A recent bear hunt in Minnesota got us three for three on a self guided and self baited trip. all three hunters were carrying handguns,however two ended up shooting them with rifles. One of them being 125 lbs and the other an amazing 400 lbs shot by my wife.
I christened my new Lipsey edition 4.25" ruger redhawk in 44 mag (a present from my son) topped with a burris fast fire 3. I was shooting handloads with speer 240 grn hp deep curls. The accuracy of these loads are just over an inch at 25 yards. The bear was 21 yards away and broadside when I dropped the hammer. He ran 40-50 yards and crashed. No death moan only some gurgling. He weighed about 300 lbs. the deep curl performed perfectly with a pass thru and destroyed the lungs. blood was coming out both sides on the first leap away from the bait.
We submitted the teeth for the Minnesota DNR to age them. It will be interesting to see how old they were. The property we were on hasn't been hunted for bears for over 20 years.
BTW the weights are calculated by using a girth/ length chart provided by a local bear guide that saw them in camp. he said that we shot two very big bears and he helped me measure mine and the smaller one. The chart said 285-314 lbs for mine so he said to take the middle since it was early season bear. no matter the weight it was an incredible hunt. i dont know how to post photos otherwise i would include them.

Congrats. Nothing like doing a bear, especially at close range, with a handgun.
My WV 6'2" 350# bear a few yeas ago was only 3 years old. Be interesting to see what yours is.

Definitely on my bucket list. Congrats!

thanks- this is my third and biggest bear in the same amount of hunts- my wife, Dawn has killed two , one with her longbow in canada and now this one with a rifle. we are truly blessed to have taken these two on the same hunt.

Congratulations! Sounds like an awesome hunt.

Without photos it never happened! Hahahahaha!

Congratulations!

Congrats.

Very cool, DT. Congrats.

Post up some pics!

sorry cant figured out how to post a photo

Congrats! Bear is on my to ?Do Again? list.

Kim, saw the video of you and your son's bear hunt- very exciting and nice job with the camera, havent quite got self filming down yet as you can tell by not being able to post pics.

ok with help from my daughter i managed to get it posted on the bragging board

That is a fine looking bear!

Outstanding!

Nice bear

Congratulations!

Thank you Cmnash for posting the photo!

this was a whole lot of front end work with the pre-season scouting, baiting starting 15 days prior to season and building all the bait cribs on site and running baits daily the full week before with trail camera monitoring. it was also a whole lot of fun to view the photos and videos of the bears on the baits. Just the anticipation of knowing what bears were at the baits and if the big one would come in while sitting on stand. The huge bear that made all the others look small was not taken on this hunt so there is a reason to go back and try again!
My son Brad was instrumental in this hunt by preseason scouting help and taking a weeks vacation to sit with with dawn on every hunt for the first week so i could hunt a different bait site to maximize our chances of success.He will be in the group application along with my daughter for the next hunt. the draw process takes 3-4 years so the next hunt should be 2022 or 2023, God willing the Big ones will still be around to get us excited.

Congrats on a very successful hunt. Nice bear.

thank you

Like winning the lottery... Way to go Dave

Very nice bear.

thank you

Great job!