When big game hunting, eventually hours of silence and patience will be rewarded.
Soldotna High School senior Daniel Rosin could hardly contain his excitement after he took down a 9-foot tall brown bear with one arrow while bow hunting on May 6 near Skikok Lake.
In a stand 25 feet off the ground with his dad, Tom Rosin, the two waited a few hours before the bear presented him with the perfect shot. Enticed by popcorn, the 750-pound bear walked into the baited area about 20 yards from the stand.
Calmly and slowly, Daniel Rosin pulled back the 70-pound draw weight with 125-grain broad head and fired the arrow into the bear’s lungs, striking the heart artery. Within seconds the bear was dead.
“It was incredible. I didn’t expect it to drop like that,” he said. “My adrenaline was pumping. I could not have asked for a better result.”
Daniel Rosin, 18, built the stand with his friend River Calloway, also a SoHi senior, in a remote spot near the lake two miles off the Sterling Highway. With his friend at work he went out with his dad to hunt after dinner at about 7 p.m. Not long after they arrived, the bear looked right at them and ran off spooked, he said.
“We heard him circling around us for two hours,” Daniel Rosin said. “Then he walked up to the bait and presented the right shot. I couldn’t take my eyes off the bear, I was locked in.”
After the kill, Daniel Rosin spent another two hours skinning the bear. First he cut open the stomach and pulled the guts out. Then he cut the hide off in one piece, careful to not nick it with the knife blade.
He said the large brown bear was missing a couple claws and had worn down teeth, which showed he was an older animal. After harvesting the meat and claiming the skull and hide, he took it to Kenny Jones Skull and Bones Taxidermy in Soldotna to get a bear rug made. He said he would display the skull as a trophy.
While Daniel Rosin has hunted white-tail deer, moose, wild hogs in Texas and black bear with a rifle, the brown bear was his first kill with a bow. He said the main difference between black and brown bears are the size. Black bears eat berries and are a lot smaller while brown bears are larger and fish being their main diet.
“It means more take him down with a bow,” Daniel Rosin said. “It’s not like with a rifle where you are 200 yards off. With a bow you need to be in close range, stealthy and on the top of your game.”
Daniel Rosin has been bow hunting for about a year. He said his dad has hunted moose with a bow and taught him how to shoot with precision. Now that he has claimed his first big game with a bow, he said he is hooked on the sport.
“It is addicting,” he said. “I will never go back to using a rifle for hunting.”
Reach Dan Balmer at daniel.balmer@peninsulaclarion.com.
