--- title: "It Took Six People and a Tractor to Haul This Massive Black Bear Off the Mountain" description: "Cecil Jackson’s giant bear could be the biggest one taken in Kentucky this year. Here's the story behind the hunt." date: "2026-10-29" modified: "2026-10-29" authors: - name: "Bob McNally" job_title: "Contributor" link: "https://www.outdoorlife.com/authors/bob-mcnally.md" url: "https://www.outdoorlife.com/hunting/massive-kentucky-black-bear/" categories: - "Bear Hunting" - "Black Bear Hunting" - "Hunting" - "Predator Hunting" tags: - "News" --- # It Took Six People and a Tractor to Haul This Massive Black Bear Off the Mountain ![black bear]() *Photo courtesy of \Cecil Jackson\* Cecil Jackson, age 69, climbed into his elevated Millennium platform hunting blind the afternoon of October 24. It was opening day of archery bear season in this area of the Appalachian Mountains in southeast Kentucky. Jackson didn’t know it at the time, but he was about to take one of the biggest black bears in the area. Archery deer season was also open and Jackson was going to take whatever the mountain provided. “I was hunting deer or bear, whatever came along,” the just-retired Kentucky Utilities worker from the town of Pineville tells Outdoor Life. “I had trail cameras set up and I knew there were a few bears in the area. But I never imagined shooting a bear, because I had no gun with me in case I shot one and had to track it.” Jackson’s blind was situated on rolling private farmland, and late that afternoon a fawn deer strolled down a mountain trail toward Jackson shortly before nightfall. “It stood there awhile, then snapped its head up and looked up the mountain trail where it had come from,” Jackson says. “Then the deer left the area running. I thought maybe a buck was coming, but about 30 yards away a bear showed up.” “That bear looked at me, turned to head after where the fawn had run, and that’s when I shot him with my Ravin crossbow,” Jackson says. “The bear ran about 100 yards, then turned into a thicket and I never saw or heard it again.” The veteran hunter knew he’d made a good shot on the bear. He waited about 10 minutes in his blind, then went out and found his arrow, but there wasn’t much of a blood trail. “Without a gun I wasn’t gonna track that bear alone,” he says. “That’s when a friend of mine called me and I told him I’d shot a bear, and I asked if he had a pistol with him.” His buddy Tanner Jackson (no relation to Cecil) said he did have a gun and shortly met Cecil to start tracking the bear that night. ![black bear]() *Photo by Cecil Jackson* “I’m colorblind and have a tough time on a blood trail,” Cecil says. “We had a light, but it was a hard go trailing that bear.” After about 70 yards of following faint blood sign, they stopped and used a high beam flashlight to scan the woods. “I told Tanner to keep that pistol of his handy, and about that time I spotted the bear lying just off the woods path,” Cecil says. “I tossed a stick at it, but it didn’t move so we figured it was dead. When we walked up to it we couldn’t believe how big it was. We tried to lift just its head up but couldn’t.” They phoned a nearby farm neighbor and some more friends. Using country woods savvy and a low spot in the road, they rigged a rope on a block and loaded the bear onto the tailgate of Jackson’s truck. They were just able to manhandle the whole bear into their truck. “I didn’t think we could get that truck up and away from the low road spot, but that old truck in 4-wheel drive made it,” Cecil says. “It took six adults and a tractor to finally get that bear off the mountain.” The hunters didn’t get the bear home until 11 p.m. that night. The following day, James Dixon from the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources checked Cecil’s huge bear, which field dressed at an estimated weight of over 500 pounds. The bear measured 105-inches (nearly 9 feet) from nose to tail. Its neck measured 33 inches in circumference. “James said he’d not seen a bear that size and believed it was the heaviest one taken so far from Kentucky this year – its huge head may be big enough for a record,” Cecil says. “I’m not much for bear meat, but some friends are, and I gave it all to them. “I also gave away its fur to a buddy. But I may keep its skull for a European mount – especially if the head is of record size.” ## Author Bob McNally has been an outdoor writer since shortly after the earth’s crust cooled. He has written 12 outdoor books, more than 5,000 outdoor magazine stories (including many for Outdoor Life) and more newspaper outdoor columns and features than there are hairs on a grizzly bear.