I don't know if I can tell the story of this bear without breaking down into tears, the pain is still too fresh.
You see, I was on the computer Saturday morning quibbling with the Ikester about rigging lions and disciplining box babbling mutts when the call came in that somebody had just seen a bear run across the highway near the Franklin Basin turn off. My phone was on the jack in my truck and, of course, the jackals I hunt with never bothered to stop by my house to rouse me off my computer. So no, I missed out on the whole event.
I guess this bear took them up the shady side of the canyon and onto Peter Sinks where the snow is still 5 feet deep. Again the voicemails to my phone to "
GRAB SOME SLEDS AND GET YOUR ASS UP HERE!!" went unnoticed. Eventually the bear bayed up at the base of a brushy spruce tree where the hunter was able to sneak in and close the deal.
Best guess is that the bear would have weighed in the 400 lbs. range. It hadn't completely purged it's digestive system since emerging from it's den but it still had layers of fat 3 inches in places, so it was packing some pretty good weight for this time of year. The teeth were still long and relatively white so while the bear was well matured, he wasn't ancient.
The tag in it's ear was from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, so that is where he must have originated (the Idaho border is only about 5 miles away from where they started the race). Still, they don't have a lot of bear on the Idaho side of the mountain range either, and I thought that most of the bear we have on the Cache migrated in from the south. So it will be interesting to learn more from that tag in it's ear.
Anyway, another picture:
