Quick Thinking Hunter Arrows Charging Black Bear
OutdoorHub Reporters 11.09.16
While taking his 11-year-old brother on his very first elk hunt, Russel Ferster, 24, and Lane Ferster were faced with an angry black bear. Russel had only a split second to react to defend himself and his little brother from a potential fatal mauling.
The 24-year-old took his little brother, Lane, elk hunting in the Crazy Mountains for his first bow hunt.
Just moments after stepping out of their truck, Russel began cow calling hoping to stir-up a bull elk. Instead, a black bear busted out of the brush and began closing in on the brothers fast.
Russel, an experienced hunter, raised his hands and started shouting to try and scare the bear off. But the bear was not fazed, it stopped only 15 feet from Russel and Lane, and started pouncing up and down, snarling and showing its teeth, as if to show its anger in being deceived by the hunters.
It was that very moment that Russel came to the terrifying realization, he didn’t have any bear spray or a handgun on him.
Russel quickly knocked an arrow, simultaneously pushing his younger brother behind him. That movement triggered something in the bear, and it instantly charged the hunters at “100 miles an hour,” Russel said. In the same way, the bear charging triggered something in Russel, and he had a split second to aim and fire.
Russel had one shot and knew he had to make it count. He shot the bear with a 100 grain Slick Trick broadhead right above the eye. The bear crumpled so close to Russel that the fletching side of the arrow hit him in the leg. As you can imagine, there was a fair amount of adrenaline pumping through Russel’s veins after that experience, so much so, he had to lay down in the dirt for a while to calm himself down.
That’s likely the last time Russel travels into bear county without the protection of bear spray, or a side firearm.
