Sweet success

300-pound bear pays for doughnut break

Photo submitted by Craig White
Craig White of Rogers killed this 300-plus pound black bear with his crossbow Oct. 2 on private land near Combs, in Madison County. White killed the bruin over bait on his first season hunting bear.
Photo submitted by Craig White Craig White of Rogers killed this 300-plus pound black bear with his crossbow Oct. 2 on private land near Combs, in Madison County. White killed the bruin over bait on his first season hunting bear.

People aren’t the only ones who like doughnuts.

Bears like them, too, and Craig White, 42, of Rogers used Krispy Kreme doughnuts to kill a big Ozark bruin Oct. 2 on some leased property near the Combs community in Madison County.

The black bear weighed about 300 pounds f ield dressed, White said. There are several ways to estimate the live weight of a fielddressed bear, but most calculations put the live weight of White’s bear from 345-360 pounds. That’s a trophy by any standard, especially for a guy on his first bear hunt.

“I’m very excited, very proud,” White said. “It’s a great accomplishment. It made my father very proud. You should have seen the smile on his face.”

It all happened fast and rather unexpectedly. For starters, White didn’t know this bear was in the area. His game camera had shot some photos of a small bear coming to his bait barrel. On Sept. 30, White showed them to a friend who hunts bears. His words were not encouraging.

“He said, ‘That’s really not a shooter bear, but maybe it wouldn’t be bad for your first one,’ ” White said.

Initially, White didn’t use doughnuts for bait. Instead, he used a concoction of sweet feed, spoiled fruit and fried fish oil. It did not attract any bears. Next, he worked out a deal with the manager of a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop to get returned doughnuts that would otherwise be thrown away. That’s when the little bear started visiting.

On Oct. 1, White stayed in his treestand from sunup to sundown but saw no bears. His only company was a whitetailed doe, which he killed.

“It ran right up to my four-wheeler and fell over,” White said.

Fortune smiled Oct. 2. White was in his stand before daylight. A bear arrived at 10 a.m., but it wasn’t the young bear. It was the big one.

“He came up a cliff right behind me,” White said. “He was no more than 5 yards from me. I was in a 10-foot treestand, standing up.”

First, White had to tamp down the adrenaline and subdue his hyperventilating. He turned to pick up his crossbow. The bear must have seen the movement because White said it backed up to leave. White let fly a 525-grain Rage 2 broadhead from his Tenpoint crossbow.White said the bear roared and fell down a cliff. It ran up the opposite cliff, roared again and fell backward.

“That’s the last sound I heard,” White said.

Shaking, White descended his stand. He rode his four-wheeler to several hunting camps to find help. One hunter was processing a bear that he had killed. He said he would help when he finished with his bear. Despite poor cell phone reception, White was able to summon some other people. He returned to his spot to make sure the bear was there.

“By then, it all seemed like an illusion,” White said. “I had a walking stick, but it still took me 30 minutes to get down to him. He was big, bigger than I ever expected.”

White field dressed the bear while waiting for help. When he first opened the body cavity, he said it smelled like a cross between a wet dog and rotten fruit.

Then the real fun began. His friend Vance Hearn arrived and they tried to move the bear, but it rolled to the bottom of the ravine and took out a small tree on the way. Hearn tied the bear to White’s Polaris four-wheeler.

“The four-wheeler moved about 4 inches and started digging in,” White said.

His father, Mike White arrived along with a couple of other people and a second four-wheeler. They tied the bear to both four-wheelers.

“It took four or five tries,” White said. “We’d make it so far and stop, re-tie, back up and go some more,” White said.

When they finally got the bear out of the ravine, it was too big to carry on a four-wheeler. It did, however, fit nicely in an Arctic-Cat UTV. It took four of them to lift it into that vehicle.

Although this particular bear was a surprise, the outcome was not. You might say it was lucky, if you define luck as being the result of when preparation meets opportunity.

“I practice every day,” White said. “I shoot my crossbow from my deck to a little dummy in the backyard. From the [bait] barrel to where my stand was was 14 yards. I have a Bushnell rangefinder that shows angles and degrees. I matched it up at home, so I had the right angle.

“I didn’t shoot a lot, but every day I went out before and after work and shot once or twice to make sure I was comfortable every time.”

Of course, the doughnuts helped too.

Sports, Pages 27 on 10/13/2013

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