Urban Outcast Music #55 - Sleepy Gary by The Last Revel.
August 2nd, 2022: Finding bears consistently at the property is all about if the service berries* are in and that is a science that I'll still be trying to pin down until the new pines and firs grow in enough to crowd them out. This year, a mild summer meant the berries were short of prime on opening day but the trail cams had recorded at least three different bears, two of good size, over the previous two days.
* The picture above is actually an elderberry, a much more photogenic plant.
My opening day featured a couple loud rustlings in the deep woods but I didn't lay eyes on a bear. One of the two pictured above is probably strolling back to cover on a full belly after stripping and crushing my favorite black raspberry bush. Beyond that I took a lot of pictures of bugs for the boys and watched the ant lions go to town on carpenter ants (a sample divot of doom shown below). The way they toss sand up the walls at ants trying to scamper back out is truly diabolical. The boys were also impressed to see that the drained carcasses are tossed back out of the pit.
While I didn't see any bears, that afternoon Jerm came upon a cinnamon bear at only 30 yards. It was feeding intently and because Jerm has higher standards than me in regards to his target, the bear didn't realize he had company until hearing "Hey Bear". That sent him running with such enthusiasm that we never saw him again...
August 3rd, 2022: Day 2 was more of the same for me. No bears but plenty of evidence they were around. This year in particular it seemed they were targeting yellow jacket nests. Previous years I might find one or two ground nests raided but across bear/deer season I found more that 20. I had no idea there were so many of the nasty wasps around.
The highlight of my day was heading downhill into the National Forest and finding turkeys!! Maybe one or two birds wanders onto the property per summer but having a flock make it within a half mile gives me hope that I may someday have permanent residents.
August 22nd, 2022: We headed back out to find the service berries had gone from green to desiccated... So the easiest opportunities were gone but there was always a chance to spot the couple of bears that might be moving through. And that is exactly what happened for me before 7 am with a nice black bear feeding along the edge of the "wetland" at less than 100 yards. I just saw parts of the critter so no clean shots and then in just a few seconds it had tunneled back out of sight. Still, that was the sudden surge of adrenaline that lets my heart test the restraining strength of my rib cage and gave some hope to the weekend.
I listened to that bear crash around in the wetland for a couple hours, long enough to note when he took a 20 minute nap before resuming his foraging. Eventually he moved away and I headed down into town to cool off in the river. Even if I could find a bear midday, the 95°F weather would risk spoiling the meat before I got get it to the coolers.
The evening hunt was quiet and mostly featured more bug photography. That is until 7 pm when I think the same bear came zig zagging down from the higher hills. At around 300 yards he was too far for more than blurry pictures and I definitely wasn't comfortable trying to hit a moving target (bears never hold still).
It seemed like he was heading down to spend the night in the wetlands again so I hustled to an old skid road to try to get in front and close the distance. When I got close enough to hear him feeding I thought the game was up but I didn't realize just how loud he was and that meant he was actually much further away and in short order he walked back into an open area at only 180 yards. But I wasn't in any position to take a shot as I was down in a hole and surrounded by thistles that were 5 feet tall. He popped out one more time on top of a ridge but he had gained another 70 yards on me and I hadn't gotten clear of the brush. By the time I made it to the top of the ridge, he was out of sight. Still, an awesome encounter and I don't think he ever knew I was around so there was hope for tomorrow.
August 23rd, 2022: How quickly hope turns to resignation... No sightings, no rustling in the brush, probably because I wasn't as stealthy as I thought. The only event of note was almost getting owned by some yellow jackets. I pulled off some bark from a pine stump to figure out what the bears were eating and I picked the wrong stump. Luckily it was right at the end of the day and they felt dead stares were enough of a deterrent (which is true).
And so ended the dedicated bear trips for 2022. It took until mid-September to review the cameras and realize a smaller color phase bear had been 45 minutes behind me. He could use another year or two to fill out those bones, maybe he will feature in a future post:
