By: Joe Villa (includes photos)

6:00a.m.

It was a cool, partly cloudy August morning, typical of the Happy Jack area, as we were starting day 2 of the 2000 archery Deer hunt.

My cousin and I had just left the truck and initiated our

"Game Plan", to spot and stalk 3 bucks, which we had seen the day

before. As we got into the trees, Albert spotted a small herd of Elk, which appeared to have been spooked. About ten minutes before, we had seen an SUV drive by, and thought that they might have dropped off a hunter just east of us in the draw we were about to cross. As we both gazed in astonishment at the beauty of the Elk, there seemed to be something amiss about the way they were acting. The lead cow kept looking behind her, which I keyed on. At first it seemed like she was looking at a hunter walking, but then they bolted like they had been shot at. Curious, Albert and I stayed in the trees waiting for this ghost to appear. As the squirrels barked at this ghost, I got the "Feeling" that it wasn’t a human.

With eyes and ears fixed to the forest sounds, I heard a scratching sound coming from the other side of the draw. At first, I thought it was a squirrel, by the way it made noise and climbed the tree. To my dis-belief, as the ‘Ghost’ turned around the tree trunk, a large black spot started walking on a limb.

(We had heard from the forest rangers that the bears were in

great numbers this year.)

I got Albert’s attention, being he had a Bear tag, and gave him the scoop. We just ran to about 30 yards from the tree, and Albert prepared to shoot. The sow didn’t even know we were there, and gave him a perfect broadside shot. POW!! Just like the movies! At 50 feet up the sow fell like a sack! As we started to celebrate prematurely, it rolled over and ran away about 20 yards. As it stopped and looked back at the tree, wondering what happened, Albert took another shot. The sow bolted and we spent the next 4hrs tracking her. After losing the blood trail with no luck in our search patterns. We decided to mark the last blood drop, go back to the truck to get a snack and regroup.

On the way down a hill, I glanced over to my left, and took a double take. Behold, the sow had treed herself again! As we scratched our heads, wondering just how are we going to get her down, Albert noticed a movement from the ears. This bear wasn’t going down without a fight! Albert settled in and waited for a good shot when she started to climb up and exposed her vitals. As the arrow was released it penetrated the vitals.

High 5’s were in order and picture taking. 

A fine sow, 6 ft tip to tip. What started out as a Deer hunt ended in success with a first for both of us after 22 years in the field.