Bears

This will be a bit different type of article. I’m going to very quickly delve into the culture and perception of bear hunting. Then I’m going to tell short stories about multiple bear hunts. Again friends, my goal is to inspire folks who want to get out and do something, to do it.

Early pioneers, like Daniel Boone, often market hunted to supplement their farm, weaving or blacksmithing income. In those days, deer were hunted for their pelts or leather, while black bears were hunted for their
meat and fat, the latter which could be rendered into an oil and had multiple uses. There is a perception that bears are not good eating, nothing could be further from the truth. They must be prepared correctly, you must know what their feeding on, and the time of year to hunt them. In very broad terms, bears that are feeding on grass, berries and acorns are fine eating. Bears that are feeding on salmon, carrion and trash are not. In my family, we eat the backstraps as steak or roasts and make wonderful sausage out of the rest of the bear.

Before November 1902, bears in North America were not considered cuddly sweet little animals. They were certainly game animals for table fare and predators to be feared. Bears became cuddly little creatures
later that month in 1902, when our great president Theodore Roosevelt, refused to shoot a bear. Shortly after his refusal, a political cartoonist in the Washington Post published a drawing of the President and a very cute little cartoonish bear. The cartoon implied that the President refused to shoot the bear because it was too cute. This was not true, but it spawned even more discussion across the country. Then a toy maker in New York made a small stuffed bear and put it in the window of his shop, with the label “Teddy’s Bear.” This was the beginning of Americans anthropomorphizing bears on this continent. It’s the cartoons, paintings, toys and movies that would have you believe bears are sweet and cuddly. The truth is they’re apex predators and it’s that simple.

Wild bears that have not be desensitized to humans will tolerate people when they’re not hungry. Generally, we are not seen as prey animals, but we are seen by bears as a predator and competitor. Well fed bears
that are not surprised by us, nor threated by us, will move along and leave us alone. Bears that are suffering through a drought or some other phenomenon where there’s not enough forage, become aggressive hunters especially in areas where the winters force them to den up. If they go into the den for the winter too skinny, one of two things will happen. One, they’ll wake in the winter and wander the barren landscape weak and tired until they succumb to starvation or the elements. Or two, they’ll never wake from hibernation, dying of starvation in their sleep.

Bears intrinsically know this and their biology and physiology is based on the fat they carry into the den. If they’re too skinny in the fall, they become aggressive eating machines. If they’re fat and happy, they are shy and reclusive. Why would an apex predator be shy and reclusive? Well because hunting is dangerous business and a bear on the hunt risks injury and in the wild injury can lead to death.

Finally, there’s a quip that I’ve heard said many times, “What eats bears?” The answer, “Another bear.” That’s quite true, but it should be added that humans eat bears and have for centuries.

My first bear.

It was my second year, archery elk hunting public land in Colorado with my good friend, Mark Ware. Mark had always wanted to take a black bear with his bow and suggested we hunt the second week of elk archery season, which was the opening week of bear archery season. So, that’s what we did. We arrived in Colorado on time that Friday midday and went out scouting our spots with Mr. Jim. I’ve spoken about Jim in other articles, he’s the “retired” outfitter who I met in 2008 through sheer luck. Jim rents out small cabins, actually
they’re big tool sheds, on his little ranch to hunters. The fee we paid Jim included easy access to the Gunnison and Grand Mesa National Forests, a place to stay, meals, showers and help recovering our animals. What was not included but was priceless, was Jim teaching us how to elk hunt. Over the years we
learned so much from Jim I could probably write a short “how to hunt elk according to Jim” book.

I would be hunting a small water hole created by the U.S. Forest Service years ago when they pushed up an earthen berm at the bottom of a draw. The draw held water and the tracks around it included elk, black bear,
mule deer and turkey. I was excited about the prospects of our hunt, with both a black bear and elk tag in my pocket it was hard to sleep.

The next morning was cold for early September. We’d just left ninety-degree highs in Kentucky, so the low forties of that morning felt frigid. There were other hunters in camp who went to breakfast with Jim that
morning, not Mark and I. We had a coffee and a pop-tart, did our morning business and left in the dark, hiking to our respective spots. I was in my tree stand over the water hole well before light and settled in quite well. It was perfectly calm, still and pitch black. In less than five minutes, the quiet darkness enveloped me and soon I was sound asleep. The twenty-five hour drive the two days prior, the hike and the excitement that prevented the previous night’s sleep were too much.

“What the hell was that!” I said in a whispered scream.

“Oh no, I fell asleep and it’s daylight, dammit,” was the next thought.

Then I started to shiver – I was still wearing the light clothing I’d hiked in wearing.

I stood up slowly, feeling quite stiff…

“Holy shit there’s a bear!” Boomed in my brain.

The bear had walked right under my stand, waking me from my exhaustion induced slumber.

The large boar was slowly approaching the water hole, testing the wind and looking for a meal or danger. I started to compose myself and reached for my bow. After a half dozen deep breaths to slow my heart rate the bear was at the water and drinking.

As every animal does, the first drink was quick and then he snapped his head up to make sure he was safe – I stood motionless. Before his second drink he sat down and settled in to take a long drink. I moved slow and
smooth, drew my bow and let the arrow fly.

The arrow found it’s mark and the bear sped off up the hill from the direction he came. I took note of where I last saw him and broke into an adrenaline and freezing cold mess of the shakes. When I finally stopped
shaking, I put on the layer of clothes I should have three hours ago and waited until I felt composed to climb down and trail the bear. He was not far, and it was obvious he died quickly.

On my first day of bowhunting free range, public land bears I’d arrowed something I could be proud of.

Alaska

Lewis and Clark called the grizzly bears they encountered on their journey west to the Pacific, “great white bears.” They’d never seen grizzly bears before their quest. Along the way, they discovered many large
aggressive bears that were blond or silver tipped in color and called them simply “white bears.” It’s thought that they did this to distinguish them from black bears. Their journals are replete with stories of encounters, some dangerous and deadly. After reading their journals I’d always dreamed of hunting the “great white bears.” But truthfully, the cost of such hunts was always out of reach. So, over the years I put it out of my mind.

When I learned in late 2014 that there was an overabundance of grizzlies in unit 16 south of Denali. I started looking into hunting them again. After speaking with someone at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game I discovered that there were so many bears, grizzly and black bears, that biologists significantly increased the harvest objective to try to get the population back in balance. This meant hunters could get two grizzly bear tags each. I started calling outfitters and found one I really liked. While talking to the outfitter, I learned that the Department of Fish and Game needed the overpopulation to be brought back into balance quickly as the bears were eating themselves out “house and home.” That was the reason the Alaskan officials not only increased the tag numbers, but they also allowed outfitters to hunt using bait and stands. This made the hunts more successful, less costly and more accessible to regular guys like me.

Hunting over bait for any animal is looked at as somehow not “fair chase.” I understand that point of view quite well, but offer as a counter point the following, points: (1) there are times when our ecosystems, for whatever reason get out of balance, man has touched every ecosystem and none remain intact, so management is necessary everywhere (2) there are places on Earth where humans simply cannot hunt animals effectively without baiting, these areas are so thick and densely vegetated that any other technique is nearly impossible and (3) hunting from a stand over bait allows the hunter to look over animals and pass on young males, females and yearlings in order to harvest a mature male. It also allows the hunter to have a more stable shot,
thus a more ethical shot, and thereby reduces the chance of wounding an animal. I say all this to say, there are pros and cons to hunting over bait.

For certain animals, in certain situations I will gladly do it and this is one of those situations, so I did it. Finally, no one fishes with a bare hook. We could no sooner crawl through the dense willows after grizzly bears as swim through frigid waters after pike. Sometimes, the best way is to bait.

After, two plane rides, the last a float plane, we arrived in camp. There were three hunters and we each met our guide on the dock. My guide was named Johnny and my first impression was not favorable. After that we
got our stuff stowed and had a meeting to discuss the hunting. We would go out one at a time by a smaller float plane to isolated lakes every evening and hunt all night long with our guide. We would be picked up the following morning. Further, even though the State of Alaska allowed us to take two grizzly bears and two black bears each, the outfitter only allowed one black bear and one grizzly each per hunter. We all spent the rest of the day getting our gear together and anticipating flying out the next afternoon.

The weather the next afternoon was the opposite of our bright anticipation for the day. Wind and rain prevented anyone from flying anywhere, but we hunters were surprised to learn that didn’t stop our outfitter from hunting. We would all mount ATVs with our guides and drive to local stands to hunt that night.

Hunting all night, even just sitting in a stand, is difficult. You must try to stay awake, make as little sound as possible and move as little as possible. Well, I fell asleep, again. Johnny woke me only once to show me a wolf that was moving through and try as I might, I could not stay awake. This time of year, it never really gets dark in Alaska and sunset and sunrise are just a shade of grey that comes over the forest. So, when the lighter shade of grey indicated it was daylight we climbed down and rode back to camp.

The Alaskan shades of grey blew away and gave way to a bluebird sky. I tried to sleep during the day, but my body was not ready to stay up all night and sleep all day. It didn’t help that I was anticipating seeing a “great white bear” either. Shortly after lunch we got our gear together and the outfitter told the guides in which order they’d be flown out. I was last.

When we finally got to our stand, we pulled two five gallon buckets of bait from the float plane’s pontoons. Johnny instructed me to leave all my gear on the bank of the small lake and make my rifle ready for action. I
did. Johnny then picked up both buckets of bait and told me to lead him down the trail to the stand, where I would most likely have to run a bear off the bait that was already there to allow Johnny to freshen it up the bait.

“What if it’s a grizzly Johnny?” I said.

“Shoot it buddy,” he replied.

“Okay pretty simple, but seriously we are going to walk right into the bait knowing there might be a grizzly on it.”

“Yep, that’s it.”

“Okay, I’m ready - let’s do this.”

We set off at a measured pace. A quarter mile down the trail… I stopped…

“Johnny, there’s a bear on the bait,” I whispered.

“He’s a small black bear, just walk right at him and he will run. If not, you’ll fill your black bear tag.”

“Right, got it.”

We walked right at the bear, it ran, and I was thankful.

I had no idea what the bait was going to be and let my imagination run wild: horsemeat, beaver carcasses from trappers or salmon remains. To my surprise it was old trail mix. Johnny poured out his two five-gallon buckets and we backtracked seventy yards to the tree, climbed up and made ourselves comfortable for the night.

In short order there were bears everywhere. Johnny explained in whispers that these bears have probably never seen a human. Further, that our outfitter is the only one hunting bears in this area and uses his smallest
float plane to get us into isolated lakes. I sat and watched the show, there were bears around us all night long. Near dawn, after watching many small boars, sows and sows with cubs feed on the bait – passing on them all – we witnessed a ruckus and the bears scattered.

“Get ready Mike, this might be a grizzly,” Johnny whispered. It was not, it was a giant black bear boar. I’ve seen more than a few bears in my life and knew instantly this was a giant. As I made my rifle ready, Johnny
put his hand on it, leaned close and whispered, “You’re not going to shoot this bear.” I looked shocked and he said without hesitation, “Just watch it. If there’s a grizzly in the area and you shoot, you’ll never see the grizz.” I
lowered my rifle and with it my hopes. Nevertheless, watching the bears all night was something truly special. I was on cloud nine when the float plane came to pick us up, what a night.

The next day I realized I was wrong about Johnny. He was a damn good guide. Smart, cool, calm, collected and sat all night watching like the best of guard dogs or bird dogs. The anticipation welled up in my chest
like a great wave on the coast, as I squeezed myself into that tiny float plane that afternoon. The plane landed, we disembarked into waist deep water, climbed ashore and made it to the stand without incident. The night was calmer. The quiet grey light was broken only by the random visit of a few black bears for the first eight hours. I was dozing off, half watching a small black bear boareat, when Johnny slowly and gently elbowed me to attention.

“Grizz,” Johnny whispered.

I raised my rifle into position and the adrenaline took me from drowsy to ready in an instant. There was nothing. I could see nothingexcept that same small black bear boar eating.

“Whoof, whoof, whoof!!!” came from the dense willows on my right.

The small black bear boar ran off as if electrified.

Then I saw it, the GREAT WHITE BEAR.

“It’s a big blond boar Mike, get ready,” Johnny whispered.

I said nothing and took very deep breaths to steady my hands, head and heart.

The grizzly came in at a trot, not a care in the world, obviously the dominant boar of either species in the area.

“When you’re ready, take the shot,” Johnny whispered.

I shot and the great white bear fell dead and never took another step.

The kill is always a strange feeling for a hunter.

A counterintuitive narrative of joy and melancholy plays in your head as you approach the animal.

I was lost in this narrative as I walked up to my “great white bear.”

“Oh dear God, Johnny!” I was shocked at the body of a partially eaten young black bear, that we could not see from the stand that we’d walked up on.

“Yeah, this grizz killed and ate part of ‘em I’ll bet. Chances are that he was hunting the bait too. Meaning that he wasn’t eating the bait, but that he was killing and eating the young black bears that were eating the bait.”

I was shocked back to reality not by the grandeur of my bear, but by the rotting maggot filled carcass of a small black bear boar that had been partially eaten and was laying only yards from my grizzly. The story of that bear probably ended when the grizzly ambushed him and ate him. Nothing in nature dies a peaceful death. Life as a wild animal ends when you’re not looking, you’re attacked, killed and eaten or when you’re too old or too sick to run, you’re pulled down and eaten alive.

I stood both engrossed and grossed out by the scene. Mother Nature was turning what was left of that bear into insect larvae and nitrogen for the plants. I am a biologist by schooling and I appreciate the overall biota of a place, but thinking about how the apex predator in North America, the grizzly killed and ate this bear, just to leave a large portion of the carcass to the smallest creatures and their larvae gave me pause. In addition to the marvelous olfactory experience the carcass presented.

“Mike, what are you doing man? Come look at your bear!” Johnny exclaimed and so I did.

For the next few hours we kept watch for other bears, while we skinned and butchered my bear. Taking the time to move the meat in carefully wrapped meat bags back to the lakeshore for transport out. When we were all done, it was still about five hours before the plane would arrive. So, we took a minute to rest and eat.

“Mike, I’m going to put up a tarp and make a fire. We can stay warmer that way and enjoy the next few hours until pick up.”

“You do what you like Johnny. I’m going to put on another layer and climb back up into the stand. We are covered in blood up to our elbows and there’s now a grizzly carcass to attract more bears in addition to
everything else.”

“Mike, I’ve been doing this a long time. I’m sure it will be fine…holy shit! GO, GO, GO!!!”

Just then a large black bear sow with three cubs came through the willows.

In a matter of seconds, she huffed a signal to her cubs to climb a tree, then clacked her teeth at us before she charged. I beat Johnny up the tree, back into the stand. The sow stopped mere yards from the base of our
tree. Her breath visible and ominous. Her chin dripping with spittle and her gaze deadly.

“Mike,” Johnny now out of breath, “I left my rifle at the base of the tree.”

“No worries brother. I’ve got my pistol and I’ll put two warning shots in the ground before I shoot her. I hope we don’t have to.”

We were up the tree for three hours.

She watched us for about a half hour before she brought her cubs down the tree to feed. She stood guard the entire time as her cubs fed. She never took her eyes off us and randomly clacked her teeth to remind us that she was the apex predator. Meanwhile, her cubs fed without a care in the world. Finally, she moved off and we cautiously climbed down, exhausted.

We moved the rest of the gear to the lakeshore and stood guard until the plane arrived. Back in camp, we celebrated and rested. I was so very proud of my great white bear.

It’s sometimes hard to explain to non-hunters how we hunters love the animals we kill and eat. The simplest explanation is that we love the animals, the entire species, not an individual animal. So, we love bears and if
bears are managed as a renewable resource. If the bears were too few, we would not hunt them, but here they are too many. The over population in the area could have occurred for many reasons, too many reasons to discuss in this short story, but the fact is that a huntable population of any animal, means that
those animals occur in nature in such a population as to be a renewable resource.

Wildlife officials look at the carrying capacity of the land and the population of the animal, when they’re in balance they offer only a few hunting tags. When the animals are too few, out of balance, they offer no hunting tags. When the animals are too many, out of balance, they offer many hunting tags. The money hunters pay the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is used to manage all wildlife, from the “great white bears” to the songbirds.

In September of 1977, the writer Tom McGuane, published an article called, “The Heart of the Game, A consideration of hunting.” In that article, he relayed a conversation that went like this:

“What did a deer ever do to you?”

“Nothing”

“I’m serious. What do you go and kill them for?”

“I can’t explain it talking like this.”

“Why should they die for you? Would you die for deer?”

“If it came to that.”

That conversation about sums it up, much better than I ever could.

If you’ve never hunted, it’s almost impossible to explain how we can love bears, but not individual bears.

Back in Colorado

This was my ninth year bowhunting Colorado for elk. I had enjoyed a great run of success, mainly because of listening to old man Jim, my mentor. I’d also started to bring friends for their first elk hunt. Mentoring others, as Jim mentored me, is a sense of accomplishment above and beyond hunting. It speaks to the future and helping people achieve their dreams in the wild. On this hunt, my friends HB, Dave and Andrew were along. All three accomplished eastern hunters and all capable of taking an elk on their own.

As usual, we arrived early on Friday after driving about twenty-four hours from Kentucky. After visiting with Jim and his family, we got settled in our little cabins and started getting our gear ready. By deciding to hunt the second week of archery elk season we enjoyed two advantages. One, the season was already open, so we could hunt the day of our arrival. Two, we were hunting the opening week of archery bear season.

After readying our gear, we set off. Jim took Andrew to the area he recommended that he hunt. I took Dave and HB with me, as we were all going the same direction, dropping off Dave to his area and HB after that. By the time I arrived at my spot it was only a few hours until dark. I settled into the landscape, watching a water hole and soaking in the memories of elk and bears I’d taken from this very place in the years before. Darkness enveloped me and the evening was uneventful. I hiked back down the mountain in the dark, drinking in the crisp thin air. Back at camp I learned that Andrew and HB saw elk, but had no opportunity, while Dave and I simply got to enjoy the sunset.

The next morning dawned exceptionally cold for us Kentuckians. As usual we’d left ninety-degree highs and elevations near sea-level. Now we were waking up to frigid temperatures and eight thousand feet of elevation. We all shivered our way up to the ranch house for some coffee. After the normal nervous, excited morning banter I drained my mug and left. Back at the cabin I got ready, shouldered my load and was off before my compatriots. Arriving at my spot before dawn, I settled in and listened to the forest.

A distant elk bugle broke the calm darkness and spurred chills to run up my spine. I sat motionless. The anticipation of dawn almost too much to bare.

Sitting and waiting for the sun to come up, I go over my arrow first, making sure it’s right; then the same for my bow. Then I pass the time by visualizing how an animal might come in using the wind and terrain to its advantage and how I might turn it to my advantage. Finally, I remind myself to shoot with deadly seriousness.

We hunt early season out west for elk and we almost always hunt over water. It’s not the exciting elk rut, when bulls scream their bugles, fight and chase cows. It’s a higher percentage affair, when all the elk are still in their summer pattern, eating and storing up energy for the coming breeding season. During those summer months when they’re putting on weight, they’re always within a half mile of water. While it takes a special skill and some great fitness to chase elk and call them in for a shot during the rut, it also takes patience and nerves of steel to hunt them over water.

All too often hunters see the elk break cover near the water, grab their bow or stand up to shoot and give themselves away and they’re done, it’s over. This is the major mistake I see hunters make, when hunting this way. You must wait for the elk, bear or deer to make their way to the water and relax. They will do so very carefully, because it’s a place their kinfolk have been ambushed by a large predators for a thousand years. Even once they take their first drink, you should not move. You’ll see them settle down and really drink. When that happens, you can almost feel them relax if you watch carefully. This is when you can execute your shot, not before.

The morning was warming quickly, and I was starting to doze a little. My experiences in years past taught me that in warmer months, like now, the elk herds will move up into the dark timber before 9:00am. After that you’ve got two opportunities hunting the way we do. One, a satellite bull, will get thirsty and come to drink. They’re usually noisy as they make their way down the mountain to the water and as such you can relax and enjoy the morning. Let your guard down, if you will, as you’ll hear them long before you see them. Second, bears who have been feeding all morning on berries, acorns, grass and forbs will come to get a drink between 10:00 and 12:00. Bears are always careful, take their time and as such you have time to get ready. So, for both opportunities you can simply relax, watch the birds, marmots and chipmunks go through their morning routine.

“Are you kidding me? Oh God, what a beautiful bear,” my inner dialogue was rambling as the rest of my body dealt with the adrenaline of seeing a blond and cinnamon colored black bear coming down the mountain toward me.

Black bears come in all sizes, shapes and colors. I’d seen a cinnamon bear before, but never had an opportunity. Priorities were thrown out the window, if this bear gave me a shot, it was going to get a truck ride back to Kentucky.

Keeping myself together and sitting perfectly still is always hard. I know what the right technique is when hunting water. I know I must be disciplined and sit perfectly still until the animal has decided it’s safe to drink before I move, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. In fact, I still shake with excitement and must take many deep breaths to calm my nerves even after all these years.

At fourteen yards the bear stopped, calmed down and tried to dig out the marmot that was living in a log near me. It never made it to the water. It got a truck ride home to Kentucky.

The very next day, another color phased bear made the exact same trip down the mountain and stopped to smell my arrow which was hopelessly lodged in the marmot’s log, after it passed through my bear the day before. He was dark brown, almost black with a lighter brown stripe down his spine. I was able to get this picture of him standing exactly where I shot my bear the day before.

I had almost forgotten how beautiful my cinnamon bear was until I got the hide back from the tannery. The coat on that bear was so very impressive. Normally, I revel in the eating of the animal, but now and then an animal is so beautiful as to evoke powerful memoires. This bear was one such animal.

Canada

In the eastern half of Canada, they have more black bears than any other big game species. I would wager that all the other big game species combined don’t approach the total number of black bears east of Alberta. And the terrain is flat to rolling and thick, so very thick. Bear hunting in that part of Canada is and has been part of their culture since the time of first contact between the “first peoples” as the Canadians call their
native tribes and the white man.

The terrain away from the roads, where the land has not been cleared for farming, is so thick in most cases that you’d have to hack your way through the bush with a machete or an axe. Then you’d have to stop and put on waders to cross the many unnamed slews, streams and creeks. The healthy population of bears and dense forest long ago led the Canadians to hunt bears over bait. Simply put, the only way to hunt bears in that area is to have the bears come to you. There are so many bears and so many small lakes they easily outnumber the people in the remote areas. This leads to excellent hunting and fishing as there is so little pressure. Which in turn, long ago spawned a thriving, guiding and outfitting business in the wilds of Canada.

When my old friend Bob Currey invited me on a Canadian black bear hunt, I was very interested. When he told me that he’d already booked with Jason Lambley’s outfit I was sold. I don’t hunt with many outfitters and I plug
even fewer, but Jason’s business www.huntsfromtheheart.com is by far one of the best, most well run, excellently provisioned and skillfully guided outfits I’ve ever come across. Which is probably the reason there are so many families and young ladies that hunt with him. Planning was easy for this one. We just had to get to Jason’s place with our gear and hunt.

Bob and I are never in a rush, which is one of the many reasons I love hunting with him. We take our time, stop for meals and during our long trips west, we usually make an overnight stop and camp. Bob is no “spring chicken,” but is he tough and an accomplished hunter too. I know young guys that must stay in a hotel or a lodge, not Bob. We can park on any side road and if the weather is okay and the bugs aren’t bad, Bob has no problem just laying down next to the truck and sleeping. If it starts to rain, he just rolls under the truck. Plus, he’s never shaken. No matter what the circumstance, he’s calm cool and collected. In many of my stories I talk about the value of hunting partners. A good hunting partner is invaluable. Bob is one of those guys.

Jason’s operation in Manitoba is first class. There’s literally nothing else you could want in a hunting camp. To say I was impressed is an understatement and I’ve hunted all over the world. Camp was full by the end of the first day. There were the “usual suspects” in camp, accomplished old white male hunters. But there was also a pair of young ladies from the Midwest, that traveled up to Manitoba to hunt. A father and daughter pair and a couple of father and son pairs as well. It made for a lively camp and honestly, seeing the young ladies and young men helped brighten my hopes for the future of hunting.

After unpacking our gear, we went to the range to verify our set ups. We were bowhunting, but it was also legal to hunt with a rifle. Jason has a first-class range. There was a 3D bear archery target to practice on from
a tree stand. A normal tournament class archery bag target to verify your zero was also present, but what most impressed me was the “iron maiden” bear target. Jason had someone fabricate a black bear silhouette out of steel, with a steel flapper where the “ten ring” would be on an archery target. Rifle hunters could zero on paper, then climb the tree stand to practice hitting the vitals on the “steel bear”. This level of practice gave the young men and women an exceptional amount of confidence. It’s the best range I’ve ever seen on a hunt anywhere.

Before dinner that evening Jason called a meeting of all the hunters. The rules were simple. The hunters were paired off two per guide. The guide would drive as near as they could on the roads, then download an ATV and drive us the rest of the way to our stands. We would hunt the second half of the day until dark every day. We should expect to see bears, lots of bears. If your guide is late getting you picked up after dark, that means the first hunter he went to pick up got a bear. In that case, just sit tight. Finally, we would not eat dinner until everyone was back in from hunting, probably around ten or eleven at night. Then Jason did something, I wish every guide or outfitter would do. He fired up a DVD of bear hunts and talked everyone through when to
shoot, when not to shoot, where to place their arrow or bullet and how to read bear behavior. I’m sure this hour of instruction is one of the reasons that Jason’s hunters are so successful.

After breakfast the first day of the hunt, everyone in camp was buzzing. You could feel the nervous energy. Bob and I checked and rechecked our gear and visited with the other hunters, talking or helping them with their gear. Then our quiet mild-mannered guide, Buddy, walked up in humble Canadian fashion and said, “Well you want to go?” We jumped up, grabbed our gear and loaded the truck in a flash. Then we were off down the dusty dirt roads of central Manitoba.

Bob went in first and I waited at the truck. I had time to think about how great guided hunts can be. So many of my trips are do-it-yourself in the backcountry or remote areas. Those adventures are my favorite and the challenge brings me back every year, but sometimes it’s nice to just be a client. Plus, you learn things if you keep your mouth shut and your ears open. A good outfitter and their guides have years of experience and you
can learn a lot. It wasn’t long before I heard the ATV coming back and in short order we were loaded up and headed out to my spot.

I wasn’t in my perch long before the bears started appearing out of the impossibly thick Canadian bush. As I watched bear after bear approach the bait, I realized they had a semi-formal pecking order. The more dominant bears walked in like they owned the place, while the subordinate bears ran away or quibbled amongst themselves. By late afternoon it was apparent that a huge sow, without cubs, was the dominant bear on my bait. I certainly enjoyed watching her but had no intentions of shooting her. She made short work of any
other bear that approached the bait site, sending them all scurrying for the thick forest with her violent behavior.

The show was amazing, and I was content to watch. I sat still for hours, not even picking up my bow. Then late in the day, a long tall boar sauntered in like John Wayne through a saloon door and the violent femme of a sow, didn’t even attempt a bluff charge. She picked up her feet and got them moving in the direction of the deep forest. I watched this coolest of black bear boars intently for quite a while. He was so tall, that his back even with the top of the 55 gallon drum. He was much taller than any bear I’d even seen, but he looked so lean.

Then it happened. He heard something and stood up on his hind legs.

“Oh, my Lord. He’s bald on his chest and belly,” I whispered to myself.

Old experienced bear hunters will tell you that when you’re looking at a bear standing normally on all four legs, that you’re not seeing what you think you’re seeing. The bottom quarter of the bear is just their long
hair hanging down. Many hunters have looked at the silhouette of a bear and believed that their chest was very close to where those bottom hairs hung down. They were mistaken and unfortunately, they shoot too low because of it. This was a bigger bear than I thought. He was very simply bald on his underside and now standing up on his hind legs I could see his leathery undercarriage void of hair.

I decided that if he gave me a shot, I’d take it. Following the old mantra, “Never pass a bear on the first day you’d be proud of on the last.” Minutes later, he turned to feed and stood quietly quartering away. I drew my bow, settled the pin, took the slack out of the trigger and let the arrow fly. It hit true and in less than a minute I heard the death moan, this bruin was mine. I waited until sunset, climbed down and tracked the short distance necessary to find him. Then I marked his location with a glow stick and walked back to my tree to await Buddy’s arrival.

Buddy was happy to know I’d taken a good bear, tracked it and was ready to load him up. The boar was not a giant bear, but was a good bear. We had to work to load him but were back at the truck in no time. Upon our arrival at camp, it was apparent that Jason had a well-developed protocol for taking photos, before butchering the bears. After the photos, the guides worked together to get them into the skinning shed and we clients only had to sit back and “watch the fur fly.”

Camp was full of other successful hunters. In fact, only one hunter in camp had yet to fill their bear tag by the second night. We all made plans to go walleye fishing and spend the rest of the “hunt” relaxing. Well it
turns out that Jason has a trophy walleye fishery up there too!

Like all good things, the hunt came to an end too quickly and we were driving back across the United States border with two bears in the freezer in the back of my truck.

Most of the way home we were planning the next trip.

Recipe –

Well there’s multiple hunts in this chapter.

The recipe below is for the DIY Rocky Mountain black bear hunt, which I believe is the most accessible for the “Average Joe” hunter. Here’s what you need, “soup to nuts” to serve up your own similar bear hunt -

Ingredients:

____ A willing soul, a semi-stout heart, good legs, feet and hips – priceless

____ Time Off – (# of days) x (what you get paid daily) until you get it done = ???

____ Colorado Non-Resident Over the Counter Hunting Fishing Combo, Bear Tag $101.75

____ Gas & Travel $800 (KY to CO and back)

____ Archery equipment – you should already own it, your deer rig is perfect (reliable mechanical broadheads work best on bears. Black bears are actually easy to penetrate, but you need a big hole to produce a lot of blood to help you blood trail, as their hair actually soaks up the first pint of blood and makes finding the blood trail hard, so the bigger and more reliable the mechanical broadhead the better.)

____ Clothes and boots – you should already own it

____ Blind or climbing stand – neither is necessary, but you should already own it, if you need it

____ Pack, binoculars, rangefinder, etc.  –  you should already own it – again deer gear is fine

____ Food & Water – depends on what you like, but shouldn’t be more than $125

____ Meat hauling – if you don’t own a freezer and drop cord, you should consider buying a set-up, it’s less than a high-end Yeti cooler, probably about $300

Total Cost:  $1,026.75 (one of the cheapest out of state DIY hunts you’ll ever do)

Directions:

Okay, an over-the-counter black bear hunt in the Rocky Mountains is getting easier and more accessible every year, as bear populations are booming. In most cases, you won’t have to draw a tag, but if you do I recommend you consult a company like www.huntinfool.com The advisors that work there have forgot more about western big game tags than folks east of the Mississippi like me have ever known. If you’d like to do a guided hunt, your best bet is also to call a company like www.huntinfool.com and ask for their approved outfitter list or a direct referral. If you’ve got a bunch of friends in the hunting community, like me, you can ask them for referrals first. Then call the outfitter and talk to them. If you like the outfitter, call previous clients and talk to them. All the best outfitters are happy to give you a list of previous clients you can call. If after all that, you like what you hear – book it. They’ll only want a deposit, so you’ll be able to save up the balance and pay it later. If you’d like to do a DIY hunt, then Colorado is a good bet. Their fall archery black bear season starts the week after Labor Day, which is the second week of their archery elk season. Hunting free range bears during this time of year is easy. It’s hot and they’re wearing a heavy coat of fur. It’s been my experience, that the most successful way is to just wait them out at a water hole. There’s many reasons to do this (1) eastern folks aren’t ready to really cover ground and spot and stalk at Rocky Mountain altitudes (2) bears are not easily fooled at close (archery) range in mountainous terrain (3) by letting them come to you, you conserve energy you’ll
need to butcher your bear and get them packed out. In most years, Rocky Mountain black bears have a good subsistence on acorns, grasses, forbs and other mast. In those years, they’re fat and happy, by September they’ll leave you alone. In drought years they can be a little aggressive. This has to do with their biological need to gain weight prior to hibernation. If they’re too lean late in the fall, for whatever reason they know it and will feed aggressively. It’s nothing to worry about, not really. Just be more aware of hunting bears in drought year. All the bears I’ve killed out west in the Rockies came to water between 9:00am and 11:30am. Take your time, make a good shot and remember that the blood trail is initially hard to pick up, until the blood soaks their thick fur. Then it first appears on the sides of brush and trees as they brush up against it. Finally, you’ll see blood on the ground like you would with a deer. After you find your bear, take a few pictures, but then get to work quickly. It’s warm in September and all that wonderful meat is covered by a thick layer of fat, heavy leather and fur. You’ve must get the fat off the meat and get the lean quarters of meat hung up where the air can get to them quickly. Bear fat turns rancid in a few hours and trust me, rancid bear fat is not something you ever want to deal with. You must not only quarter, skin and hang your bear quickly. You must also get their layers of fat off the meat quickly. Properly cared for, bear meat is delicious. In fact, the pioneers preferred it over deer or elk. Pay close attention to the rules for taking a sow and remember regardless of gender, you’ll probably have to take your bear into a Colorado Parks and Wildlife Office to allow the biologists to check it in. After that, you’re home free. Remember, the hunt of a lifetime is really the hunt of a summertime. Life is short, so get after it.

If you enjoyed the story and found the recipe at the end useful, you should check out my book, “The Hunt of a Lifetime: The Practical Guide to Planning and Executing Your Dream Hunt.”

You can purchase it on Amazon at this link - Get the Book.