In 1991 I was hunting with two guys named Charlie. Charlie R lived across the street from me there in Eagle River, and Charlie B was his best friend. We had a tree stand up on Rubadioux Creek, baiting for Black Bears. We also had put a second stand up on the ridge over a mile from the bait station, looking over the river drainage. Grizzlies frequented the river looking for early Salmon. Since the Salmon are naturally occurring there, any grizzly we saw at the river was legal. Along about 9:30 Charlie B and I were sitting on the ridge when we saw two large grizzlies walking down the river bank, looking for fish. One was a chocolate brown, the other was blond. Charlie decided he wanted the blond bear, so he took the shot using a .300 Win Mag. I was watching through binoculars. I saw the impact from the bullet nearly knock the bear off his feet. The blond bear then turned and knocked the heck out of the other bear, like he thought the other bear had caused his pain. The darker bear reared up and started fighting back. Suddenly there was a full fledged fight going on and the fur was flying. I could see big chunks of skin and hair fly every time each bear struck. Those two bears were literally tearing each other up. Charlie started yelling for me to shoot the darker bear, it was tearing up his blond trophy. I told him I could not because I did not have a Grizzly tag. The blond bear was definitely losing the battle, but not giving up. The darker bear was literally ripping him apart. Charlie B sat and cried as he watched his trophy being torn to pieces. After the blond bear died, the other bear continued ripping him up. Severely wounded and bleeding the dark bear laid down nearby. During the night the dark bear would suddenly jump up and run over to the blond bear and start ripping him apart. Then after a few minutes he would stop and go and lay back down. We watched this episode for the night and till mid morning. At that point the dark bear started to bury the blond bear. Then he went and laid down nearby. We realised that there was no way we were going to get to the blond bear without killing the darker one, so we quietly got down and left.
