Forward to this afternoon and at 6 pm ish a bear appears and lays down in the corn and oats and starts eating. I texted my son and asked him if he had filed his bear report. He answered no. Next question was do you have your bear tag with you? He answered yes. Last question - mind if i fill it? His answer - have at it.
The bear was laying down but was perfectly broadside at 20 yards. Drew a mental picture of where the lungs were and let the bolt fly. He jumped and took off running and was out of sight in less than 2 seconds. Less than 10 seconds later i heard the death moan.
As found 30 yards from the corn/oats:
This is the first bear i have ever taken with the crossbow and one of the only ones that was actually bigger than i thought. When i first saw him at the oats/corn i guessed him to be about 150 lbs. Ends up he measured 5' 8" tail to nose and had a chest girth of 43 inches. I took the measurements because i did not have a scale with us this week and there are good tools for estimating weight based on those 2 measurements. Looking at charts after the fact put his weight at approximately 265 lbs.
Edit to add (Oct 22, 2020):
Took him to my buddy's butcher shop this afternoon and on his scale the bear came in at 251 lbs field dressed equating to roughly 295 lbs live weight. So either the charts are conservative or i measured wrong.
Next to the recovery toboggan which is 5 feet long for scale:
Ready for the drag:
Bow and bolt specs:
- Matrix 380 limbs, riser and rail
- Triggertech 2 stage trigger
- Boo String
- Relayer Stock
- Luepold Mark 4 Glass
- 20 inch Zombie Slayers tipped with 125 grain G5s
