10/05/2025
Well this will go down as one of our most memorable tracks. Mainly from it being 3.4 miles for this recovery! Where this next lengthy paragraph will capture the recovery. Along with being very informative for fellow trackers along with hunters if found in such a situation.
Was informed Friday night at 10 upon brief details of the shot being a frontal crossbow shot with 7" of the bolt being broken off. Where it sounds like the dreaded shoulder shot that makes up a vaste majority of calls we receive. Where it has been tracked over 200 yards with lots of blood. As any muscle hit goes and chance he may have jugular we get out there immediately. We arrived at 11:30 and started tracking and was surprised that the track indeed had good blood and kept bleeding. Where it would have a decent puddle every 5-10 yards for majority of this track where a few occasions would have nothing for 50-100 yards but then would open up again and continue with that style of blood trail. Where not once did we come across a clot being pushed out or even get within 100 yards of the bear during the track. This track dragged us through tamarack swamps, cattail bogs, balsam swamps, 10 year old clear cuts, power lines, and the dreaded alder swamps. As a tracker especially on muscle hit animals there comes a point where you call a track off as the dogs interest will start to slip (indicating a non fatal hit) or the animal clots up and is on the mend. But during this track it kept eating away at me that it isn't clotting up at all and is just putting distance between us. Where eventually it will bleed out. At about 3 a.m. we got to the point where we were at 3.1 miles. Baffled at how it's not dead yet upon the blood loss I believed it to not be much further ahead and wanted them to pursue it with out a dog come morning. Despite the bear bleeding every 10 yards and the difficulty on not having a dog they only advanced the line 170 yards in a couple hours. So I went back out there to continue the track. After going a quarter mile the bear was finally piled up. Where the shot ended up clipping an artery just below the right jaw bone with the bolt stuck in its neck. Where if we didn't pursue the bear and push it out as far as we had the night before. I believe it would of taken days for it to have expired with the broken arrow shaft being pressed up against its neck arteries like that.
Big congratulations to the hunter on his first bear! Especially with it being a brute. It even made Ivy being an 85 pound lab look small! (Never got a weight as it was to heavy and deep within the swamp to get out whole and had to be processed in the field)
Also the new hunter was informed on frontal shots and how high risk they are and won't make that mistake again.
