Jon Morris, a former Rowan County resident, bagged a 353-pound bear on the first day of hunting season in northern Minnesota.
He used a lever-action .44 magnum high powered rifle without a scope.
“I spend a lot of time in the woods, and I had seen sign of this bear all summer. His tracks, torn logs, claw marks on trees,” he said.
He went berry picking in a forest about three weeks before the season when I heard grunts and movement in the same thicket.
“I was not armed, so I got out of there,” he said. “I wouldn’t swear that it was the same one, but I wouldn’t doubt it either.”
After he shot the bear, Morris said, “I got down from my stand and tracked its blood. I got about 15 feet from it and it reared up as if it wanted to lunge at me. I then dispatched it.”
Small game and trapping season were next up after bear season. Morris said he’d also be hunting deer during trapping season and again later in December when muzzleloader season comes in and it gets really cold.
The bear could have been more than 400 pounds, but Morris said he gutted him in the woods before having him weighed.