Big BC Boar Down

[IronNoggin]

aka The Coincidence Factor...

Although the tale actually begins two falls ago, we will start off with this fall's chapter and get back to the beginning shortly...

A few evenings ago, a landowner Buddy I know quite well called.
Where the hell are you were his very first excited words.
Well, since you called me at home... was my laughing reply.
No way you can get here before dark then?
No Chancy. Why?
There is a giant of a black bear hanging out very very close to our yard. It has me damn nervous!
How big?
If I didn't know that Monster you shot last year was gone, I'd swear I was looking at him right now!
Hmmmm...
Any deer around of late?
Yes. Too damn many. Even a decent buck or two...

Having said exactly the right words to get me interested, we agreed to meet and chat the next afternoon.
Been a little while since I was at his place, but it is very familiar to me and I found it once again with little effort.
It was more than interesting to note the deer sign as we made our way out into the back areas of his place.
Didn't take long to determine just where the bear was coming through the fence, and it appeared he had been doing so rather frequently of late.
From his bootprints, it also appeared we indeed had another Big Boy on our hands...

So I set up that afternoon and evening in a hastily constructed natural blind, extremely close to the spot I had done the same last year.
No bear that night, but a lot of blacktail does, fawns, and a handful of small bucks all wandered by.
Looking good around here!

The next afternoon I boogied the hour and a half down there in a rightfully good mood.
The Pursuit it seems almost always has that effect on me, and with the prospect of a good bear, and maybe a decent Blacktail, I was in my Happy Place alright!

Again that eve it appeared the bear would be a no-show.
But the constant stream of deer going by was more than entertaining.
Just at dark, the couple deer I could still barely make out suddenly panicked and fled the scene.
Within moments the Big Bruin shoved his way through the fence and headed my way.
But, although I could make him out fairly well with the binocs (50mm objectives) the Leupold simply could not gather enough light for me to be absolutely certain of shot placement. Sensing something amiss, the Bear picked his pace up a tad, and boogied out of sight in the timber.
Heart pounding, I knew what I had seen, and knew I had made the right decision not to fire under those conditions.

The next day I went down a little earlier, and revisited developments with the landowner.
Close, wonder if he'll come back now? he asked.
I think so, he's obviously sleeping in the one timber block, then passing through your place on the way to some attraction or another beyond here...

Set up for the evening again, and was once again well entertained by a good handful of Blacktails.
One massive older Gal is so grey she matches my hair except that she carries that color all over her face & body.
She packs a HUGE Buck Bambi - better than 30% larger than the rest of the wee ones, and destined to be a Great Buck down the road should he make it. I'll be keeping an eye out for him as he develops alright.The Grey Lady was also packing three extra bambis that eve - a good indication that their mothers were off being engaged in matters of The Prom.

Suddenly The Grey Lady whirled in mid-stride, and froze.
A few brisk steps put her between whatever she was concentrating on and the herd of four little guys.
Then a LOUD SNORT, and the entire crew was off and running HARD!
WTH?

Figured perhaps a good Buck was coming along, and was straining hard to see in that direction.
Through the timber I caught a flash of BLACK!
My heart rate jumped and adrenaline began to flow a little too freely as I realized it was The Bear that had spooked the deer.
Settle Down Dummy I told myself. Time for calm now, you must not mess this one up...

The bear squeezed through the fence, and began crossing the small opening I was set up adjacent to.
At 50 yards, he turned to stare HARD in my direction.
Holding the crosshairs on him, the wait for his turn seemed like hours.
Then he appeared to dismiss the thought of danger from my direction, turned some and began to follow his chosen path from the previous evening.
The 270 Bucked of it's own accord, and he was off like a shot!
I have no issues shooting running game, having grown up on antelope & whitetails.
Tracking him in the scope, at 85 yards the rifle bucked again seemingly on it's own.
This time the Big Bear reacted most dramatically, taking three full and furious somersaults before settling to earth.
No wiggle.
Unearthly silence...

I do not trust bears. Any bear that is.
I gave him 15 minutes to wiggle.
He didn't.
I approached with the safety off, and studied him carefully from a close margin.
Eyes staring unseeingly.
No breath. He is indeed DOWN!



At close range I was taken by his sheer mass.
Probably 400 pounds plus I recall thinking.
But the most impressive thing with this beast was the sheer size of his head!
Monstrous!
You can see what I mean from the pix!

The landowner could not thank me enough, and between us we managed to round up a wrecking crew in short order to deal with the matter.
Took a handful of us to extract him & get him wrestled into the trailer I had borrowed from a Rancher Buddy for the occasion.
Then it was off to another Buddy's barn to hoist & skin him.
Going to be some great Bear Grease around here soon methinks!
And a hell of a pile of smokies & pepps!!



Couple pictures of the head & hide on my endgate. Impressive Brute this one!





The pictures really don't do him a lot of justice.
That head is well over a foot wide, and he has one of the longer snouts I have seen on a bear.
My guess is that he will surpass the 22 inch skull of the bear I took last season in fact!!

Recovered both bullets. The one smashed heavy bone several times, and lost it's lead.
The other was a behind the shoulders hit that tore the heart right out of him.
Both were found just under the hide:



Now, speaking of the other (last year's) bear, I will saw this off here for a moment before getting into The Coincidence Factor...

[Twisted Canuck]

That's a beast, congratulations! Really like that you recovered the Partitions, that alone gives an indication of his bulk that they didn't pass through....they sure did the job. One of my favorite bullets forever.

[IronNoggin]

As noted, this tale actually began a few falls ago.
Then I was hunting that particular place a little harder than of late.
And it was there I began having problems with a certain bear that had a serious love of eating my trail cams.
It was one of those cams that captured a video of not only the trail cam muncher, but his likely brother as well.
Seems that although brothers, they still were inclined to test each other when they met...

I call this one the "Before" video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ng3...ature=youtu.be

The trail cam killer was the one with the rougher hair.
Even back then, his brother (smooth hair) was demonstrating he was developing an enormous noggin!

That fall, the one Boar ate three of my cameras.
As in killed them.
And a vendetta was established within me.
That bear HAD to pay!!

I never did see that fellow, nor his brother in daylight that entire season.
And so I hoped he would wander off before the next...
He didn't...

The following fall the problems began the very first day the cameras went up.
I got enough footage from the miraculously preserved chips to determine it was the same bloody bear wrecking havoc once again.
And he continued to chew up every camera he wandered across!
That put a sense of determination within me I could damn near taste!!

The story of the dance with him, and that bear's eventual demise was written up on the Excalibur Forum that same fall:

http://www.excaliburcrossbow.com/php...67559&p=657411



And his skull did indeed run just over 22 inches after the drying period.
Largest I have ever taken...
Up to now... Maybe...

It did not take long for his brother to move right in on the preferred territory, and begin to mimic the cam destruction routine.
In fact, due to just that, I placed none out in that area this year, and hunted it very little until now.

Now to the coincidences.

I honestly believe the two Boars to be Brothers.
They were damn close to the same size, large, and mature.
Usually mature boars have extremely little tolerance for each other, which lends credence to the thought they were closely related.

Both Boars were shot exactly one year to the day apart (actually within the hour).
Both were shot from basically the same blind location on a funnel into the property.
Both required two rounds from the same rifle.
Both hearts were dissolved by the bullets.
Both were BIG Boars, packing a LOT of fat & meat.
Both were in superb condition.
Both expired within 20 feet of each other.
And I do believe both will place well in The Book.

Odds on all of that are interesting.
At least to me they are.

And so ends the Saga Of Two Bears.
Toying with the idea of planting a few cams down there very soon.
And wondering just how long before the next Boar decides to make a meal of them...

Busy today, butchering the Big Boy, then back to the Blacktail Insanity.
The latter are fully engaged with The Prom at this point!
And for me that means it is time to get out there!!!

Cheers & Best of Luck All!
Nog

[Peebles]

Incredible tale. Titans both.

It seems like there is something in the area that attracts big boars. I think your hunch is right that a big dominant one will move in next year to fill the vacuum.

[35 whelen]

Unreal that's on my bucket list 7 ft + bear

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

[IronNoggin]

Originally Posted by 35 whelen

Unreal that's on my bucket list 7 ft + bear

Last year's boar went seven feet six inches nose to tail, and seven feet eight inches across the front paws. A literal Giant!

This year's goes about 1/2 inch over seven feet, but his head appears to be a fair bit larger that last year's. I am looking forward to running the tape over it once it has dried...

Most know we cannot bait over here. So no introduction of "garbage food" into their diet.
We either set up for them as I did on these two, or spot & stalk.
These two were both orchard and garden raiders, and lived within reasonable proximity to a massive alfalfa field. They did not wander near any fish bearing creeks, nor eat any fish through their lifetimes. As a consequence, they offer fine eating!
The first provided enough rendered lard to keep our family in cooking oil and pastry lard over a year. And made excellent hams, smokies & pepps.

This year's will be as good methinks after having very much enjoyed his bacon wrapped tenderloins off the BarBee last night...



Cheers,
Nog

[leaseman]

Enjoyed reading it again Matt, here and BC!!

[Red Bullets]

Great story & pics and a great bear. Thanks for sharing.

[Sledhead71]

Great bear Matt, congrats and thanks for sharing !

[JoshT]

Great story! Love the write up! Uncanny coincidence between the two pictures from the barn!

[58thecat]

island bears sure pack on the lard eh! What a beast...no crossbow kill

[cowmanbob]

Cool story, A really big black bear can be difficult to get. Congrats on a fine trophy.

[alpineguy]

Not a bear hunter myself but from what I've seen that's a friggin' big boar.
Congrats and thanks for posting

[husky7mm]

That is impressive, will make a hell of a rug too. Saw a nice shiny black rug with a red felt trim. It looked sharp! Those bacon wrapped medalions look pretty good too. How tender are they well done?

[Snm]

Beautiful bear. Congrats on the memories.

[Coiloil37]

Great bear with an impressively wide head AND long snout on him. He will certainly score very well.

[IronNoggin]

Originally Posted by 58thecat

island bears sure pack on the lard eh! What a beast...no crossbow kill

Decided the situation called for a rifle this time.
Did not want to chance the bugger running onto an adjoining property, or right into the farm yard proper.
Back to the bow now though.
There will be one or two that fall to it again this fall methinks...

Originally Posted by husky7mm

... Those bacon wrapped medallions look pretty good too. How tender are they well done?

They were very tender and extremely good flavor.
Put it this way - I had both the bear and one tenderloin from a Buddy's Blacktail I helped with. My Lady suggested she wasn't about to chow down on the bear. Short story - not only did she do just that, there was left-over Blacktail and NO left-over bear!!

Cooked just barely past pink. I am not overly concerned with trich from that particular area (never been recorded there).

Cheers,
Nog

[Stinky Buffalo]

Loved the writeup and pics, IronNoggin!

Congratulations on yet another massive bear! Nice work!

[tonnage]

Send your story in to AO. They'll publish it in their reader's section.

[Talking moose]

My god that looks like a fat moose all skinned out and hanging!!!

[IronNoggin]

Originally Posted by tonnage

Send your story in to AO. They'll publish it in their reader's section.

Thanks. I may consider doing just that...

Cheers!
Nog

[weekender7]

Heck of a great bear, congrats!

[sns2]

What a BRUTE! Congrats.

[IronNoggin]

Thought I'd run this up so any that might be interested can use this as a reference for rendering bear fat...

Clean ALL hair, meat and blood off the fat, then chop into ~ one inch cubes:



Toss the cubes into your large diameter pot:



Add some water (I put about 4 cups to around 10 cups of fat this go):



Set your burner to medium heat, cover and monitor:



You do NOT want to get too hot or it will scorch. Keep around medium heat for the duration. Takes a couple of hours. During that time most of the water will boil off, but when it gets close to done, you want to remove the cover and let the rest of the water wander off.

You can tell it is done when the cracklings resemble piggy puffs, stop making noise as they boil, and turn a golden brown:



And, just like piggy puffs it is a mad scramble between the hounds and myself to see who gets the most! Yummy!!



Then set up your second pot with a double layer of cheesecloth for a filter, and the mason jars the same (I use old and clean game bags for this) in preparation for filtering:



This next step is a little tricky, and I advise Extreme Caution! Handling extremely hot oil can be very hazardous to your health!! Slowly and carefully pour the contents of your boiler pan into the next pot through the filter.



Then remove that filter, and pour into the mason jars. The liquid will appear like a fine oil at this point:



Cap and set to cool:



In my case the overnight temperatures dropped right down, so I simply left the product on the table out back all night. When cool, the lard turns snow white, and is an extremely fine oil / lard. It can be held for over a year when refrigerated, and damn near forever when frozen, and damn near forever once frozen.



It can be used any time you would cooking oil, makes the best pastry lard ever invented, and is an incredible preservative for leather (boots etc). There is indeed a reason our forefathers loved and relied on this stuff so much!

Didn't have as much as last year as this boar was slightly smaller, and not nearly as larded up. Easy to understand as we've had such a warm fall this year, while last year's boar was shot when there was almost a foot of snow on the ground. Still I got 21 pints of extremely good quality lard - just enough to see us through the winter methinks...

Cheers,
Nog

[wildwoods]

another notoriously long thread writer. I'm the same way buddy. Love the long reads.
Congrats on a beast. I will read it's entirety later

[Stinky Buffalo]

Thanks for the write-up!

The boys are pestering me constantly to shoot a plump bear so that we can try this out.

[CBintheNorth]

Loved the write up so much that I read it all again, top to bottom.
Thanks for the tips for rendering. Going to try that on the next one.

[Don_Parsons]

Thanks for sharing Nog, you've always shared in the out-doors of good times on the fourm.

A real sportsman of staying the course,,, and I hope many more years of it to follow.

Don