French Canadian Black B WilD Bill
Legendary Bear Hounds Part 55
Workman’s Drum
Lauren’s Outdoor Wish
A Bear Family Tree
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Enemy of The State
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FIFTy BEARs!
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A Bear Hunter’s Milestone
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The bear hunting authority for 24 years
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A Season for the Record Books The Craziest Bear Season
Enemy of the State 11 Years of Waiting & One Bad Bruin by Paul Servey
@MountainGoatPauly 8
Bear Hunting
May/June 2024
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id you know that a North American black bear can withstand being shot between the eyes at close range with a .22 caliber rifle? Allow me to share a personal story that vividly illustrates this remarkable fact. My home state of Utah is one of those states that requires you to apply for points to hunt bears. I applied for 11 years before I was able to draw a coveted summer black bear hunting tag. Drawing that tag was a moment of pure exhilaration. Not only was it in an area close to my childhood home, but it also held sentimental value because it was where I spent my formative years exploring the Rocky Mountains. This particular hunting unit wasn’t densely populated with bears, making the hunt more challenging. However, my familiarity with the terrain, acquired through a lifetime of exploration and hunting, gave me an edge. My baiting efforts were hindered by heavy winter snowfall, but I did not let it discourage me. I knew of a lower area in elevation where the snowpack wasn’t as deep and I had previously seen bears there. I knew this would be a good spot to set up my bait. Remarkably, the proximity of the bait site to my home was a mere 40 minutes away, which streamlined the entire process. I was awestruck by the scenery surrounding my bait. Imagine the Rocky Mountains in Utah in early summer, a picturesque pine canyon with a natural spring trickling through its bottom with grass beginning to awaken, painting the landscape in vibrant green hues. It was a perfect spot on a south facing hillside overlooking a small opening through the pines where I placed my bait on the opposite side of the canyon. This offered a clear 175 yard shot directly across the canyon. Baiting bears, though enjoyable, demands substantial effort. Upon learning of my tag suc-
www.bear-hunting.com
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Fifty Bear Club
Reaching a Milestone by Max Zeller
50 black bear skulls taken by the author on Oregon public land.
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May/June 2024
The exact moment a young Yellowstone grizzly took his frustrations out on the author’s mother (she was unconscious on the vehicle’s floorboard) in August, 1960.
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t was August of 1960 when an agitated juvenile grizzly (the anti-backed voter initiatives of 1994 and 1996 did away inserted a five-daggered paw through a car’s open with Oregon and Washington’s ability to hunt bears via baitpassenger-side window and swatted the young wom- ing and/or hound hunting, so still-hunting, spot-and-stalk, and an seated there across the back of her head. At eight months stand hunting were our only means available thereafter). In the pregnant, she slumped to the floor unconscious, sporting a nas- days before cell phones, computers, and limited two-way radio ty scalp wound. Her husband, situated outside the vehicle and contact due to work area seclusion, a “game warden” was often photographing the bear feeding, was so startled by alone and had to work in close proximity to clients the sudden turn of events, he shakily documented the when gathering evidence. Consequently, my job also “Always solo and exact moment it transpired. Foolish? Perhaps. But at shaped the way I hunted: solo, up close and personal. DIY on Oregon that time, it was common practice for tourists to feed After retiring in 1999 and living within the public lands, my wildlife along the “buffet” corridors entering Yellowconfines of a National Forest in Oregon’s Coast stone National Park. A frantic trip to the nearest med- scouting, patience, Range mountains, I threw myself into the bear hunting and perseverance lifestyle. Always solo and DIY on Oregon public lands, ical facility revealed all was well, with no permanent culminated in the my scouting, patience, and perseverance culminated head trauma to the expectant mother. One month harvest of 50 bears in the harvest of 50 bears in the past 24 years—a teslater a bear hunter was born...me. Unfortunately, the in the past 24 years.” tament to the wonderful bear hunting opportunities jury is still out regarding my mental stability. I’ve always wondered where my deep pasOregon still has to offer. Aside from locating main sion for bears and hunting came from. After surviving food sources and travel corridors in bear country, the polio, the Depression, and WWII in Europe, my folks emigrated most important lessons I’ve learned regarding close-proximity from the rural alpine cantons of Switzerland to America in the bear hunting are: 1950s. They had no exposure to the meager and privileged 1. Pay close attention to wind direction; the bear’s sense European hunting and fishing pursuits we take for granted of smell is unsurpassed in all of North American wildlife. here in North America. Did my fondness for bears get thumped 2. A bear’s eyesight is not as bad as most will have you into my head while in the womb, or in centuries past when believe, and their ability to detect movement is uncanUrsus roamed freely across the European continent where my ny. ancestors hunted? I’ll never know, but the hunter’s fire within me 3. Never ignore the subtle sounds you hear, or think you grew as I grew and the ethics of hard work my parents instilled hear, in the bear woods. in me would pay big dividends throughout my outdoor life and beyond. In the spring of 2023, my 50th millennial bear was With a Wildlife Science degree, I went on to fulfill my dream taken. It all began when I arrived at bear camp in early May. My working as a fish and game law enforcement officer in both spring bear areas on the east side of Oregon’s south Cascades Oregon and Washington state. Working with wildlife biologists were still buried in over 3’- 6’ of snow, so I strapped on snow and contacting bear hunters in the days of hounds and bait shoes and entered some of my most popular areas. Yet all I stations provided me with a wealth of bear hunting knowledge found were a few tracks of bears traveling in desperation trying www.bear-hunting.com
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First Bear Hunt Hound Hunting Bears with Ben Jones by Joshua Leonard
A chariot of adventure for the author and his brother. That’s one nice rig.
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he frenzied chop of the hounds at the base of the giant red oak guided us towards the treed black bear in the beautiful mountains of Greene County, Tennessee. Though I’m a lifelong hunter, this was going to be my first shot at a bear and I was becoming increasingly anxious as we literally crawled through the rhododendron-choked hillside up towards the huge tree. As we got close, I couldn’t help but marvel at the 40+ year hunting journey that led up to this moment. Raised in southern Indiana in Knox county where, historically, the last bear in the state was killed in the cypress swamps down on the Wabash river, the idea of bear hunting was reserved for the magazines at the barber shop and a book called The Bears of Blue River about an Indiana boy and his bear hunting exploits. My father, brother, and I all started hunting together when I was not even a teenager and our forays to hunt squirrels, rabbits, and quail eventually transitioned to deer hunting. Turkeys were still in recovery in that area, but I still remember the first turkey I ever saw, a hen that crossed a busy four-lane road south of us as we pulled over to watch in awe. Those early years of wandering the nearby woods with a shotgun instilled a deep, rich love of the outdoors. For several years, we had no television stations and, other than listening to the beloved Don Fischer and the Hoosier basketball team on the radio and reading books, my only other passions were the woods and creeks nearby. Despite living in Winston-Salem, N.C. for seven years later in life and avidly deer, turkey, and waterfowl hunting, I never really came across any bears in my wanderings. The first and only wild bear I saw was a huge boar that was taking a nap under a tree on a beautiful tree lined mountain hillside as my pal and I were taking a midday break from turkey hunting 20
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in a breathtaking area near Burke’s Garden, VA. I never really thought about bear hunting while there as life was hectic with young kids and a busy work life. After moving back to Indiana and continuing my outdoor pursuits, I was increasingly mesmerized by Steve Rinella’s Meateater media content as well as the Bear Grease and Wired to Hunt podcasts. Watching the adventure hunts on Meateater was like living a dream in their shoes. Clay Newcomb’s passion for bears led me to subscribe to Bear Hunting Magazine and avidly listen to his podcast. After hunting in Indiana as well as frequenting Kentucky, I was excited about the growing number of black bears in eastern Kentucky. My first plans to chase a bear involved doing some internet research and making some calls to a few folks in eastern Kentucky to inquire about getting help to find an area with bears. My first planned hunt there was interrupted by a tremendous weather system and tornado as well as conflicts with my children's sports schedules. It wasn’t meant to be. Thankfully, the bear numbers continued to increase and the quota system was actually abandoned; now they have a standard, set number day season in December. Earlier this year, I actually loaded up my German shorthair pointer, Juno, and headed down to Harlan County, KY to grouse hunt with the added motive to scout for bears. I found some promising areas and, although I struck out on grouse, I had a truly wonderful time wandering the Daniel Boone National Forest for a few days with my dog. I marked several areas where I thought I came across bear scat and hoped to head back there someday. In the meantime, I came across an ad in the back of Bear Hunting Magazine for Pale Horse Guide Service in eastern Tennessee. This was extremely exciting given the relative proximMay/June 2024
The mountains of Eastern Tennesse are a sight to behold. That’s some beautiful country.
ity of the hunting area—only a six hour drive—and due to the fact that I really wanted to be part of a dog hunt for bears. After spending so many years on a deer stand, I was thrilled about the idea of a live action bear chase. I started texting Ben Jones and called my brother Luke in Washington state to see if he would be interested. My West Point graduate and Lt. Colonial brother hadn’t had much time to hunt over the years as he moved all over the country with the Army. He had settled in Yelm, Washington, but had been coming out to deer hunt with me most years. Ben Jones is a busy young man who hunts bears all over the country in addition to his home state of Tennessee, and we eventually got a hunt booked with him for November 2023. Ben and his father TL are famous Plott houndsmen and I was thrilled to learn that Clay Newcomb had been over there and hunted with them. I knew from my time in N.C. that the Plott hound was an all-American dog and the state dog of N.C. It felt like fate that our first hunt would be with such a prestigious lot. The opener for that rugged part of eastern Tennessee was set for November 6 and ran for about a week. Located in the foothills of the beautiful Appalachian Mountains, the bear numbers in the area were robust according to Ben Jones. That year alone, Ben had taken hounds and hunted Idaho, Wisconsin, and Maine as well as hog hunted in Louisiana and Tennessee when the bears weren’t open for running. With high hopes and only mild FOMO (fear of missing out) about not being in a deer stand in early November, my brother and I had a wonderful drive down to this beautiful area of our great country. I even had my first Buc-ee’s experience—a Texas-sized gas station bred to a Walmart—which all travelers should experience. Ben proved to be a wonderfully polite and soft-spoken young man that is truly passionate about his dogs and hunting. www.bear-hunting.com
We followed him up to his mountainside camp where we would spend a few nights. He had set up a western style wall tent on this scenic site and, although it lacked electricity or plumbing, he had a generator and a big drum of water. He has quite a cast of fellow bear hunters in the area that make up his posse. That Sunday evening, we got to hang out with them and share a meal with the guys we would be chasing the bears with for a few days, local characters Markie, Norton, and Brennan, Tyler from Wisconsin, and Anthony from New Mexico. It was quite a festive atmosphere and you could feel the palpable excitement in the air marking the night before the bear season opener. On opening day, we met up with the crew as they caught up dogs down in the valley at his dad’s house. As dawn was breaking, we bounced along heading up into the hills to hopefully have the dogs wind a bear and start a race. From my best understanding the goal was to get a bear going and then to pack on fresh dogs to the hound or hounds that would be running the bear. These guys were some high tech rednecks (in the best sense of the word) because they had all the dogs collared up with Garmin tracking collars and some even added the old telemetry “beep beep” backup collars. I know from using the Garmin collars on my GSP bird dogs that they are complex, but these guys had them dialed in. The care and love that they had for their dogs was very evident. It was fascinating to see the intricate trucks and atv setups these guys had for their dogs. I could tell this is a very consuming sport. Although there were a lot of plott hounds, it was very interesting to see other hunters with walkers, blueticks, english, cur, and a variety of crosses. A bear dog, as we would learn, had to be a special type of dog that would willingly chase an animal 10 times or more its size and very likely be subjected to the bear's teeth and claws. It was heartrending to hear these gruff men talk so tenderly about their favorite dogs and the ones they had lost this year alone. They do all they can to protect these wonderful dogs, but that is the price of the sport to some degree. The dry conditions and the large number of other
Camp was a rustic yet cozy setup on the side of the mountain.
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Lauren’s Outdoor Wish An Outdoor Dream Becomes Reality by Brigid O’Donoghue
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May/June 2024
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auren was diagnosed with Leigh's Syndrome at the age of six months. Her older sister, Kennedy, was diagnosed with the same condition and received her angel wings at the age of 14. Their older brother, Zachary, also had a disability, which made life challenging for the family. After Kennedy passed away, their mother, Colleen, said they started spending more time outdoors. Lauren and Zachary enjoyed being outside so much that their parents applied for them to attend an event with the United Special Sportsman Alliance (USSA). After going on a Great Lakes fishing trip, Lauren's family became interested in USSA's program. Zachary attended his first hunting trip soon after, and Lauren was happy for her brother but she was too young to hunt yet. Over the next few years, Zachary explored more hunting opportunities, which increased his self-esteem. He highly encouraged his young sister to try it out. Finally in 2022, Lauren got her first deer with an adaptive shooting device. She was ecstatic and now had a bigger dream to get a bear like her brother. In February 2023, Charles Hansen donated his long-awaited bear license to the United Special Sportsman Alliance. It wasn't long after that 12-year-old Lauren received the fantastic news she would be going on a Wisconsin bear hunt. Her father, Bob, expressed his excitement and surprise upon hearing this news; he never expected such an opportunity. Colleen, on the other hand, was curious about the process since Lauren could not walk and they would be running with dogs instead of sitting in a blind. However, Lauren was thrilled, and that was all that mattered to her mother. Brent Evitch, a member of the Critter Gitter Hound Hunter Crew, contacted her parents and arranged a date for her hunting trip. On the first day of the hunt, the crew found a fresh track just after sunrise as the rig dogs caught its scent and began barking. As the track warmed up, they released the other pack dogs, who hastened to catch up with the lead trailing dogs. Brent said, "We ran the bear for five hours and covered 20 miles, but could not get it out of this super thick clearcut and it wouldn't climb the tree. Finally, the race fell apart and we returned to camp. Then that afternoon, we had a bait recently hit with a hot track and then turned the dogs loose. We treed the bear but couldn't get to the tree before dark. That was the end of the first few days, and Lauren and her parents had to go home." A few days later, Brent informed Bob that they had seen a bear on their trail camera. So, Lauren and her father returned early on Thursday morning. Colleen couldn't attend because of her work, but she kept her phone with her, eagerly waiting for updates. She remained hopeful knowing that the mentors had recently sighted a bear. www.bear-hunting.com
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Legendary Bear Hounds: Part 55 9 Workman’s Drum | Tacy Hill’s Desperado by Steve Fielder
@stephen.f.fielder
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n the fall of 1999, Pratt and Whitney Corporation senior staff engineer Evan Workman was a young man looking for a dog. Perusing the coonhound publications, his eyes fell upon an ad for Plott Hound puppies born on October 14th of the year. At the time, Evan was hunting black bears with hounds in his native West Virginia, but he was possessed of a strong desire to enter the competition hunt scene with a Plott. “You can get a lot of attention with a Plott in a sport that’s largely dominated by other breeds. Other people have done that, “Evan recalled. “I was just looking for a well-bred pup, and here was an ad for puppies in Illinois out of one of the most popular Plott stud dogs of that day and a female that had made a name in major competition hunts across the country. The sire was GRCHNITECH bear Pen Rio Grande Roper and the dam was Marlo Arp’s GRCH GRNITECH WORLD CH Capital City Sam’s Go Annie. I figured if I got the pup and worked him
This is Snake, a son of Drum and a Piney River Wrangler-bred female thanks to frozen semen.
The immortal Workman’s Drum with owner, Evan Workman and a trophy WV black bear.
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Owner, Evan Workman hard, I could have him ready to hunt at Plott Days the following August. The asking price was seven hundred dollars, which was pretty steep, but we struck a deal on the phone for $500. I met her at the Grand American Coon Hunt in Orangeburg, South Carolina in January and brought the pup home with me to West Virginia,” said Evan. “He was a real houndy-looking pup, and he started running and treeing on coons the following spring at about six months of age. I hunted him hard. When you really like a pup and believe he has the potential, you hunt them hard. I coon hunted him at six months old and he would trail and tree a coon, but when I cut him loose he wouldn’t go deep by himself. He would just trail and tree and was a steady tree dog, actually a pleasure hunter’s dream. You could road hunt him, and he was just an all-around good pleasure dog, but not the rapid-fire competition dog I was looking for. He just ran in a different gear when hunted on coon,” said Even. “The area where I lived was called Tacy. Marlo had named the pup Desperado, and I added Tacy Hills to the name on his papers. However, I called him Drum,” added Evan. DRUM BECOMES A BEAR DOG Drum was about fourteen months old when the December bear harvest season opened in West Virginia. Well into the second week of the season, the older, more experienced hounds were beat up and sore. Evan thought, “I’ll just take the pup today and see what he does.” There were six inches of snow on the ground when a bear track was found in the snow. Evan’s hunting party turned several dogs loose, and all the dogs hung up on a rock ledge except Drum and an older female. The two dogs treed the bear by themselves and according to Even, “the Drum pup never missed a lick.” Within a short time, Drum became a legendary bear hound within the circle of Evan’s hunting friends. “He had a real knack for figuring stuff out,” Even said, remembering Drum’s strengths. “And it’s showing up in his offspring,” he added. “I’m hunting a young pup now out of Drum semen and a Dodger female. She was Wrangler top and bottom. Wrangler was Drum’s uncle being a half brother to Drum’s sire Roper. We ran a bear last Saturday morning and I turned him in. The bear had climbed a tight, woven-wire fence. The Drum pup that I call Snake hit the fence and ran three-hundred yards or more to get around it, came back, hit the track, and was gone. The other dogs were hung up on the fence. The point is the old Drum dog, from a very young age had a knack for not being interrupted by rocks, fences, or whatever. He had a knack for figuring those kinds of things out,” Evan said. Evan hunted Drum in some of the most challenging terrain in the eastern United States. He began to hunt remote areas of Boone County in southern West Virginia when the September season was introduced to control burgeoning bear populations there several years ago. “Compared to where I hunt, the terrain is as different as night and day. The area down there is extremely uninhabited. The population lives along the creeks, and the mountains are devoid of people. Spoils from coal mining left steep cliffs called high walls, and there are mining auger holes everywhere. The bears flourish in those remote and treacherous areas,” Evan says. “And, the bears are meaner than the bears we have here. They have a totally different demeanor. Biologists believe it to be May/June 2024
Purchased as a pup to hunt raccoons in competition, Drum proved to be a better and more natural bear hound.
the best habitat in North America for bears due to the millions of acres of just the kind of habitat bears need to thrive,” Evan says adding, “That’s where I got bit by a bear.” TOUGH BEARS AND GETTING BIT Evan went on to explain the story, “We had turned loose on a cold trail, and there were no other hunters to speak of with us at first on that morning. We ran a bear across the road and caught it on the other side of the mountain. I got to the bay and was walking along with the bear and the hounds. He was doing most of the chasing. When the bay moved, he decided to move. They were moving straight up and down in steep terrain and cutover timber. It was a mess. The bear stopped and sat on a tree root. I stopped and raised the muzzle of the gun to aim at its head. I wanted a killing shot because the dogs were all around him. I got to within about ten feet of the bear when he spotted me. I stopped to see what he would do, run, or swat at dogs. When he turned and looked at me he was about seven or eight feet away. As he swirled around he sprang with his back legs off the limb and jumped right for my face and tackled me. If I had known he was going to jump on me, I would have shot right away. I was able to push him off somewhat to the right and thankfully keep him out of my face. He clamped onto my shoulder and bit down, shaking his head as if to rip off my arm. Instantly, the dogs piled on, one by one, on top of the bear. He didn’t stand for much of that and let me go. One of the hunters in our party was coming up the mountain to the bay and had set down to rest. He said, “I looked up and the bear went right by me within arm’s reach! He was popping his teeth, and I could see fragments of his flannel shirt falling out of this mouth.” Evan and his companions later had a good laugh out of his friend’s description. “At that point I became the legend,” Evan remembers. “I had holes in my shoulder I could stick my pinky finger in, and the local doctor that treated me told me I was given two kinds of antiseptic because of the toxicity of a bear’s bite. Ironically, the next morning I found myself in nearly the same situation. The dogs jumped a bear and by following them, they were baying about twenty feet from me. There I was, with a bandaged shoulder, wondering if I were going to get caught again. I’ve www.bear-hunting.com
been around countless bears by generally, if you give a bear a path to get away, he’ll take it. I’ve been in cave-type holes catching dogs and in places I shouldn’t have been. But down in that country, I’ve seen bears that when you pulled the dogs off, they wouldn’t even run, “said Evan with conviction. WATER, COLD TRAILING, DURABILITY, AND GRIT Evan also hunted Drum in areas that contained lots of swift, wide rivers. “Drum would try to swim the ocean if a bear did. If he were hunting and the track was going toward the river, I knew we would have to try to get to the river before he did. A river here may be two hundred yards wide. Bears will swim anything. When it came to water, there was absolutely no hesitation in Drum. If the track came to the water, Drum was in it. I’ve seen him launch fifteen to twenty feet off a rock or the bank into the water. Water did not slow him down,” said Evan of his bear dog. “When it comes to cold-trailing a bear, I currently don’t have any dogs like Drum. When I was hunting him, it didn’t concern me if others were rigging the roads for bears ahead of me. I could depend on him not only on old tracks that crossed the road, but also with cold tracks that were near the road. When he came off the truck, he left like he knew where the track was and where it was going. The track could be on top the ridge, and he would be up there and off the backside before you could get anything to him. And that applied not only when hunting him off the road, but whenever a track was found anywhere. You could rig a track, put him down and he would run it when most dogs didn’t know it was there. Drum had a truly outstanding nose, a trait that appears prominently in this family of dogs,” Evan said. (The author recalls Chad Barth, who hunted a cousin to Drum named Rock) (Drum’s sire Roper and Rock’s sire Wrangler were half-brothers). When we were hunting near his home in northwestern Wisconsin, Chad showed me where Rock started a cold track and trailed it for eight miles by the truck odometer to the spot where he and two other Plotts jumped the bear from its bed.) Hunting in West Virginia in December, Evan didn’t worry about when a track he had found had been made. If it were made anytime during the night before, Drum would take it. There
Drum’s offspring tree a WV bear in open terrain, a rarity when hunting the Mountain State.
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