CRANBERRY TWP — Achieving hunting's Triple Crown isn't that uncommon.

But few have been as special as Jake Bishop's achievement this year.

Bishop, 70, of Cranberry Township, has been pursuing the triple crown for 29 years and was about ready to give up on the chase.

"Another couple of years, maybe, that would have been it," he admitted. "It keeps getting tougher going through the woods from year to year.

"But (the triple crown) did happen. What a thrill!"

Hunting's triple crown is harvesting a turkey, deer and bear during the same year. Bishop has bagged a turkey and deer numerous times.

As in most triple crown pursuits, the bear is the blocking point.

"You only have three days and they're hard to track down," Bishop said.

Bishop finally found it at 2 p.m. Nov. 23 in Cameron County, where he shot a 300-pound black bear.

"I was in the woods since daybreak," Bishop recalled. "I moved from a spot because I got cold. I walked another mile and got behind a tree.

"Two hours later, the bear appeared to my left, about 150 yards away, and started walking toward me."

Bishop said the bear never saw him, but he couldn't shoot it straight on "because the right angle wasn't there.

"I needed the bear to run one way or the other and it finally did," he said. "You can't wait too long. Bears have a great sense of smell, and once they get a sniff of you, they're gone."

The bear was about 6 feet tall. Bishop got an 8-point buck with a 17-inch spread during bow season Nov. 11. He shot a 21-pound turkey last spring.

"He's always been an outdoors person," said Phyllis Bishop, his wife of 50 years. "His grandparents lived down the road from him when he was a kid and raised pigs and chickens. He went down there quite a bit.

"Hunting has been in our families for a long, long time," she added.

The Bishops moved to Cranberry in 1966 and have lived in the same house for 42 years. Bishop has trophies of elk, antelope and mule deer in the home.

"I hunted out west a lot when I was younger," he said. "I got an elk in Idaho in 1974, antelope in Wyoming in 1970 and 1980. The mule deer I got in Colorado."

The triple crown was the final goal of Bishop's hunting career, which spans 56 years.

"I have no plans on going to Africa or anything like that," he said. "Hunting requires walking four or five miles into the woods at times.

"Time takes care of different things. ... I still walk two miles a day, but the woods are a little more strenuous."

Bishop will continue to hunt deer and turkeys on a regular basis.

"I'm just glad I got that bear," he said. "I was getting ready to give it up."