada, the time flew by and we were there before I knew it. We didn’t get there until three the next morning but it was worth the drive. We unloaded all of our stuff and got settled in and went to bed. I woke up around seven and everyone else was already up next to the fire. Little did I know, it gets light out in Canada at five in the morning and everyone else had already been up for 2 hours. Breakfast was at eight. At breakfast the owner of the camp told us we could go hunting later that night which was a surprise to us because we were suppose to just hangout the first day and not hunt until the second day. After breakfast we all laid around until it was time to go hunting.
Two o’clock came around and it was time to get ready for the hunt. I was super tired but to excited to sleep at the same time. The workers at the camp gave us rides out to the stands by four-wheeler. The worker walked me to my stand, baited my pile, made sure I got in the stand alright, and then left. I really didn’t know whether to be scared or to be excited to finally be hunting a bear. There are a lot of animals higher on the food chain in the woods in Canada than a human. It was a very boring sit. I didn’t see anything and nothing exciting happened. The most excitement I had was a squirrel running around the bait pile. The worker picked me up at ten from my tree stand and we headed back to camp. I was the first back out of our group which consisted of Bobby, his camera man Tony, friends Johnny and Barb. Bobby and Tony were back second then Johnny and Barb. No one else saw anything either. None of us were happy campers. After the hunt we would eat, hangout, go to bed, wake up, and then lay around until the hunt every day.
On the eight hunt, which was 2 days before we left, I had a really good feeling about the hunt that was about to come. This time Tony the camera man was filming me and we were pumped for the hunt. Tony and I got all set in the stands around three. Five o’clock came around and still nothing. I was starting to get upset. It wasn’t until around six when Tony said, “bear across the road”. I didn’t even look. I grabbed my bow and got set. The bear came straight for the bait pile and started to eat. I stood up and tried to move my foot. When I did, the tree stand made a funny noise. The bear looked at me, sniffed around and started to walk off. As soon as he turned I pulled my bow back, and took a deep breath. I had so much running through my mind. What if I missed? I just blocked it all out and gently squeezed the trigger. I watched the arrow fly through one side of the bear and out the other. Tony and I both started screaming. I had never been happier in my life. After we were done celebrating, we got down and recovered my arrow. By the looks of my arrow, I thought it was going to be dead within the next 50 yards. I was wrong.
Tony and I went back to camp to get Serge and Bobby to help us track it. We got back to the stand where I shot it and started to look. No blood. I was super disappointed in myself. I couldn’t belive it. The only hope I had was Serge telling me we were going to come back in the morning to look. The next morning came and we got back out there. No blood. I didn’t even want to talk anyone. We looked everywhere and found nothing. I was disgusted. I was ready to leave. Two days later we left to go back home. I wasn’t too excited about the 20 hour ride but I was happy to be leaving. We got home early the next morning and I was happier than ever to be home.
Even htough we didn’t find my bear, it was still a really great experience. I would love to do it again if it didn’t cost so much money and as long as I was guaranteed to find the bear.