Here are some pictures from the hunt.
Skinning Shed
Ed helping Kristie flip many eggs over-easy for breakfast! Great Fun! She say “My Flipper”
Another Ed – Practice makes perfect!
Bears Down!
Skinning a bear!
Crazy for the honey pot
Who’s bigger? Wanna fight? Two bears go at it.
ORV Essential Transportation
A Carved Two Bear Seat.
Big Color Phase Bear
Saddle Hill Outfitters is a Trophy bear camp owned and operated by Rob and Kristie Sawyer. https://www.saddlehillsoutfitting.com/
I hunted June 1 to June 6, 2025.
In camp were eight hunters, including myself. Most hunted with rifle. A few of us came with bow and I came with my 10 Point Turbo S1 crossbow. I also rented a Savage scoped rifle in .270 Winchester for backup and for wolf. Yup, I had a wolf tag too.
We hunted from 5PM till dark, in Alberta’s Saddle Hills County. Guides drove us many many miles to each baited stand. In most cases, hunters and guides communicated via phone text.
The Hunt
Rob and guides place white tipped stakes at bait sites so we could see bear shoulder height as the bears walk near. If the bears shoulder height was equal to the top of the stakes or higher, you had as trophy boar in your sights.
Trophy bear were taken by lucky hunters. The largest was around 300 pounds taken by Cason with 6.5 PRC rifle. Holy mackerel! What a trophy bear!
Some hunters misjudged some bears and harvested a few sows to the chagrin of the outfitters. The sow is essential for producing and caring for the cubs and the future adult bears.
Harvested bears are skinned and measured. Rob is a taxidermist and can create your mounts or you can take you skinned bear home to your own taxidermist.
I was not that lucky but observed many lesser black, cinnamon, and blond bears during the week.
I double lunged a smaller boar with my crossbow during the last 3 hours of my hunt after observing over a dozen bears during the hunt. At the shot, the boar ran 20 feet up the nearest tree, only to discover he was clearly hit in both lungs. He fell 20 feet straight down like a heavy sack of potatoes only to emit his erie death moan.
Encounter with “Angry Bear”
Upon getting the bear back to camp, my hunt friend excitedly said, “Ed, you shot Angry Bear!”
I responded, “Say what?”
He said, “You shot the bear that attempted to attack a sow with three cubs and aggressively attack me in my treestand a few days earlier. I had to fire my rifle to get him away from me, but after 5 minutes he came back snapping teeth and growling.
And he was trying to kill the three cubs with the sow at the bait.” The cubs climbed nearby trees!
The mother bear chased the angry bear up a tree three times, all the while the boar was growling and popping his teeth.
After hearing this crazy encounter, my hunter friend was so glad I had killed that bear with my Swhacker 2 1/2 inch cut mechanical broadheads. Love those swhackers!
Mother bear also climbed up the tree-stand to check out the hunter. Peek-a-boo I see you!
Hunters, be aware that most of the bears I observed will climb up tree stands to see who is in it. I shout hey! The bears leave the tree but remained to eat the bait.
Below, my crossbow view overlooking the bait site of Angry Bear. On the ground behind the bait barrel lies Angry Bear. Quite dead!
Hunting black bears with bow or crossbow requires some study of bear anatomy for correct shot placement. When I taught bowhunter education years ago we focused largely on whitetail deer. My Outfitter will cover shot placement as well.
The National Bowhunter Education Foundation sells small synthetic 3D black bears, deer, etc. ($65) where the anatomy can be seen and a pin representing the arrow can be inserted to see what vitals were hit. The next best is a special target sold by Amazon. The company is called “ethikill” anatomy targets. On one side is a broadside bear and the opposite side is the anatomy, bones, heart lungs, liver and intestines. The hunter can shoot it and see the opposite side, e.g., what vital organs were hit. Many experts prefer a slight quartering away shot so the arrow enters and penetrates forward.
The downside is that bears don’t often stand quartering for such a shot for any length of time. Broadside is still a great shot.
A video from “Bowhunting road” does a great job to educate. Here it is…
The Ethikill target is excellent for broadside shots.
A double lung hit and your bear won’t go any distance at all, sometimes just feet.
Good Bear Hunting!
This is a slow motion video of a freehand crossbow shot at 18 yards. The arrow is traveling 360 fps. Dead foam bear!
I Like this cinnamon brown where I am hunting. Can you say BIG!
The clock is ticking. Getting excited! In just a few weeks I will be in a bear camp. Some folks have a Vacation, but Albertans “and guests” who hunt have a Bearcation.
I shoot my fast 10 Point crossbow daily and play with arrows, fletching and broadheads like a kid in a sandbox with a toy dump truck and bulldozer.
Recently, I watched a video of a family with three generations of bear hunters. Many are teens and 20’s seen whooping dancing and stomping like american indians prepping for the hunt in a large garage below. The senior dad is hunting with his crossbow, like I will be doing.
Sooo much fun watching the hunting spirit of this family.
Western Canada has tons of big black bears. Success rates are typically very high. Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario are chockablock full of ’em. And as a meat-eater that makes my day.
My grandkids have just started deer hunting with their dad and me. Maybe get them out on a bearcation in a few years.
Get Excited! Adventure – Go Hunt!
My upcoming Alberta black bear hunt will be among color phase bears. What does that mean? Fur color can be black, chocolate/brown, cinnamon, and blonde. Blonde is perhaps the most rare of the color phases. I have not targeted a bear color per se. For me, what is important is a larger male representative of the species. If a large cinnamon presents itself and its coat is prime. We shall see…
Of interest is this video below on color phases across North America.
Good Hunting!
Most crossbow companies sell “arrow speed” to sell Crossbows based on say, a 400 grain arrow/bolt.
Yes, sure, that 400 fps equates to delivered kinetic energy to game but what about penetration?
Will a 500 or 600 grain arrow get more momentum thus deeper penetration. On a target butt, you won’t see a dramatic difference because it is the target butts job to stop the arrow. It is not flesh.
The same crossbow will lose some speed with the heavier arrows but gain in penetration.
African bowhunters on really big game use say 800 to 900 grain arrows. Bolts are shorter but a 500 to 600 grain bolt will carry more momentum thus penetration.
An exit wound for an arrow provides the all important blood trail.
If hunting moose or larger, for example; With crossbow, use a heavier arrow.
Below is what Fred Bear said on the subject; https://www.arkansashunting.net/threads/what-did-fred-bear-say-about-heavy-arrows.95210/
Good Hunting!
I am both a bowman and a rifleman and I shoot both very well. Todays crossbows can launch an arrow/bolt at sizzling speeds of over 500 fps, faster than the best compound bows.
Most crossbows today shoot bolts typically in the 300 to 400 fps but the 500’s are out there now. I own two crossbows, a Grizzly recurve from Excalibur which shoots at 300 fps and has taken wild boar and turkey. Full penetration.
My main crossbow is a 10 Point Turbo S1 which launches a 425 grain arrow at around 360 fps. Fast enough and with enough momentum to penetrate the largest of wild game.
Both rifle and bow are great hunting tools. We just need training and practice to master them!
Good Hunting!
As most of my readers know, I am hunting massive male bears in Alberta, Canada in May/June this spring with my Ten Point 360 fps Crossbow. This black bear species is known as Ursus americanus like the bears of eastern canada and USA and americanus is extending its range to 75% of Alberta. Spring Alberta male bears are lean but often exceed 300 pounds. They live in proximity to the Olympic black bear which earned the sub-species Ursus americanus altifrontalis and the grizzly bear – Ursus arctos horribilis.
https://www.alberta.ca/black-bears-overview#jumplinks-0
Encounters of grizzly can happen but are rare because the grizzly does not frequent thick boreal forests like the black bear. I will have a rifle for backup especially when I exit the stand in the darkness.
A black bear near a 50 gallon bait drum will aid very well in determining size. If the back of the bear is near to or greater than the top of the drum, then you have a “big very likely male bear” say 300 to 400 pounds.
UPDATE
If looking for Boone and Crockett trophies, check out Jim Shockey’s article on field judging black bear.
https://www.boone-crockett.org/field-judging-black-bear
Shockey says, “Big bears are the toughest, meanest sons-of-a-guns in the valley, and they act it.”
For me, the fur must be in prime shape as well, not rubbed off.
END UPDATE
Look to identify male from female. Outfitters train hunters to avoid shooting female bears. Additionally, female bears are not unusually large as the massive 300 to 400 lb males.
Image Courtesy Wikipedia
Females with cubs or even older cubs give their sex away simply by being with cubs.
Further, female front legs taper from wide to narrow all the way to the narrow front paws, where male front legs are like large stove pipes like the above photo with no leg taper. Old mature bruins have smaller ears more on the side of the head and fat wide heads with a crease down the center of the skull as shown above.
If I encounter a black bear of the size above, I would make every effort to harvest him. If I could not arrow him, I would take him with rifle.
More soon….
In less than 50 days I’ll be flying 2200 miles across the USA and arriving in Grande Prairie Alberta, Canada for a week of “two-fer” crossbow black bear hunting.
I chose to travel specifically to Alberta to hunt these unusually large color phase black bears. My Ten Point Turbo S1 Arrow/Bolts are equipped with Swhacker 231 broadheads.
With my Burris Oracle X Laser Scope, I practice at 15 to 30 yards for deer and bear and target shoot well beyond to 60 yards and more with supreme accuracy.
The laser works best after 20 yards by lighting the aiming point.
Back to Swhackers; It’s cutting sharp hardened steel trocar tip leads the entry till the sharp swhacker wings enter tissue and swing the 2 1/2 inch razor sharp blades to bear, (pardon the pun).
Literally, broadside exit wounds are nearly assured with crossbows shooting 360 fps. I remember in the 1960’s, reading Fred Bear, said of his two edge broadhead blades…”It makes them lay low.” The swhacker does that in spades. I shot a red practice swhacker head out to my 60 yards target yesterday. Here is a entrance and exit picture.
I was impressed and hit the bullseye too.
Good Shooting!