I’ve heard it said that there ar only two kinds of hunters- those who have lost game, and those who will. I seem to be in the first category.

Went out Monday afternoon and had a good size bear come out an hour before last light. I watched it for the ten minutes or so that it stood in every possible way other than broadside. Finally got a broadside presentation at 35 yards, aimed halfway up the body, about a hand span behind the front leg (which was forward). Fired a 140grain Nosler Partition from the 1903MS 6.5x54. The bear growled, bit at its onside flank and rolled twice, then got up and ran obliquely from right to left towards the end of the trees abutting a reed and cedar marsh. I reloaded quickly and got a going-away shot with a 160gr RNSP that I called as hitting somewhere between the shoulders right as it disappeared into the tree line/marsh. I felt that they were both solid hits, and that id find the bear piled up close to where it was last seen. No crashing sounds, no moaning.

I waited fifteen minutes, then went in to look. No blood or hair at shot-site, no blood on the trail. Went to marsh-same results. Had the land-owner come out to help look. Long story short, nothing found to track, his dog didn’t pick anything up and after 2.5 hours we called it off until morning.

In the morning, a good 150yards from the shot-site, in the cedars abutting the marsh, one dinner-plate site of red blood ( not bubbly lung, no green, just red-muscle blood) was found, with two further spots of small deposits on leaves within ten yards, and then, nothing. Nothing at all. We searched for a further three hours in all directions. None of the marsh grass had any blood on it, which would have showed up nicely on the yellowed and dry grass, and nothing further was found. After searching out to 350 yards or so from the shot site, we stopped.

The bear is unrecovered.

I have put the rifle aside and will range test to see if it was knocked out of zero, or some such. I’ve gone over it in my mind and am confident that the shots broke well. I am a decent tracker, as is the landowner, and am confident we missed nothing. Might we have pushed a wounded bear? Possibly. Could it be a grazing wound that bled just a bit, or I was it one of those timed when thick fur and fat stop the bleeding from reaching the ground? If a solid double lung hit, then I would have expected to find a nasal-spray of blood where we saw it had left blood behind.

Needless to say, it is a sad result, and I am gut-sick about it. I’m not off hunting bears, just very disappointed in the outcome and trying to record what’s happened so as to avoid a repeat in future.

So is the 6.5x54 good on bear? My short answer is I don’t know.