Windber hunter holds world record for largest grizzly bear

Like many area residents, Rodney Debias is an avid outdoorsman. The life-long Windber resident started hunting in Pennsylvania’s woods when he was a young boy with his father and his love of the sport would eventually take him on trips all over North America.

Not all that uncommon from many local sportsmen.

Debias, however, does hold one distinction — and a pretty significant one at that.

Being a humble guy, many people may not know that Debias holds the world record for the largest grizzly bear ever taken.

That’s right. The man who harvested the largest grizzly bear, ever, in the entire world, calls Somerset County home.

“I don’t consider myself to be a ‘trophy hunter,’” Debias said. “I get as much of a thrill trying to kill the biggest buck 100 yards behind my house where I grew up, as I do anything else. I don’t want to sound like I’m belittling the bear because I’m not. It is truly an honor, but really I didn’t make a big deal about.”

The record-setting kill came on the eighth day of a 2009 hunt near Unalakleet, Alaska. It took some time to be verified and all the measurements checked, but eventually the massive bruin was deemed a world record by Boone and Crockett, Safari Club International and the prestigious Pope and Young Club just this past April at its national convention in Phoenix, Arizona.

After a stand-off at 10 yards, Debias made a perfect 30-yard shot at the monster grizzly bear.

Debias’ score of 27 3/16 was a whopping full inch larger than the previous world record taken in 2004 by Dennis Dunn, also near Unalakleet, Alaska.

Grizzly bears are the interior relatives of the coastal Alaskan brown bears. They are found in huntable populations in Alaska (north of the Alaska Range and the 62nd Parallel), British Columbia and the Yukon Territory.

The Pope and Young score on bears is taken on the skull and is the sum of the length of skull and the width of skull, to the nearest 1/16th of an inch. This grizzly bear was entered into the 29th Recording Period — the biennium representing entries accepted into the Pope and Young Records Program from Jan. 1, 2013 to Dec. 31, 2014.

At the close of every two-year biennial recording period, numerical awards and honorable mentions are awarded to the most outstanding bow-harvested animals in each species category that have been entered during that recording period. New world’s records are verified and proclaimed, and awards are presented to these outstanding animals during the Pope and Young Club’s biennial convention and awards banquet.

Debias said he had dreamed of taking a grizzly with a bow ever since his father set him up with his first archery rig when he was 8 years old. After five unsuccessful hunting trips, Debias finally got the bear of a lifetime after several days of around-the-clock hunting on the northeast Alaskan tundra.

In 2011, Debias penned an article for “Bowhunter Magazine” describing the hunt.

Debias wrote that he came within 10 yards of the bear without being detected, although the bear finally figured out that it was being pursued when it was already too late.

“Suddenly he stopped, nose in the air, nostrils flared,” Debias wrote regarding the large chocolate bear. “I could hear him draw a deep breath. He exhaled. I could smell him. He drew another breath, this time curling his lips outward. I was amazed at his size. He exhaled again. He knew something was up.”

The bear knew that the hunters were there, but not their precise location. It actually walked past Debias before the hunter found a suitable broadside, and he arrowed the bear at 30 yards. The bruin jumped and fled, but the shot had been an accurate one. The animal dropped at 60 yards from where Debias waited in the snow.

Debias recalled one humorous moment after the bear went down.

“By law you can’t hunt grizzly bears without a licensed guide who carries a gun,” he said. “Getting into position, we were crawling on our hands and knees. When the bear stood up, I actually wanted to tell him (the guide) to shoot. It’s standing up and one hop and we’re probably dead. He’s like ‘I don’t have the gun. I left it on the ground 15 or 20 yards back.’ We started laughing.”

Debias, who is the co-owner of American Amusements, a vending business in Boswell, could have cashed in after the hunt, but decided not to.

“That bear is priceless,” he said. “I could have put it on Ebay for big money and I got other offers to sell it. But I declined. You’d have the anti-hunting groups out there saying he just did it because of the money. ‘See what they do. They go out and kill and then want the money.’ I didn’t want that to happen.”

Instead, Debias donated the mount to the Boone and Crockett Heads and Horns Museum in Springfield, Missouri.

“The skull is such a curiosity that people want to see it and they deserve to,” he said. “It’s an honor that it’s in there with those other animals.”

You can read Debias’ story of the hunt at http://www.bowhunter.com/feature_articles/feature_articles_the_pinnacle_bowhunting_a_record_book_grizzly_040811/.