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Thomas Pavelka

The stage is set in the thick mountain forest of New Hampshire in the US. It's baiting season and I have two very respectable Boar Black Bears showing up on the game cam, about the end of legal shooting hours.

As I sat 9 meters up in a hardwood tree in my Summit 180 climber, all of 12 meters from the bait site, I look over to where the Bears have been coming to the bait pile, but of course no Bears are showing up.

The clock is ticking, it's getting quite dark, and I have 5 minutes left of shooting time. Just about ready to say they are not showing up and getting down from the tree when I caught movement about 40 meters North of my stand. Odd I thought, they usually come in from the West.

It is in fact a Bear, and a real brute. He milled around going back and forth and seemed like he knew something was up. I'm thinking the clock is going to run out.

The safety is off as soon as I first saw the Bear as I did not want him to hear it if he came in. How that Bear could not hear my heart beating out of my chest I do not know.

At last he makes the move to come in, with exactly 1 minute left on the clock for legal shooting time. I had turned on the red dot in the Leupold VX-R scope as the rets were no longer visible.

Knowing I was running out of time I did not wait until he turned broadside. As soon as he came in and I had a definite shot I put the red dot on the center of his chest and fired the 30-06. The flame from the barrel went all the way to the Bear as the Berger 168 grain VLD hit home. I knew it was a good hit. The bear dropped right there.

In 61 years of hunting I have never seen damage like that in a game animal. The heart was ripped in half. There was no visible in tact lungs left, they literally poured out as liquid. The entrance wound was large enough that had the bear taken off it would not have been difficult to follow. The diaphram was not breeched, and I found no trace of the bullet. Spectacular performance of that Berger bullet!

Now as I think back on it I'm wondering if I can expect this type of in track kill every time with the Berger VLD bullets, or were all the cards lined up perfectly for this particular hunt?

As well known, prior to hibernation these bears have a 3 inch layer of fat built up, which quickly plugs an exit hole from a bullet. Too, the coat at this time is long and prime and absorbs blood spore like a sponge.

Conventional wisdom would say to rip a massive wound through the vitals and provide a rather large exit hole in case a follow up is needed. But then, if said Bear drops in its tracks and exit hole becomes moot and is not needed.

The last thing I want to do is make a Bear or any game animal suffer. Should I stick with the Bergers or perhaps go to a Nosler Partition?

Shots are always close, and I do not hit the trigger unless I have a precise shot.

Thanks for any input.