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Large black bear taken outside of Williams
Large bear nearly a record-breaker

<br>Submitted photo<br>
Chris Binns with the large black bear he killed in Unit Eight near Williams.

<br>Submitted photo<br> Chris Binns with the large black bear he killed in Unit Eight near Williams.

Williams resident Chris Binns didn't think he'd kill such a large animal on his first AZ bear hunting trip. Nor did he think the bear was very large until after he'd shot it. He later found that the animal weighed a whopping 293 pounds and measured six feet. His skull measured 19 and seven-eighths of an inch, which nearly placed the bear in the "Boone and Crocket" book.

"Boone and Crocket has this set of standards for trophy-sized animals that make the book. It takes 21 inches to get into the Boone and Crocket Book, which doesn't make him a state record or anything like that, just that it goes as a trophy," Binns said. "For me this was a nice bear."

Binns, who works in the construction industry, has lived in the Williams area for eight years. He said he and his wife were introduced to bear meat a couple of years ago. The find led Binns to seek a bear tag each year.

"Last year I saw one bear that we never got an opportunity at and then this year I hunted Unit 8 for bear. Some friends of mine kind of gave me some idea of where they had been seeing a lot of bear sign," Binns said. "I was in the Bixler, Hat Ranch area. The area I was hunting in was a very thick area, very limited visibility. I'd been hunting that area for about two weeks. I had seen one bear and missed a shot at him. I've been using a predator call, with cottontail distress, to actually get the bears to call in. On this particular evening I was going to give it about another hour before I got on my tree stand and I did one more set of calls on my electronic caller and he just came walking down the trail at about 40 yards. I made the shot on him and he went about 10 yards and was all done."

He said it took him nearly an hour to load the giant bear on his quad in order to transport the animal to his vehicle.

"He was a really big bear and, for me, getting my first Arizona bear like that, it was pretty neat for him to be of that size," Binns said. "To me he was a trophy for my first bear. We're going to have the skull bleached by Signature Taxidermy and they're also going to send off the hide to have the hide tanned into kind of a rug and we do actually eat the meat."

Binns also thanked Sportway Supplies in Williams for their help with Binn's recent kill. His recent catch, Binns said, is considered to be of the "chocolate" variety.

"Bears are known to have different color phases - anywhere from a black to what mine was, considered a chocolate, where it's got more of a chocolate color than a black. And then there's a cinnamon color, where they're kind of a brown/reddish. I have actually heard of color phases being red, blond and then like even the brown phase," Binns said.

He said the bear didn't look too intimidating when he first saw the animal heading toward him.

"After I got up to him, because I actually saw him go down and once I got to him at that point I said, 'Wow,' it was much bigger than I expected," Binns said. "I talked to the taxidermist earlier, before I'd even gotten this bear, to try and get an estimate of what it would cost, so if I did get a nice bear, the average for a bear they said was about five feet long and usually around a couple hundred pounds."

Binns also expressed his thanks to his wife's friends Rita and Steve, who helped him load the animal for their return trip to Williams.

"It was definitely a two-man job to load him in the trailer," Binns said.


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