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Show Man Outruns Bear Craig Twitchcll went fishing at Willow Bottoms, about 20 miles northeast of Pink Cliffs and ended up being treed by a bear! "The bad thing about it is that I didn't even get a single bite in the three and one-half hours I was fishing," Twitchell said. Just as he was leaving he heard a gun shot. "At first I thought I was being shot at," he said. As he looked around he notice two bears on the west side of the lake, then saw a man shooting a pistol at them. One of the bears was quite upset, standing onfhis hind legs and slapping around making a terrible racket, according to Twitchell, then they took off towards the south. "Since I was going west I did. not worry about them" Twiti chell said. He got about three-quarters' of a mile up the trail when he' heard a crashing sound behind 1 him. "I looked back and could! see that it was the smaller of the two bears, he making fairly good time and was he mad!" "1 knew I couldn't make it up the mile of steep trail to the truck in time and I knew bears could climb trees but I quickly climbed up the largest blue spruce I could find, as far as possible and pulled out my knife and opened both blades and waited." "I was scared! I knew there was not much I could do if the bear decided to come up after me: The bear stood on his back legs by the tree, about six feet tall, and Mr. Twitchell said he could see that it had been wounded on bis left hind leg. After about an hour of walking not more than 40 feet away from the tree, and keeping his eye on Mr. Twitchell the whole time he said the bear finally left and headed back towards the Willow Bottoms. "I thought he was inside the trees waiting for me so I stayed in the tree another 45 minutes to calm down. Finally, he said he got out of the tree and stood by it for another 10 minutes before he dared to move. Then he darted away from the tree and ran all the way up that steep trail, got in the car and headed out! Craig Twitchell, his wife, Christy and two daughters, Tiffanie 3, and April 18 months live in Tropic. "I am Just glad the girls are not fatherless." he said. |