My Deer Season Bonus

By Richard L. Julian

The closest I’d come to killing a bear in self-defense happened in 1995. I was deer hunting in Maine. A storm was scheduled to come in that afternoon so we were thinking that the deer might already be in some thick stuff. We hit an area that had been logged 15 years prior and left to grow wild. It was a tangled mess. My buddy and I were attempting to still-hunt through the area about 100 yards apart hoping to kick something to each other.

It was very noisy and I didn’t expect to see anything. I came to an area that had some evergreens and the branches were high enough off the ground that I could walk pretty quietly by stooping under them. I came to a spot where there had been a large tree that the loggers must have left, but it had since fallen. I figured I’d climb up onto the fallen tree; it would give me a better view over the whips that were growing all around.

I stepped onto the root area of the up-ended tree and glanced down. Between my feet through a hole in the roots I could see black hair breathing up and down. I knew what I was looking at, but not what part I was looking at.

Let me tell you, the adrenalin gets going pretty quickly! The area was so thick I felt like I was standing in a closet full of clothes; the quiet “trail” I had just snuck in along was the bear’s trail in and out of there; everything came together at once.

I peeked around the roots and saw the bear looking away from me towards where my buddy was (I could now hear him breaking his way through the thick stuff). I could see the bear’s head and right shoulder. The bear was looking away as I mentioned, but I could see his nose sniffing the air. I watched as he caught my scent and turned to look at me.

As his muscles tensed, I fired my .280 Remington model 7600 into the base of his neck at a range less than six feet. He dropped and I crashed my way out of there!

My buddy yelled over “Did you get him?”

I answered “Yes, but you better get over here quick!”

When he got close enough to see me he said, “You shot a bear didn’t you?”

I asked how he knew and he replied, “You look white as a ghost!”

The bear was a boar weighing 204 pounds dressed. His hide is 6’ from nose to tail and 6’3” from front paw to front paw.

Was it truly “self defense”? Who knows for sure? The direction he perceived danger from was in the direction of my friend, but then he winded me behind him and up close. I was standing on his only trail in and out of there. Any animal can be dangerous when he feels he is cornered. Maybe he would have just run right over/through me? I don’t know, but in the same circumstances I’d do the same thing over again.