Gary Reeder
Wednesday evenings Colleen goes to dinner with one of her
Thursday, June 13, 2019, 11:08

lady friends who raises Jack Russells too. On the way home about 8:30 or so a bear ran out in front of her and she wiped him and her new Nissan Armada out. She called me and as we live about 3 minutes from there I jumped in the truck and drove over. The bear was a neat black faced, cinnamon body male bear weighing about 250, which is about average for around here.

The bear was still alive and standing on the side of the road when I got there. He was hurt, with a broken shoulder and blood coming out his mouth. I knew I needed to put him down where he was as if he decided to run off in the woods there could be lots of problems with a wounded bear. Colleen was about 50 feet off to one side so I tried to angle myself to the side of the bear so any shoot thru rounds wouldn't hit her. I eased up to about 10 feet of the bear to try to get a shot at his head or neck to put him down. I didn't have enough light to even see the sights at all. While I was trying to get where I could see him and my sights another truck pulled up and gave me some light. The fellow started to get out of his truck and asked what it was. I told him it was a bear that my wife had just hit. He really quick got back in his truck. He helped out by telling me about 20 times "don't get too close" and "I think you are too close, he could charge you" and so on. But his headlights gave me at least a full view of the bear. I still couldn't see my sights other than a faint image in the glare of the headlights off to my right. I carry alternating rounds in my PD, first a JHP, then a 230 ball and so on. My first shot hit him just in front of the shoulder as he was thrashing around snapping at his shoulder. There was no reaction to that shot at all. Nothing. I hit him again about the same spot with the 2nd round. This one was ball ammo and he reacted big time to that standing up for a second and swiping at anything in range. I was about 6 or 8 feet away so I was out of range plus he had the trucks headlights in his eyes. I don't think he ever saw me. He settled back down on all fours and still growling and snapping at his shoulder. I hit him with the third shot again a JHP and again no reaction. I was trying to get a bit closer to be able to put one in his head when the highway patrol showed up. The young patrolman got his M-16 or AR-15 out of the truck and when the bear stopped his thrashing around he put one in the bear's head ending it. After the bear stopped moving I eased up to see if I could see where my shots hit as I never could see my front sight due to the darkness. There were 3 holes in his right side, 2 behind the shoulder and one on point of shoulder. Plus the one on the side of the bear's head.

The patrolman asked us if we wanted the bear to have it mounted but I passed on it. The impact from Colleen's truck had scrapped a lot of fur off on one side plus he was still shedding his winter fur plus we have 3 bears mounted at home and one big one at the shop. So we dragged him out of the roadway and up behind a group of pine trees.

All in all it could have been a lot worse. Her Nissan Armada got a lot of damage to the front and right side but that can be repaired. Nobody was hurt and that was a good thing. Another thing that came from it is now I wonder if JHPs are the way to go in a 45 auto. Obviously they did no damage to the bear whereas the ball ammo at least made him show a reaction to the hit. So now I need to maybe do some testing, plus think about night sights. A front night sight would have helped things a lot. Lots of thinking to do.