My Bear Addiction- Revisited

With Early Canadas opening today and not being able to go, and bear baiting beginning in Northern Minnesota last weekend, AND discussing bear hunting with Bob last week; I am taken back to my own Bear experience and since we have grown by leaps and bounds since its original posting, AND because our party got turned down this year making next year an almost cinch to get tags, here is my tale from that whirlwind 10 days back in 2015:

Last Friday, myself and three friends departed for someplace in Minnesota for an adventure. Little did I know it would turn into an exercise in mind over body and a true exploration of what makes me tick.

The other three members of the hunting party left last Friday morning so they could get an extra night in the stand on Friday evening while I elected to wait until after school to save a personal day. In route, I received a flurry of texts, as two of the guys filled their tags before I even got out to bear camp. I was both excited for them and kind of questioning myself at the same time. This would not be the first time in the experience where I felt a sense of both regret and apprehension

Saturday was a day filled with trail cam checks, baiting, and scent showers and a huge blast of anxiety and adrenaline. I had never been in close proximity to a Black Bear. I also had only been in a tree stand once before and that one was about 10 feet up. The stand I would sit in would be 20+ feet up. I was brought to the stand at 2:30 in the afternoon, knowing that the bigger two bears on this bait weren’t showing up until after 7.

Now, if you knew me at all, when instructed that in order to have a chance at either one of these 2 bears I would have to remain very still and not move for 4 hours, YIKES!

Well, I did not know if it was in my make-up to do so. It was well over 80 degrees. I was sweating.  A lot.  I’m kind of a sweaty guy when you turn the heat up. Normally this would be an inconvenience.

There was one good side effect though, no peeing.

I don’t know how it is possible but I guess 300 pound animals can cross miles of leaf litter without making a sound, because at approximately 6:44 that 300 pound bear was just there. The shot of adrenaline to my system was borderline overwhelming. It was also probably part of the downfall of my first night in a bear stand.

I was unable to close the deal on that majestic animal and it would haunt me the next night in the stand as I sat through a thunderstorm. That lost opportunity also strengthened my resolve to return in a week to try to close the deal on what I was starting to think might be a doomed experience.

The 4-day week would be shortened to 3 for me as I would take a personal day Friday and meet up with the other member of our party, who also went without filling his tag.

Fast-forward to this past Friday and you would find the two of us sitting in stands again over bait of granola, peanuts, cashews, and used restaurant oil. Around 7:15, I heard the sound that I was both hoping for yet dreading at the same time.

The resounding echo of Josh’s rifle.

I just prayed that he connected. We regrouped at his stand and started in on the blood tracking experience that we had undergone barely a week earlier. If you have never attempted to track a wounded bear, in the woods, in the dark, with a headlamp, you must try it sometime, it’s fun!

The only problem with this blood tracking experience is……there was none. We removed ourselves from the woods with heads down and sprits dim. We discussed returning the next morning for a more thorough search, but realistically I think in all of our minds we had conceded the fact that it was another missed opportunity. That night the two of us enjoyed pizza with our hosts and I showed pictures of our water fowling exploits that Eric and a few of his family members were looking forward to being a part of in a couple of weeks. When we returned to our cabin, things were quiet, real quiet.

I had vowed that if need be I would stay until Sunday night so that I could sit in the stand for a third evening on Sunday and then make the trek home after that, putting me back in Devils Lake around 3 a.m.,  I did not want to have to go that route, but I was going to exhaust any and every avenue in order to accomplish a bucket list adventure.

We woke the next morning and proceeded to the stand from the previous night. Surprisingly I was optimistic that we would find this bear. My cohort was not as positive, his dismal attitude would soon change. Not 10 minutes into the daylight tracking excursion and I heard my partner say:

“Travis, why don’t you move over here closer to me”.

I questioned this idea as I thought that we had pretty thoroughly searched the area he was indicating. Little did I know, as I approached him, the grin on his face told me the whole story. The wild discussion the previous night were unfounded, there he lay, a 285 pound goliath. This was the second time in our adventure that I had such strong feelings of both heightened excitement for him, and overwhelming anxiety and dread for myself.

Three out of Four ain’t bad, unless you are the 1. We proceeded to go through the skinning, pictures, washing, pictures, laughs, pictures, repeat. We returned to base for a breakfast/lunch and then returned to our cabin, it was 1:00, I was going to my stand at 2:30, I like naps, I like naps A LOT, I was not getting a nap.

Trust me, I tried, but it wasn’t happening. Around 2:15 our host arrived with news that the bait that had the sow and cubs also had a decent size bear coming into it at around 7:15. Do you know what is really the only situation a bear hunter should be afraid of, yup, you guessed it, a sow with cubs, GREAT.

I was not going to let that stop me though, and I tried to muster up as much positive energy as I could and we went to the stand. I got to my stand and got situated and comfortable, or as comfortable as you can be in a 18 foot tree stand with a tree climbing sow and two tree climbing cubs somewhere in the vicinity.

And then……………nothing…………………

A whole lot of nothing. About 3 hours of nothing to be exact, and then,………..

a skunk.

That’s right, a squatty, waddling, butt scratching, bait stealing skunk. I watched that skunk steal the bear bait and scratch his butt for well over 30 minutes. In hindsight, that butt-scratching skunk probably saved my trip. He was calming. Watching his bait stealing and butt scratching, I think, allowed me to conquer the greatest enemy I have and had yet encountered in the bear stand and in life….

myself.

The man in the mirror. As I was quietly sitting there watching ole’ butt-scratcher and contemplating how I was going to stay awake on the late night return trip the following night, it happened. A ‘non-sow with cubs’ bear showed up silently out of the trees.

It stopped, looked right at me, turned around and left.

I didn’t think that I could feel lower than I had felt the previous Friday, I was wrong. I was terribly, terribly wrong. I had another bear in front of me and it busted me in my stand.

I didn’t move, I didn’t blink, I was a statue, and it still busted me. I was bear camp taboo. There was nothing else to do but sit and wait and try to pick my head up. At this point I had to decide how the rest of this trip was going to go, I decided that, you never know, maybe another one will come in, but another one didn’t come in. Fifteen minutes later, the same one came back, cleared the trees, looked right at me again, turned around and left…..

AGAIN!

This was different though. As I watched her this time she just crept about 10 yards up the trail, stopped, and sat down. I could see her shadow through the undercover, so I readied myself. Between her and the bait pile was a denser patch of scrub that if she came back I would have the opportunity to raise my gun. It didn’t take her 15 minutes this time, it took about 10, and when she passed that scrub, i shouldered my gun, and with the ‘learn from your mistakes knowledge’ from a week prior I held high on her shoulder, and this time when it looked up at me, I returned the stare with a wink, one eye closed and one eye in the scope.  As I squeezed the trigger I strained to not flinch and to keep me eyes on the ‘x’ and I could see the impact and knew that it was a pretty good hit.

Expecting that bear to drop in its tracks, the roller coaster of emotions continued as she turned and bolted, just as the one a week earlier had done, and as Yogi Berra said:

“It was de ja vu all over again”.

I sent a text to the guys waiting and told them I hit one, I would wait for 10 minutes and then proceed to look for blood. OK, it was more like 6 minutes. As I approached the spot where it last stood something was different than the week before and from my partners kill the night before. There was blood, and lots of it, the old 30-06 had done a wonderful job of a through and through producing an exit for blood. I went a short distance out of the bait clearing and followed the apparent trail for about 20 yards.

Twenty yards for us flatlanders out here on the prairie is nothing, a joke. Twenty yards in these cedar and pine woods and cedar swamp is an eternity, especially for this flatlander. I conceded that I should return to the bait pile clearing and wait for the rest of the party……..

and wait

and wait

and wait.

They finally arrived and I showed our host the blood splatter and he just got a big grin. He knew already what I did not, we were looking at the remains of what would be a dead bear. I took them to my position of ‘Last blood” and the search was on, the search was not on for long. The 30-06 on its path had destroyed both lungs and that bear was basically dead on its feet, running on adrenaline, like I had been running on adrenaline for about a week.