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Benton teen bags giant Arkansas black bear
By Bryan Hendricks
LITTLE ROCK — Shawn Miller of Benton eased around a tree with his muzzle loader, hoping to shoot a big buck Oct. 24.
Instead, he shot one of the biggest bears ever taken in Arkansas. Depending on its final skull measurement, it might be the biggest entered in the Boone and Crockett all time awards book.
The hunt occurred during the last week of the statewide muzzle loader season. Miller hunted in the Buckville area near Lake Ouachita in a spot Miller said his family has hunted since the 1950s. Miller, 17, a student at Benton High School, made the short drive to camp after leaving school the previous Friday. The next morning he hunted a creek bottom, but after seeing no game, he ascended a lonely ridgetop that hunters generally avoided. The reason they avoided it, Miller said, was because of vandal bears. He said his big boar was probably the chief culprit.
"Stands don't last up there because the bears tear them down," Miller said. "We've had corn feeders for deer, but he took them with him or tore them off trees. We haven't hunted in there for two years, and I was probably the first person to hunt up there last year."
With no stand, Miller hunted from the ground. He said he found a buck scrape on the ground, so he leaned against a tree to see if a buck might come to tend it. He said he was there about 10 minutes when he heard footsteps approaching.
"I thought it was a buck coming down, but I didn't want to move because surely it would see me," Miller said. "It got louder and louder and louder, and finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I thought it was so close I could get a shot, so I leaned around the tree, and there was a big ol' bear standing there."
The bear was stepping over a pine log and stood with its nose high in the air. Miller said he was sure the bear smelled him and was getting ready to run.
"Usually when you see them, they're two or three hundred yards off and running," Miller said. "I clicked the safety off my muzzle loader and shot him in the neck. I could see his neck over the log, and he was huge.He looked like a Jersey cow lying there. I tried to reload as quick as I could, but I was shaking so bad, I kept dropping my powder."
He finally did reload and anchored the bear with a second shot from a distance of 10 feet.
Then came the hard part. After field dressing the bear, Miller said it weighed 482 pounds. Removing the organs probably reduced the weight by about 170 pounds. To make matters worse, the bear came to rest seventenths of a mile from the nearest road.
"It took us 3 1 /2 hours for 12 people and two four-wheelers to get him out of the woods," Miller said. "He was just dead weight, and we kind of had to roll him down the mountain until we got to the logging road."
Getting the bear to camp required putting it on a four wheeler, no easy feat even for 12 guys. However, a dose of Arkansas ingenuity won the day.
"We couldn't get a grip," Miller said. "We had to put a winch cable over the bear's waist and put it over a tree. The winch was squealing, so we gutted him. That took off a lot of weight, and we got him over a tree. Once we hoisted him in the air, we backed another four-wheeler under him and eased him onto it and strapped him down, but it still dragged the ground. It was a big four-wheeler, too, a Can-Am Outlander 500. The fenders were rubbing the tires, and the bear went all the way over the back rack of the four-wheeler."
Miller described the bear as a potbellied old boar. He said its stomach was full of acorns and persimmons. He killed it with a 45-caliber CVA Hunter Bolt Magnum rifle. He used two pellets, or 100 grains, of Triple Seven powder and a Hornady sabot.
Afterward, Miller took the bear to Fin, Feather and Fur Taxidermy in Jacksonville. Dave Corley, the shop owner, said it was one of the most incredible bears he's ever seen, including those brought in from Canada and Alaska.
"He dwarfs a lot of those bears," Corley said. "He's [Miller] bragging about his bear, and he should be. It's incredible."
Miller's bear is a prime example of Arkansas's bear hunting potential when low hunting pressure allows bears to mature.
"We're on an even keel with anybody," he said. "With age, they can get that big. What he did was exceptional."
Corley is converting the hide into a rug, which he said is going to be luminous. It's also going to weigh about 80 pounds. The key to good bearskin rug, he added, is taking care of the hide in the field, and that starts with the first cut. It's very important, he explained, to start at the heel and work toward the vent instead of in reverse, the way most hunters skin a deer.
The Buckville area is in the heart of the Ouachita Mountains. David Goad, chief of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission's wildlife management division, recently said that bear hunting in that part of the state is an underused opportunity. People hunt bears hard in the Ozarks, he explained, but not so much in the Ouachitas, where bears are multiplying rapidly.
Miller's bear demonstrates what's possible with a lot of legwork and a little bit of luck.
This article was published today at 2:14 a.m.
Sports, Pages 36 on 01/17/2010
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This may have already been posted, but it was in todays sports...
By Bryan Hendricks
LITTLE ROCK — Shawn Miller of Benton eased around a tree with his muzzle loader, hoping to shoot a big buck Oct. 24.
Instead, he shot one of the biggest bears ever taken in Arkansas. Depending on its final skull measurement, it might be the biggest entered in the Boone and Crockett all time awards book.
The hunt occurred during the last week of the statewide muzzle loader season. Miller hunted in the Buckville area near Lake Ouachita in a spot Miller said his family has hunted since the 1950s. Miller, 17, a student at Benton High School, made the short drive to camp after leaving school the previous Friday. The next morning he hunted a creek bottom, but after seeing no game, he ascended a lonely ridgetop that hunters generally avoided. The reason they avoided it, Miller said, was because of vandal bears. He said his big boar was probably the chief culprit.
"Stands don't last up there because the bears tear them down," Miller said. "We've had corn feeders for deer, but he took them with him or tore them off trees. We haven't hunted in there for two years, and I was probably the first person to hunt up there last year."
With no stand, Miller hunted from the ground. He said he found a buck scrape on the ground, so he leaned against a tree to see if a buck might come to tend it. He said he was there about 10 minutes when he heard footsteps approaching.
"I thought it was a buck coming down, but I didn't want to move because surely it would see me," Miller said. "It got louder and louder and louder, and finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I thought it was so close I could get a shot, so I leaned around the tree, and there was a big ol' bear standing there."
The bear was stepping over a pine log and stood with its nose high in the air. Miller said he was sure the bear smelled him and was getting ready to run.
"Usually when you see them, they're two or three hundred yards off and running," Miller said. "I clicked the safety off my muzzle loader and shot him in the neck. I could see his neck over the log, and he was huge.He looked like a Jersey cow lying there. I tried to reload as quick as I could, but I was shaking so bad, I kept dropping my powder."
He finally did reload and anchored the bear with a second shot from a distance of 10 feet.
Then came the hard part. After field dressing the bear, Miller said it weighed 482 pounds. Removing the organs probably reduced the weight by about 170 pounds. To make matters worse, the bear came to rest seventenths of a mile from the nearest road.
"It took us 3 1 /2 hours for 12 people and two four-wheelers to get him out of the woods," Miller said. "He was just dead weight, and we kind of had to roll him down the mountain until we got to the logging road."
Getting the bear to camp required putting it on a four wheeler, no easy feat even for 12 guys. However, a dose of Arkansas ingenuity won the day.
"We couldn't get a grip," Miller said. "We had to put a winch cable over the bear's waist and put it over a tree. The winch was squealing, so we gutted him. That took off a lot of weight, and we got him over a tree. Once we hoisted him in the air, we backed another four-wheeler under him and eased him onto it and strapped him down, but it still dragged the ground. It was a big four-wheeler, too, a Can-Am Outlander 500. The fenders were rubbing the tires, and the bear went all the way over the back rack of the four-wheeler."
Miller described the bear as a potbellied old boar. He said its stomach was full of acorns and persimmons. He killed it with a 45-caliber CVA Hunter Bolt Magnum rifle. He used two pellets, or 100 grains, of Triple Seven powder and a Hornady sabot.
Afterward, Miller took the bear to Fin, Feather and Fur Taxidermy in Jacksonville. Dave Corley, the shop owner, said it was one of the most incredible bears he's ever seen, including those brought in from Canada and Alaska.
"He dwarfs a lot of those bears," Corley said. "He's [Miller] bragging about his bear, and he should be. It's incredible."
Miller's bear is a prime example of Arkansas's bear hunting potential when low hunting pressure allows bears to mature.
"We're on an even keel with anybody," he said. "With age, they can get that big. What he did was exceptional."
Corley is converting the hide into a rug, which he said is going to be luminous. It's also going to weigh about 80 pounds. The key to good bearskin rug, he added, is taking care of the hide in the field, and that starts with the first cut. It's very important, he explained, to start at the heel and work toward the vent instead of in reverse, the way most hunters skin a deer.
The Buckville area is in the heart of the Ouachita Mountains. David Goad, chief of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission's wildlife management division, recently said that bear hunting in that part of the state is an underused opportunity. People hunt bears hard in the Ozarks, he explained, but not so much in the Ouachitas, where bears are multiplying rapidly.
Miller's bear demonstrates what's possible with a lot of legwork and a little bit of luck.
This article was published today at 2:14 a.m.
Sports, Pages 36 on 01/17/2010
----------------
This may have already been posted, but it was in todays sports...
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