Here is another hunting story by cats dad: A little history on Cats dad: He has hunting many places. Mainly African hunts. Been to Africa well over 30 times. He is 81 years old. Tale of the Hunt: By Charles Shook aka Shookie.. My introduction to DANGEROUS big-game hunting. After I got out of the Navy in the 50s I brought my wife Linda Lou Davenport Larsen to Mississippi. She is a native of the state of Oregon. I enrolled in Mississippi State College Starkville Mississippi and signed up to study forestry. There was no forestry school at that time, just a division on the agricultural school. So the plan was to go a couple of years to Ms. State and finish up in Oregon. Oregon State had a very good forestry school and no wonder, there were miles and miles of old growth timber in southern Oregon. Anyway, I got a job with Georgia-Pacific Corporation in Coos County Oregon were my wifes family lives. I worked in the forestry department out of Powers Oregon. Georgia-Pacific had over 450,000 acres of land in the 3 southern counties of Oregon and it was a hunters paradise. In late October of 1960 coming home to Powers from about 45 miles up on bone mountain in the Eden ridge area, where most of the trees had been cut in 1945. It was Good deer country, so I decided to get a deer. I got my new, to me new, 25 – 35 Winchester lever action rifle and go off the logging road and down the hill about 300 yards to a creek. I got up on top one of the big stumps that was left after the place was logged. The stumps were 7 to 9 feet high and 10 feet to 11 feet in diameter. They were mostly Douglas fir and Western red Cedar. There was a lot of patches of Rhododendron and alder tickets all around these stumps. There was a large pile of cull logs in the creek as big as a two story house. Back in the old days all of the logging was done with a steam engine mounted on a sled . The logs were pulled up hill to a landing and if one was a cull, that is not worth taking to the mill, it was pushed over the bank where they piled up. I was standing on my stump when something moved off to my left about 75 to 80 yards. It was very shading at the bottom of the hill. I stood very still and a black something moved beside a big log and looked toward the big pile of logs, it was a nice size black bear. As I brought my rifle up, he turned and looked at me and I shot at him in the right side. He took off running into a large patch of rhododendrons this stuff is very thick and is difficult to walk through. As he ran I shot at him two more times and didnt know if I had hit him or not: he showed no sign of being hurt. So what to do? Well, I had to know if I had hit him or not; and there wasnt much daylight left but I had to know. . I thought I heard something but, could not be sure. So, I got a good grip on the rifle and slowly eased over to where he stood when I shot at him the first time. Carefully and quietly I followed the way he had run and there it was blood.! I had hit him. I froze, as I heard something where? I heard something gurgling coming from the big log pile. It was a labored and gurgling sound so I had lucked out and it got him in a lung. Some luck huh? Well, what to do now? I could just charge in there and get him. Sorry, I will just wait a while, thank you. I ease back and got up on my stump. About 45 min. later he was having trouble breathing. I waited some more and then everything got dead quite. So I waited some more. Then I decided I would ease up to the top of the log file to see if I could find him. I was wearing caulked logging boots and it was hard to be silent when walking on logs with these boots. Anyway, I started walking up a big log that lay vertical with the hill. When suddenly I heard a loud grunt and growling sound and gurgling sound and there was a bear. He came out of a the log pile like he had never been shot, up the log where I was standing about 150 feet away. I brought up my mighty 25-35 Winchester rifle and shot three times so fast it sounded like one shot. He turned and limped about 50 yards into a big batch of rhododendrons and disappeared. I could not tell if I had hit him or not. Feeling a little lightheaded, I slowly sat down on the upper end of the log. The bear was making a hell of a noise of roaring and running and digging the ground all around him were he was in the rhododendrons. I did not move. After a while he let out a big roar and all was quiet. I waited and then I waited some more. It would be dark soon and if I was going to take a look at it had to be now. Again I tiptoed in to find the bear. With one more cartridge in the rifle I felt somewhat secure-- foolishly, There he lay on his back with his hind legs draped over a big log His eyes were open and blood from his wounds was all over. I could see that my first shot was to a lung and then when I had shot fast I had hit him in one front leg and broke it and, that was what turned him away from me. Flies were everywhere. I watched them walk across his eyeballs and there was no movement. Now what to do? I had never skinned out a bear before but, there is a first-time for everything I guess . A bear rug on the floor would look good. I would have to hurry the light was fading. I had a big pocketknife. So, I opened it up and, since the bear was on his back, I decided I would start from the front. I straddled the bear, he was bigger than I thought he was, and I put my knee on his chest and as I leaned down to make a cut under his chin all of the sudden the bear let out a loud growling noise and you could not believe how fast I got off that bear!!. Ready to shot again if needed with my last shot. Well, the growling sound ended up being the last breath of the bear. Ill never forget the smell of the last breath of that bear. Well I wobbled and, staggered back up the hill to the truck. When I got home, I took my rifle from behind the seat of the truck. I wanted to take out the last cartridge that I had in the chamber. I always loaded six cartridges in the magazine then loaded one into the chamber then put one more back into the magazine. I knew I had shot six times at that bear. When I opened the chamber of the rifle it was empty! No cartridge! Did I shoot seven times or six times? I guess I will never know. He weighed 488 Lbs. My guess. The moral of this story: is a 25-35 caliber rifle is not the best rifle for bear hunting.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 14:36:52 +0000
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