This Could Be the Heaviest Black Bear Ever Tagged in North Carolina

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Brad Jones kneels with the black bear near where it was killed; Jones with the bear outside the meat processor where it was weighed. Courtesy Brad Jones

It was a tight timetable for Brad Jones to bowhunt for black bears on his buddy’s land near the North Carolina coast on Saturday. Jones figured it was worth it, though, since he knew a couple big boars had been frequenting the property in Beaufort County.      

“My buddy Stuart Dudley had nighttime trail camera photos of a couple big bears on his 200 acres, and he told me to go try and get one with my bow,” Jones tells Outdoor Life. “But he had some bear hunters with dogs coming in [Dec. 16]. So if I wanted to get one with my bow, I had to get there first.”

Dudely had been baiting the area with peanuts. Since most of the trail cam photos of the bears had been taken at night, Jones set up his lock-on stand roughly 500 yards away from the bait site. He was hoping one of the bears would pass by on its way to or from its bed in the nearby swamp.

“I walked to my stand in the dark and waited for daylight,” says Jones, who lives in Greenville. “Before daylight a bear came through in the dark and passed by. But at 7 a.m. another giant bear came down a trail leading back to the swamp. The wind was pretty good, and as he got closer, he stepped behind some thick stuff. That’s when I drew my bow. He stepped into an opening less than 20 yards away, broadside. I grunted like I do for deer. He stopped, and I released my arrow.”

Jones knew he’d made a good hit behind the bear’s shoulder. He saw the bear run into a thick swamp, and while he never heard it fall, he says he heard the bear’s death moan barely 30 seconds later.

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Jones and crew with the bear outside the meat processor, where the bear weighed in at 780 pounds. Courtesy Brad Jones

Jones found the bear just 50 yards away. The broadhead had passed completely through the bear’s chest.