so i took my son alex on his first bear hunt this summer, it was the week of august 15th. he was hunting in the gila wilderness with let's tree em outfitters and used his bfr 454 casull with barnes federal 250gr xbp bullets at 1800 fps. he passed his shooting test with me which was to go 5/5 on cans of diet coke at 35 yards which he did 3x in a row. here's the pics. he may be on live the wildlife tv show. they were there videoing the hunt.

so i took my son alex on his first bear hunt this summer, it was the week of august 15th. he was hunting in the gila wilderness with let's tree em outfitters and used his bfr 454 casull with barnes federal 250gr xbp bullets at 1800 fps. he passed his shooting test with me which was to go 5/5 on cans of diet coke at 35 yards which he did 3x in a row. here's the pics. he may be on live the wildlife tv show. they were there videoing the hunt.

alex and the bear, she was old, dry female with 3 teeth, perfect one to shoot

well that was bad, lemme try again.

here's the three of us.



these were two of the nicer photos through the trees where there had been a fire

alex crossed each of these ridges chasing the bear with the dogs. he had great conditioning, i didn't and as a result missed his shot on the ground which was offhand at 35 yards and through the shoulders, at dark in the rain, barely shooting light available and a good thing i got him the bfr fiber optic sight. all in all a great hunt, the main outfitter was tom boyer out of reserve NM, and during that week we were the only ones in that region to take a bear according to the game warden. we treed 5 small ones before this ole' girl on the last night. i was very proud of his shooting and it's possible this hunt will be on live the wildlife tv show.

That is excellent!! Congratulations to both you and your son for the great trophy and hunt! You must be very proud!

Congrats Tradmark. Great hunt and its always great to see dads and their sons keeping the tradition alive. Good for you and great for him.

Sweet. Looks like you learned him well.

Your son is a lucky man to have a Dad like you. Kudos!

Very nice indeed.
Give him our congrats!

Tell Alex I said congrats... You're just going to have to get a bigger one in AK. Started buying gear yet?

thats cool

That picture is worth a thousand words...James

Very nice!

yup, gonna be a fun trip, i bet mine will be bigger, but alex's doesn't get any older or wiser, that bear wouldn't tree and knew how to fight the dogs, the guides son had a top quality camera from the video guys from the show and got some good footage of the bear tearing up the dogs a bit. alex had to fire two shots on the run through trees at about 60 yards before the kill shot that all hit off branches.

Sounds like it was an exciting adventure.

Awesome Trad - and good luck in AK! What you takin on that hunt?

Let me re-phrase, which .454 are you packin'?

Congrats to both of you! That's a very nice bear!

Way to go men, that looks like a blast.

Nice!

well, i'm not sure which guns i'm gonna take, perhaps a combo of the FA83 7.5" and the alaskan, or i may take the 10" FA83 and the 4 3/4" FA83. not sure on the combos yet. heck i may just bring the short FA and buy a 454 encore.

Now that you have the 4 3/4 FA I would scope the 10" gun and take that.

That sounds like a good solution.

Great story and some real fine pictures,congratulations to both of you.

yeah, i've thought long and hard about adding an ultradot but i'm pretty good with the long sight radius and i love FA fiber optic sights, maybe i just need a SRH 454 with the stock rings and use that?

Works like a charm!