GREENVILLE – It took a quick mathematical calculation and one shot for Casey Alexander to fell a 135-pound bear on Friday afternoon.

The 12-year-old, who was accompanied on her hunting excursion by her dad, Greenville Police Chief Duane Alexander, was thrilled with the entire experience.

“I was just so excited,” the eighth-grade pupil at Greenville Middle School recalled Saturday morning.

Casey, who started hunting at the age of 10, said she had previously killed a deer, two turkeys and a rabbit, but this was her first bear. And she almost gave up.

After spending about two weeks baiting a location deep in the forest in Shirley and seeing bear signs – claw marks – but no animal, Alexander and her dad were about to call it quits when the duo heard a crunching and snapping noise on the forest floor late Saturday afternoon and then spied the bear.

“I was more excited because I could see and hear him,” the attractive girl said.

Twenty minutes later, Alexander said she aimed her .44 Magnum and fired one shot through an opening in her blind, a camouflage-colored tent. Knowing she had to shoot the bear in the right shoulder to make a swift kill but unable to see that part of the bear’s anatomy, Alexander quickly used a mathematical calculation to determine where the bullet should go. Her target was the heart of the bear and she split it in two.

While the meat from the animal will be eaten and the rug to be made from the fur may disintegrate in years, Casey said the memory of the hunt will last a lifetime.

When the pair first used a tree stand in the area for the hunt, they moved so little that a hawk landed under the stand, according Casey. She also said a Chickadee landed on her gun barrel and a mouse came into the tent where she and her father were hunkered down waiting for their prey.

“It was unbelievable,” Casey said. So much so, that she is looking forward to next year’s bear hunt. “Oh yeah, I’m hooked,” she said.