Fishermen talk about the really big one that got away

KINGMAN, Ariz. -- Fishermen on Lake Havasu caught sight of an even bigger one than they planned to catch Sunday morning: a large black bear swimming in the Colorado River-fed lake.

The lake is more than 30 miles from a mountain range to the northeast that has the only bear community in the region.

One official said it was the first bear sighting around the lake in at least 20 years, a rare occurrence so far away from the bear's normal food sources.

Fishermen used their boat to herd the bear to shore, where it scampered across the beach and into a brushy thicket.

Arizona Game and Fish Wildlife Manager Dee Pfleger said she responded to the area and confirmed the bear sighting. She said the brush was too dense and it was too dangerous for anyone to enter the thicket to try to roust the bear from hiding.

Pfleger said rocks were tossed into the thicket and a helicopter circled above, but the bear held its ground. Officers stood by with a tranquilizer gun, hoping to put the bear to sleep and transport it to a suitable point for release.

Pfleger said the bear apparently left quietly under the cover of darkness either late Sunday or early Monday.

"My best-guess estimate is that this bear is between 150 and 200 pounds," Pfleger said. "It was probably a young adult, maybe 2 to 3 years old."

She said black bears sometimes establish territories of more than 60 square miles and the animal probably roamed about that distance from its likely home in the Hualapai Mountains near Kingman.

Pfleger said the Hualapai Mountains are home to the nearest and only black bear population in the area. The "small population" of black bears is not monitored or counted, and the bears are rarely seen.

In May 2009, police shot and killed a black bear that had wandered from the mountains into Kingman. The 175-pound bear was perceived to be a public safety threat as it rambled through a residential area, trying to break into homes.