August 1st, 2023: Back up to the property for the opening day of bear season. It was going to be around 90°F (as usual) but no heavy layer of wildfire smoke and the most important part - the service berries and choke cherries were both nearing peak ripeness, luring in bears from miles around.
My morning got interesting right away with a suspected bear or two moving around in the stream at the base of the picture above. While I was trying to figure out which way they were moving, the elk started pouring off the shoulder of the hill (same picture). It ended up being at least 50 animals, mostly cows and calves but a sprinkling of smaller bulls. I also got to hear some half hearted bugling from somewhere off to my left. All that commotion made me doubt my bear ID but as I moved upstream I was still paralleled by clear sounds of berries being hoovered up.
I was starting to think maybe I was too close to a mom/cub combo but right after I took this picture, a two year old bear hopped over a culvert and on to the road at about 50 yards. Without a pause, he performed a swift pirouette and was gone. I sat over my "wetland" for an hour or two to listen for bears that I'd probably never see. There was at least one crashing around in there and my camera confirmed two bears headed in there about three hours before I arrived.
It felt like a very productive morning so I headed into town to pick up lunch/dinner and to nap away the hottest part of the day. I made it back to my overlook at 4:30pm only to discover that the elk had never left and the whole herd was napping along the stream, blocking my favorite bear highway. Just for kicks I decided to practice stalking the elk, just in case I get a chance to try my first elk hunt this fall. The wind was perfect for the game and two hours later I was within 15' of a cow elk and about 75 yards from what would be a legal spike bull in a couple months.
Not wanting to push my stalk far enough to add "smashed by a spooked elk" to my list of achievements, I crept away in a wide loop to try passing downhill of the herd. As I was sweeping through the 180° portion of my loop, I heard a bear coming up the stream. He got about even with me and then fed on berries, making a couple tight loops in the 100 yard range. I was thinking he was probably pretty small because I could never catch sight of him but its a universal bear skill to alternate between making a ton of racket and stealth mode so I'm never sure. At the time I was thinking a smaller bear would sure make the pack out/cleaning tasks a lot easier but when the little dark cinnamon bear below finally popped into the open, he was just too small. After a couple more steps, he smelt human and bolted back the way he came.
I gave myself a few minutes to steady the heart and hands and then crossed the stream heading for the same draw where I got my first bear a couple years ago. At this point its after 7pm so I'm primarily thinking of getting the camera card from the camera on the draw to help inform my plan for the morning.
I got to the draw only to hear another bear feeding. Let me just pause here to state the obvious - this day was bananas! I can't rule out double counting but I'm pretty sure this latest rustling in the bushes meant 4 different bear encounters and a camera confirming two more larger bears were lurking. While I was setting up in case the latest bear ever made an appearance, he spooked and went running out into the meadow area across from me (picture above, top right). He stopped about 130 yards away when I ranged him and was considering this 3+ year old black bear with a white muzzle would be a perfect target. Then he spooked again and bolted down to my left. That second panicked flight made me realize that I was not the instigator and I started to get really excited. I took range readings all along the path the bear had used just in case his nemesis used the same route. My best bet was the little circled open area about 100 yards out. I know the bears have no issue tunneling through the awful brush in the middle of these draws but a big, mature black bear came from somewhere in the draw where I had no chance and lumbered into the circle as if we had worked up the plan together.
I had to take the shot at 7:50pm while he was walking but the placement was good and he piled up after a 50 yard sprint, somewhere out of sight. I could only afford to wait about 20 minutes before packing up and heading for the camera on the draw's crossing (no pictures of either bear). There was no blood trail, pretty common due to the long hair and big fat layers, but he was right about where I expected to find him. Plus, to make sure this will always be my most epic bear hunt, he had fallen right next to my first 6 point elk shed!!
I don't think this bear was quite as big as my first but I didn't have Jeremy with me this time and I was too weak to pull the bear up and out of the bushes... the best I could do was turn him around. I was going to spend the next four hours in the dark, with a single headlamp (no backup batteries), surrounded by thick brush, covered in blood and listening carefully for any fellow predators approaching for some easy meals. It took less than twenty minutes for a bear to arrive, I'm thinking maybe that white muzzle bear coming back for revenge on his tormentor? A lot of yelling was able to turn him around but he did not move off with sufficient hustle to suit my tastes. At that point I lost a lot of confidence and made a couple phone calls to see if anyone could bail me out of my predicament... no luck.
I got done with the meat recovery by 10:45pm and it took me another hour to pack out the meat to a point where I could get the truck. I'd return in the morning to get the antler and the skull. On my walk back to get the truck I thought I had a bear staring me down but it was two common poorwill birds sitting on a stump with very reflective eyes spaced a very bear like distance apart... They will enjoy telling their future chicks about the time they stared down a screaming, hairless ape brandishing bear spray. As you can see below, they are very fierce looking critters:
That was actually only my first freak out on the pack out. Maybe a quarter mile later, 11:30pm, I ran into a skunk and my fried nerves thought he sounded like a much bigger critter than when he popped onto the road. But thankfully that was the end of the drama and I snoozed like a baby.
At the time of writing this post, I have a pretty decent euro mount bear skull, a chest freezer filled to the rim, and several tasty bear meals under the belt. For the first time I tried cooking bone marrow which included me cooking chunks of bones that contained no accessible marrow but the right pieces yielded some tasty little nuggets (maybe not tasty enough to try it again until I get an elk). After striking out at three grocery stores, I have discovered that the fancy, uptown market gives me pork fat for free and I've gotten into grinding my own sausage/hamburger. Still, the family has a lot of work to do clearing out the freezer just in case the upcoming deer season is a success.