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Tuna!
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: La Center, Wa
Posts: 1,179
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Watch Your back...
'It had to count': Bowhunter saves son
Nolan Koller had one opportunity to take down the charging black
bear that had just mauled his son, Jason — and he pulled it off
By Lynn Burkhead
ESPNOutdoors.com associate editor
POCATELLO, Idaho — Many bowhunters know what it's like to be at full draw, aiming at a big game animal with butterflies dancing in their stomachs. That's called buck fever.
Often a black bear can prove to be more dangerous than its more-notorious brethren the grizzly.
But few, if any archers have ever faced the intense pressure Nolan Koller did recently when he made a literal life-and-death shot with his bow and arrow.
On Saturday, Sept. 28, Koller shot and killed a black bear sow at close range that was in the process of mauling his 29-year old son, Jason Koller.
The sudden attack happened as the pair bowhunted for elk in southeastern Idaho's Caribou National Forest, located not far from the Wyoming border and the Teton Mountains.
As the younger Koller sat quietly hoping for an elk to wander by in bow range, he suddenly spotted danger approaching.
"I saw the cubs first and they came into the open where I was sitting," Jason recalled from his hospital bed on Wednesday morning, Oct. 2.
"Then the mother came into the open. I let my father know on the radio what was happening. He was about 100 yards away."
“ I can tell you that it was totally different than buck fever. I knew that I only had one chance. It was pretty much instinctive. ”
— Nolan Koller, on the bow shot that took down the bear that attacked his son
The situation deteriorated very quickly from that point forward.
"The sow was walking right to me," the younger Koller said. "When she got about five feet away from me, I stood up to draw my bow and try to defend myself. But she knocked the bow out of my hands and jumped on me."
When Nolan arrived on the scene, he found the 200-pound bruin mauling his son. As the father yelled at the bear, the sow broke off her attack on the son and began moving quickly in Nolan's direction.
"I can tell you that it was totally different than buck fever," said the elder Koller, 50. "I knew that I only had one chance. It was pretty much instinctive."
As the attacking bear closed the gap, Nolan came to full draw with his bow. At a distance of only 10-feet, he cut the shot.
"I took just a split second trying to place the shot because she was coming right at me," said the experienced hunter, who began bowhunting in 1967. "I was trying to decide where to place the arrow. I was actually aiming for the shoulder and chest cavity. It happened very fast. I was just aiming to disable it."
Fortunately, the fatal shot put the attacking bear down for the count.
"The bear fell immediately because the arrow hit the spinal cord," Nolan said. "At that point, I was just thinking to get to my son and see what his injuries were and to help him."
Black bear
Upon arriving at Jason's side, Koller discovered that his son was suffering from multiple bite wounds to his legs and upper torso. He quickly radioed two nearby hunting companions for help after the early-morning attack.
The pair of hunting friends found two other hunters from Washington a short while later. They summoned rescue personnel. By mid-afternoon Saturday, Jason had been air-lifted to Bannock Regional Medical Center in Pocatello, where he later underwent surgery for his wounds and is expected to make a full recovery.
"It took them five hours to get him from the time the mauling happened until emergency help arrived," said Larry Hlavaty, a senior conservation officer with the Idaho Fish and Game Department. "One thing in their favor was their walkie-talkies, so they had communication. They also had GPS units, so the Life Flight helicopter could get to them."
While Hlavaty notes that black bears rarely attack humans — this is the first such attack that he has investigated in his 25-year career — he said that when they do attack, a black bear can prove to be more dangerous than a grizzly bear.
“ A black bear just keeps on attacking once they start. ”
— Larry Hlavaty, Idaho conservation officer
The wildlife conservation official attributes that to the fact that the claws on a black bear are smaller, sharper and more curved than those found on their grizzly cousins.
There are other reasons that black bears can prove deadly in an attack situation.
"A black bear, No. 1, can pursue you up a tree," Hlavaty explained. "A person could normally get away from a grizzly by going up a tree. But a black bear can go up a tree after you."
"In some grizzly attacks, the victim has played dead, and, sometimes, the grizzly will make a couple of swats and leave them alone," he added. "That's happened.
"But a black bear just keeps on attacking once they start."
After investigating the bear attack, Hlavaty credits Nolan with saving his son's life.
"It's not a long shot, by any means," Hlavaty said. "You look at it and say that's a reasonable situation. Until you put a moving bear into that situation that is yelling and screaming, you're yelling and screaming, and the bear is mauling your son. And it had to count, or he (Nolan) would have been in trouble, too."
"He's a very good archer and he's pretty cool-headed, considering the situation."
But Nolan is quick to defer any attempts at painting his shot as heroic. After all, he did what any other father would have done.
Instead, he praises the assistance that he and his son received from others in the Idaho backcountry.
"For then on (after the shot), there were a lot of other people who were the real heroes," Nolan said. "From the first-aid EMTs to the other hunters who came to our assistance, everybody who was there was a hero."
A fund is in the process of being set up to help defray the family's medical expenses. For information, contact Nolan Koller at (208) 547-3445.
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