Killed himself a bar when he was 33

The title was composed with the Davy Crocket theme song in mind.

I was 33 at the time more than 2 decades ago. I have told this story to a few close friends and have been told it should be published so here goes. I was between contracts and so I had time to kill. I was living in SW Florida at the time. A friend owned about a 220-acre farm property near the Everglades. He was growing limes and strawberries. His berry patch was getting hit pretty hard by some wild bores. He said he would pay me $50 per male to thin the herd down and save his remaining crop. I figured some big males and $50 per head would be a good deal so I went out to the back of the property following the hoof prints. They went around a pond that had saw palmettos and cactus and a few palms on it. Pretty thick so I came back with a pop-up blind and plopped it down. It was about 10:30 in the morning so I was not expecting any critters out that late.

I was driving my old Jeep Grand Cherokee. I loved that old Jeep. I think it had a lower maintenance cost than any vehicle I had ever owned up to that point. I didn't want to pop a tire so it was about 100 yards away. When I plopped down that pop-up blind I saw something move about 25 yards to my front or South. Just off of the pond on the Westside stood a black bear. I looked back to my Jeep and thought there is no way I can outrun this black bear to get to my rifle 100 yards away. I had my 303 British carbine in there but with this bear perhaps 25 yards away it was not going to help. She was about a 400lb female. She tensed up and started growling and shortly started running for me. I did the only thing I could think of. I pulled my field knife and ran at her growling with my teeth bared. I had no clue what else to do at the moment. I did not even know there are black bears in the Everglades.

As I was running at her I raised my knife. At the last moment, she looked up and saw it and turned around.



As she turned I jabbed her in her left kidney burying my knife to the hilt. She winced but kept running. I managed to find her about 300 yards away. She had nearly made it to the tree line. I found her dead on her face. I poked at her a few times to be sure she was dead but she didn't move. I turned her over and noticed she was not lactating so I did not leave some babies without a mother. She was about 3 years old I think. I had no way to move her so I had to leave her there. I went back and moved the pop-up blind further to the East side of the pond.

At this point, I was exhausted. I told my farmer friend about the bear and went home for a nap. I got back about 1:00 AM in the morning and set up in the blind with my 303 with a night vision scope. It took until almost 3:00 AM before the hogs came out from the treeline and sure enough, they went on the East side of the pond avoiding the dead bear and what looked like its kill a piglet it was eating when I came upon it earlier that day. I managed to take out a big male perhaps 300 lbs. I gathered him up and found a tree and jacked him up with a come-along and field dressed him. That reduced the weight down to perhaps 100 lbs. I got that in the big cooler in the Jeep and headed home. I think I slept for almost a day after all that.

a reply to: machineintelligence

I killed a b'ar, over thar. I didn't really do it, I was drunk.

Russian : (Richard Boone) Against a Crooked Sky (1975)