Dead Weight Competition

[Nockedup]

Congrats to the winners. Man, I never would have guessed that your bear even came close to that weight Ashley, NICE bear!

[xOEDragonx]

Oh, you know what- I think we have to wait another 90 min in case someone just closed a hunt with a bunch of bears- they still have time to submit them.

In regards to this, I had the weight ready to post on my phone since I knew some were waiting up for it and this didn't cross my mind. If someone genuinely had a hunt end in time for the comp and a bear in that hunt that would have been a winner of any of the prizes, they're welcome to message me or let me know in the next 90 minutes and I'll get them straightened out. The leaderboard as it is now though will stand. I'll get another post up shortly.

[DeadClopz]

Damn! Nice bear xOEDragonx! I really thought it was around the size I posted. LOL Shows pictures can be deceiving.

[VonStratos]

Congratulations to the winner and the other participants too, and thanks to xOEDragonx and the other hosts for this competition

[xOEDragonx]

Time is officially up for this competition!

I have entered the official live weight of my bear into UHC and the leaderboard has sorted itself accordingly. Go check out your position and see how your bear compares to mine!

First Place -- borys1977
Second Place -- Radamus
Third Place -- VonHipper

The official live weight of the bear on my possession tag is 405.92 lbs (184.12 kg). The total length of the bear from the nose to the base of the tail is 68 inches (172.72 cm). The neck girth is 29 inches (73.66 cm) and the chest girth is 49 inches (124.46 cm). The estimated age is 6-7 years, however they pulled a tooth and will be able to give me an official age in 8-10 months.
Unfortunately, I didn't even think to measure just the head prior to taking him to the taxidermist, but I'll be getting the skull back later this month and I'll be cleaning it myself, so I should have a very rough skull length/score in the near future.

Now for my own embarrassing guesses. I watched this bear as well as many others on my trail camera for about two months prior to bear season. From early fall pictures, I guessed this bear to be around 200-250 lbs. Just prior to bear season, I was confident he was around 250 lbs. When I saw him in person just before shooting, I probably would have said the same, 250 lbs. Once we saw him up close and had to move him, my guess changed to 325 lbs. Boy was I wrong. I wasn't even sure I was going to see a bear this season, let alone harvest a bear of this size. Maryland only has a 15-20% success rate for black bears, and the average weight of the bears harvested is usually pretty low (mid to low 100s). This year the average weight of harvested bears was 163 lbs, and only 31 bears were taken from the county I hunt in. I'm still not over the excitement of this harvest and likely won't be for a long time.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this competition. It was a fun one to watch. Congratulations to the winners, both of the main competition and those who harvested the biggest bears of each variation. I hope you all enjoyed your ventures into the beloved Settler Creeks map.

And of course, a special thanks to Tod1d for setting up and helping sponsor this competition as well as J_Birdman for sponsoring the big bear bonuses!

[Radamus]

Great competition Ashley! we've never had one quite like this and you had excellent participation and it was a lot of fun. Some people were chatting about what they thought and I told a couple people where I was. I was convinced this was a 400 pounder based on the little bit of research I did. I saw lots of pictures of either very small or very large that were no help at all. I found pics of 1 guy in Md who bagged a 320# or so and trying to compare to yours, I saw a much bigger bear. I sensed the field was under-guessing, just as you did. My target was 388 to 402/408, right in there somewhere. It was nice to have the big chocolate for a while and glad my friend Tony took home some scratch for topping that. I wasn't playing for that though so I was glad when I got topped to free me up for finding what I wanted. So I was gone for the week and when I got home realized I have an whole other day. As I told Ashley, I decided to go fill barrels and just filled the last one and was walking towards a barn when I spotted a bear. I was about ready to quit but decided to take this boy, I didn't get a spot on him, he kind of snuck up on me and was afraid he's see me. As I came up on it where I dropped it I thought he had good size. I collected his tracks and thought "This is going to be close I think" and sure enough, a 407. I knew right then this was the bear I wanted. I started having second thoughts but I pushed away the doubt and decided to stick with it. Go with the gut man! more often than not it's the best bet.

Really cool, had fun obviously. Grats to all and ^5 Birdman for throwing down for the bonuses, also a cool deal. And how about Difunto with that 632# black bear! WOW!

[VonStratos]

Finally i made it to the podium, i didn't had too much time to make many hunts, but from the few i could i bagged the one it look like the closer to my idea of what the real one was, around 150-220 kg, i don't really know much about bears or how tell a big one from a small irl(thanks spotting system), but the one in the pictures didn't look small to me so my plan was simple, or get a bear in that range that i mentioned or one very big bear for a bonus, i ended with one really close to the real one. Great bear xOEDragonx, sure you will remember that one for a long time

[J_Birdman]

Congratulations to the all the main prize winners! That was a great ending to a great hunt and story, Ashley! I did actually get within 75lbs of your bear so I feel like a winner, lol. Thank you for this fun, unique comp and also for allowing me to sponsor some bonuses.

Congratulations to the bonus prize winners! I will be sending your prizes via forum PM, look for them shortly.

[J_Birdman]

Broncosman, since you don't have a forum account I have to send your em$ prize code to your in-game message box. Please accept my in-game friend request in order to receive it.

[INTIMID883R]

Congrats to the winners. Thanks xOEDrangonx, UHC staff and J_Birdman for the bonuses he provided.