Local man downs 400-plus pound bear

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By BARBARA LYON
Chippewa Valley Newspapers
Monday, September 22, 2008 7:42 PM CDT

MENOMONIE — With less than 15 minutes left to go on the first day of the season, Brian Wellington was ready to climb down from his bear stand and call it a day.

A split second before resolution translated itself into action, however, he spied a dark shape at the bait pile. Raising his rifle, he took careful aim — and bagged himself his very first bear on Sept. 3.

It was no ordinary black bear, he would soon discover.

Super heavyweight

“I called my brother-in-law and two of our friends who knew more about bear hunting and actually shot a bear on this stand before,” said Wellington, who works for the Wisconsin prison system in New Richmond. “They ... asked me how much it weighed. I didn’t know much about bears, so I told them, ‘I don’t know, about 250 or so.’”

It wasn’t long before his friends came out to the stand, located on hunting land north of Connorsville owned by his sister and brother-in-law.

“We tried to move it,” Wellington said. “We couldn’t even lift it. We had to go get a tarp and actually pull it out of the woods. We couldn’t even budge it.

“The scary part was when I shot him, he actually dropped right there, right by where I need to get out of the woods,” he added. “By that time — it takes them a while to die and stuff ... I actually had to jump right over him to get out of the woods. So my heart was pumping because I didn’t know what to expect.”

Fortunately, it was a good, clean kill through the neck and shoulders.

With a lot of help from his friends, Wellington hooked the bear on the tarp up to a four-wheeler and dragged the animal onto a trailer. They drove to a drive-on scale, where it took five men to unload the beast.

Although Wellington doesn’t know yet whether his bear will be one for the record books, at 460 pounds, there’s a strong chance his will qualify.

“I had one of our buddies text message us about the bear hunt,” Wellington said. “He showed up in his pajamas at 11:30 at night because he thought it was a typo when we said it was 460 pounds.”

Best bait

So what does it take to attract a bear?

Wellington explained that he and his bear hunting pals buy bait from “a guy in Chippewa.”

Since bears are notorious for having a sweet tooth, the bait is composed of ingredients like granola, oats, caramel, cookie dough and peanut butter. To further sweeten the pot, they also added several pies from a local restaurant that were past their “sell-by” date.

“It was mostly cherry pies,” Wellington said. “The bear actually probably ate better than we did.”

At long last

“I decided to try bear hunting five years ago,” Wellington said, noting that it takes that long to obtain a bear license. “Every year, you have to send in money for a preference point, and after five years, you get a tag.”

He knew his chance for beginner’s luck would be good.

“A couple of other of my friends actually shot a bear out of that stand, so I decided I would start applying,” Wellington said. “They have really nice mounts on their wall. I said I wanted to get a mount like that, but I can’t because they said my bear’s too big.”

His next hurdle will be to convince his wife, Tracy, that the bear will make a nice addition to the living room of the couple’s north Menomonie home.

“Actually, I’m getting a three-quarter body mount. ... He’s going to be like standing on a rock with moss and ferns and stuff like that, coming out of the wall,” Wellington said.

As for his plans for the meat, Wellington said that since he also hunts deer and turkey, the family freezer is filled with more than enough provender.

Instead of asking his long-suffering wife to come up with recipes for bear stew, Wellington will contact friends who own a restaurant in Boyceville about getting the beast cooked up for a free bear feed.