By Connie Mertz
Andrew Seman Jr. of Dunbar had no idea when he set out on a routine bear hunt on Nov. 22, 2005, that it would be a day for the record books.Then at age 40, he had been hunting bruins for at least 15 years, but he had only ever seen one bear in the wild.
He and his brothers, Brian and Jim, were hunting bears on state game land 51 in Fayette County, an area comprising more than 16,500 acres, including Chestnut Ridge in the Allegheny Mountains.
"I live within a couple of miles of the game lands, and this is our natural hunting grounds," Seman said. "We know the area well."
The trio stalked and put on mini-drives. At lunchtime on the second day of the three-day season, one of the brothers recommended they try another spot where there were bear signs. The afternoon was overcast and cold with the wind hitting their faces.
"The terrain was thick with slashings, with rocks, too," he recalled. "It was a very mountainous area."
This particular area of the mountain had been clear-cut two decades earlier. Walking through the maze of undergrowth was not an easy task.
Suddenly, Seman heard a light snap. Unbeknownst to Brian, he had forced the large bruin out of its hiding place. When Seman looked around, he saw the black bear in a depression of grapevines.
"I didn't have much time to think," he said, reliving the details.
With his Sako model 76 hunting rifle, he shot as the bear loped through dense cover. His second shot at 25 yards proved fatal.
When he approached the bear, he remembers saying, "That is one big bear," but they really had no clue of its size. However, lifting the huge head led Seman to believe it might top the scales at 400 pounds, but then he thought he was probably exaggerating.
Even after loading and transporting it to the check station at Ligonier, he was still not aware of its immense size. When the bear was weighed, it tipped the scales at 621 pounds, field dressed. It's estimated live weight was 733 pounds.
This particular bear left a legacy. It had been trapped by the Pennsylvania Game Commission in 1997 as a nuisance bear in Fayette County, and tagged and released on state game lands 111 in Somerset County. It was also estimated to be 15 years old, which according to bear biologist, Mark Ternent, is fewer than one percent of the state's bear population. In fact, it is reported that in 25 years only 63 male bears 15 years old have been harvested in Pennsylvania.
While Seman's black bear ties a world record by Boone & Crockett, it is the size of the skull rather than weight that places it as No. 1.
"While a bear's weight may fluctuate from one year to the next based on availability of foods and time of year, the size of its skull is a much more consistent means of determining a bear's true size in comparison to another bear," J.Carl Graybill, Jr, the Game Commission Bureau of Information and Education director explained.
The official score is determined by adding its total length and width.
Seman's bear skull measured 23 3/16 inches, making it the largest black bear taken legally in the state. According to Seman, it also ties with a bear taken in California as the largest ever taken legally by a hunter in the world.
"I was just lucky," Seman says humbly. "I just happened to do the right thing at the right time."
