NJ hunter kills 770-pound black bear, setting state record: ‘Smartest animal I’ve chased’

A New Jersey bow hunter just set a state record by killing a 770-pound black bear — a beast he’d been eyeing over the past two bear hunts.

Brian Melvin, 39, first spotted the bear three years ago during a hunting session and has been tracking it during his past two bear hunts, knocking on doors and getting permission to check land the bear might’ve traveled through.

“I wasn’t really chasing records … it was an incredible honor to have chased him because he was the smartest animal I had ever chased,” Melvin, who struck the bear Tuesday morning in Kinnelon using a compound bow, told The Post Friday.

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Melvin, who’s been bow hunting since his early 20s, was 45 yards away when he killed the beast, NJ.com reported.

“He never stayed in the same place for more than six months,” he told the outlet. “I spent weeks knocking on doors and getting permission for land that I thought he might be on or at least travel through. Last year I had him on camera. He vanished until May of this year.”

Melvin had previously shot and killed a 400-pound bear — but this giant blew his previous record away.

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Seven hundred seventy pounds is the largest dressed weight — or weight of an animal after its organs have been removed — for a black bear recorded during the New Jersey black bear hunt, according to state fish and wildlife officials.

Melvin estimated that if he hadn’t gutted the bear it may have set a world record of 900 pounds.

“If you leave them [the bear] intact for more than an hour, they spoil and you lose the whole bear, and I’m just not about that,” he said.

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Melvin’s bear set a record previously established on Oct. 14, 2019, when a group of hunters in Morris County used a bow to shoot a 700-pound bear, the NJ Advance previously reported.

The first segment of the bear hunt in New Jersey began Monday and runs through Saturday, with 285 bears having been killed thus far in the Garden State.

Limits to bear hunts include only allowing one bear to be harvested per permitted hunter per season, and not killing or harvesting cubs less than 75 pounds.

The bear hunt in New Jersey is approved through the 2027 season.

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