2022 - Issue 4 - July/August

First Time in bear country

French Canadian Hunting Brown Black BearsB with Hounds

Legendary Bear Hounds Part 44

Strategies for early season success

Bear Island Paradise

The bear hunting authority for 22 years

Pennsylvania bear drive

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Bear Hunting

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July/August 2022 Volume 23 - Issue 4 Cover photo by Chelsea Hansler

by David McDaniels

First Time in Bear Country

by Tommy Dale Lane

10

Close Encounters of the Bear Kind

18

By Bernie Barringer

Idaho DIY

22

Use of Leashed Tracking Dogs

By Douglas Boze

Keys to Early Season Success

By Nate Ross

30

by Tim Fowler

Bear Steak and Ale Pie

Pennsylvania Bear Drive

38

60

Hunting Brown Bears with Hounds

by Brian Strickland

48

Bear Island Paradise

By Steven Fielder

Legendary Bear Hound: MD’s Elephant Mountain Brin

By Barry Siragusa

44

66

Columns

Cuddeback Trail Camera Contest Winner Win a Cuddeback Camera!

58 Bowhunting Bears

“I’ll take all the bacon you have!”

-Bear SwansonTyler Buckner Georgia

by Bernie Barringer - Bear Guru

60 Western Bear Hunting

To enter, submit a unique Cuddeback photo to editor@bear-hunting.com or post to our Facebook page Bear Hunting Magazine

by Brian Strickland - Western Hunter

62

Bruin Desinations

64

Fleshing it Out

by Al Raychard - Bear Hunting Veteran

by Timothy Fowler - Renaissance Man

66 In Hot Pursuit -

by Chris Powell - Houndsman XP

www.bear-hunting.com

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Bear Grease The Editor’s Note Clay Newcomb

@clay_newcomb

I’m currently in a cabin in Folsom, New Mexico looking at a handsome shoulder mount of a color phase black bear. I have no idea who killed the bear or its story, but no doubt whoever killed it was proud.

Roughly ten miles from where I’m at, 12,000 years ago a band of hunters, some of the first peoples in what is now America, killed thirty-two bison in a small box canyon using stone projectile points. It became known as the Folsom Site. I’m intrigued by the different reasons we all hunt, but also how they’re all similar. The guy that killed this New Mexico bear probably did not depend on its meat and hide to survive the winter, but the people who killed those bison did. I would imagine, however, the ancient and the modern hunters felt a similar feeling of elation in their kill.

It’s human nature to celebrate such success, but in the big picture today our celebration includes the overall success of the species.

I just got back from Montana with my son, Bear, and he killed a beautiful blonde bear on public land. It was truly one of the prettiest bears I’ve ever seen. I asked my son if he wanted to mount the bear and he said he just wanted to tan the hide so he could hang the bear in his bedroom. I told him we could put it in the living room in our home and he declined; he wanted the bear close. It was a milestone achievement and he was proud. You’ll hear about this hunt in a later issue.

This issue is full of great stories from across North America of the success of hunters. I continue to be amazed at their ability to hunt and kill black bears. It’s important we continue to do our part to keep our rights as hunters intact. I’ve learned about a great organIzation called Howl For Wildlife; they’re doing a wonderful job of easily connecting conservation-minded people to lawmakers through technology. Basically, free of charge through their platform, you can easily send well-written form letters to legislators asking them to advocate for certain bills. These guys make it easy, so check them out.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: 1-Year (6 issues) subscription rate is $25.00 for U.S. address, $35.00* for Canadian address (in Bear Hunting (ISSN 1553-2488 and USPS 019U.S. funds). 2-Year (12 issues) subscription rate is $45.00 for U.S. address, $70.00* for 451) is published bi-monthly by Bear Tracks Media, LLC, 4052 N Abington Ct., FAyetteCanadian address (in U.S. funds). (*rate is higher to cover extra postage) For more information, call us at: 479-839-4335, write to us at: Bear Hunting Magazine, P.O. ville,AR 72703. Periodicals Postage Paid at West Fork, AR and additional mailing offices.

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Copyright © 2015 Bear Hunting. All rights reserved. Articles, news items, advertisements or POSTMASTER: Send address changes (form 3579) other print media do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. Bear Hunting Media, to Bear Hunting, P.O. Box 168, West Fork, AR 72774.

LLC is not responsible for injury/loss during the implementation of content. Bear hunting is a potentially hazardous activity and people should take extreme caution when hunting.

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First Time in Bear Country

by David McDaniels

@easttxcamo

“What in the world would possess you to want to travel all the way across the country to climb a mountain, just so you can kill a bear?” my mother questioned.

It was a fair question with a complex answer. Notably, in the opinion of most of my East Texas friends and family, my newfound fixation with the idea of bear hunting was being viewed as abnormal. After giving it some thought, though, why wouldn’t it be?

My introduction to bear hunting was not via family tradition or through a hunting buddy. I grew up in an area fully steeped in Southern hunting culture, but there just aren’t a lot of people in our area interested in bear hunting. Additionally, I’m a first-generation hunter who has only been hunting for two years.

“You haven’t even killed a good deer yet and now you think you need to drive across the country to chase a bear?” my good friend and neighbor quipped.

In short, the answer to that question was yes. For reasons that would be hard for me to put into words, bear hunting became a strong desire for me after I watched Clay Newcomb’s original appearance with Steve Rinella on “MeatEater.” Suddenly, I somehow felt like I was hooked before I really knew what I was getting into.

After that episode, I subscribed to Bear Hunting Magazine, started listening to their podcast, and started watching the magazine’s Youtube con-

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This is the author’s good hunting buddy Kelly ‘Top Hand’ Humphrey. This was his first bear hunt as well. He was with the author every step of the way. *Photo by: K.D. Graham www.bear-hunting.com

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tent. I also bought Douglas Boze’s book “The Ultimate Guide to Black Bear Hunting” and connected with him through a decent barrage of questions that he patiently answered for me via Instagram. From there, I started making plans for my new dream hunt adventure to become a reality.

I was all in. Along with consuming as much bear hunting content as I could, I started working out and preparing physically for the demands of a backcountry hunt while also doing deep dives into all the necessary gear to pull it off. My good friend, Kelly Humphrey, a life-long hunter also from East Texas, had been dreaming of doing a backcountry hunt for years and committed to going with me just for the adventure.

He spent an incredible amount of time “e-scouting” on onX in the different areas we had looked at hunting as our plans took on multiple iterations through the course of time. Then, in a stroke of what I can only describe as providence, I made a new friend that morphed this hunt into what it ultimately became.

Through a series of wild events, I became fast friends with Brent Reaves. You might be familiar with Brent from his time with Bear Hunting Magazine as a photographer and videographer or more recently for his contributions to MeatEater’s “Bear Grease” podcast. In our short time as friends, Brent has been an extremely positive and influential figure in my life for many reasons. One of those reasons was him going out of his way to introduce me to another new friend and a central figure to this hunt, Kolby Morehead, of Bear

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Hunting Magazine.

After our introduction via Brent at a BHA event in Arkansas, Kolby and I established a quick friendship based on our shared core values, our East Texas roots, and our enjoyment of hunting. Shortly after we met, Kolby’s original spring bear hunting plans fell through.

For reasons that surely include his being a glutton for punishment, he graciously decided to take on the task of mentoring three hunters from Texas with a combined total of zero hours of boots-on-the-ground bear hunting experience. Our additional Texan was Kolby’s cousin and life-long compadre named “KD.” Kolby had been backpacking to Montana multiple times and was willing to lead our group on a hunt in areas that he was familiar with and believed would give us a good opportunity to see—and hopefully harvest—a bear. Along with that offer, he graciously offered me the first shot at a bear on our trip, should the opportunity arise. To say that I was both humbled and excited about how these things unfolded would be an understatement.

That excitement was undoubtedly an asset as we hopped in my black F250, loaded down with four hunters and four hunters’ worth of coolers and backcountry gear, for the 30-hour trek from East Texas to Western Montana. We left Texas late on a Monday night and arrived in Montana at 4:00 a.m. that Wednesday.

We grabbed the equivalent of a decent nap, ate, got our gear fully prepped for the trip up the mountain, and headed out.

July/August 2022

Day 1 - Wednesday As the crow flies, we didn’t have too far to go from where we parked the truck to where we pitched camp. It was, though, about a 4.5 mile hike up and around switchbacks and across a drainage with about a 1500-foot elevation gain up to the ridge we wanted to camp on. Even with the physical conditioning I did in preparation for the trip, I felt every bit of that first hike up. My body seemed to settle in over the course of the week, but that initial ascent was a shock to my lungs and legs.

Incredibly, though, we started seeing bears almost immediately once we arrived on the mountain. During that first hike up, Kelly spotted a beautiful, large, jet-black sow with a cinnamon-colored yearling cub up toward the top of the ridge on a south-facing slope. We took some photos and videos and watched them feed for around an hour before we continued on our journey to camp.

Immediately after we got camp established, Kelly saw another bear feeding at the top of the ridge close to camp. This bear looked larger and was alone. We believed it to be a boar and tried to put a quick stalk on it. However, it was already late evening when he saw him and then he went up and over the ridge, so we never laid eyes on that bear again. The events of our first day—getting camp set up, seeing a sow and a color phase cub, and then already having a shot to put stalk on a bear—had our spirits high as we went to bed dreaming of what the rest of our hunt had in store.

Cub

Camp was setup in a good glassing area. The author and the other hunters spotted bears from this camping spot.

Sow

The hunters spotted a mature sow and her color phased cub on the opposite side of the drainage hiking to their camp on day one.

www.bear-hunting.com

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Day 2 -Thursday We got up the next morning and primarily glassed from camp as a group. We were camped high on a ridge and had plenty of country we could cover with binoculars and spotting scopes as we got a better feel for the lay of the land. Again, we sighted a bear.

Around 10:00 a.m., KD glassed up what we believed to be a large boar all the way across the drainage we were hunting toward at the top of the mountain ridge. He was alone, feeding on the logging road working right to left on the mountain. He was over a mile away linearly and to put a decent stalk on it would have been over a 2.5 mile hike around the drainage, so we decided to watch him for a while and evaluate our options. We watched that bear feed for about half an hour and then he disappeared up into the timberline at the top of the mountain.

For our evening sit that day, we split into two groups to cover more ground. I went with Kelly and Kolby went with KD. We were set up to be able to punch out and cover two different drainages, but the only bear any of us laid eyes on that evening was the same big black sow and cinnamon cub we had seen the day before. Still, spirits were high and we remained optimistic about the amount of action we had in such a short time so far.

An unforcasted snow storm blew in and covered the guy’s camp. The weather was unpredictable from snow, to fog, to thunderstorms. with wind gusts of over 40mph.

Even with rough weather, the group continued seeing bears in the main drainage they were hunting.

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K.D. spotted the bear above was spotted from camp the morning of day two while snow was falling. Kelly and David spotted the same mature sow and cub that evening.

Day 3 - Friday Overnight and into Friday morning, we had a sudden storm roll in and the temperature dropped from the 60s down into the upper 20s. It brought with it a decent peppering of snow and some fog into our drainage. Along with the unfriendly glassing conditions, Kolby had been fighting off being sick for a couple days. He’d shown a lot of grit and had toughed it out so far, but as a group we decided to make a quick trip down the mountain that morning to try to help him get his body on track. Sometimes a hot shower and good meal can go a long way, and that proved true in this situation.

With Kolby feeling better, our group refreshed, and the morning fog burned off, we hiked back up that afternoon and split up again to glass. Once again, we only saw that same sow and cinnamon cub that was now considered an afternoon staple to our glassing sessions.

Around 8:30 p.m., though, Kelly and I hiked back toward camp. We closed out the evening on a glassing knob a couple hundred yards from camp that offered a great view of the primary drainage we were hunting. At that time while I was scanning the drainage with my naked eye, I thought I saw a large, dark speck move. “That’s a bear,” I told myself as I raised my binoculars up to my eyes to confirm. I was right. It looked like the same large boar we had spotted the morning before. Only now, he was closer as he had moved into the corner of the drainage—still working right to left on the mountain in our direction. There wasn’t enough daylight left to stalk him that night, but Kelly and I put together a plan to try to go after him the next morning. That night, I barely slept as I tossed, turned, and dreamed in anticipation for tomorrow’s hunt.

July/August 2022

Day 4 – Saturday Kelly and I woke up early, ate breakfast, had a cup of coffee, and prepped our packs with the essentials for an all-day sit. We headed up the ridge and down the logging road about a mile to the area we felt would be ideal to glass up and put a stalk on that bear based on where we thought and hoped he would be.

“I’m gonna shoot that bear today,” I said confidently as we made the hike. To be fair, I’m an extremely optimistic person and hunter. I say things like that early and often, but in this exact moment in time I truly believed it.

“Seriously Tall-boy (my nickname on the farm back home), if we do see that bear today, you just need to stay calm, breathe, and listen to me while we make a real plan. I don’t need you trying to sprint straight up to the bear and knock him on the head,” Kelly half-joked.

He knew I was really excited.

Around 8:30 a.m., we got settled in after our hike and got set up to glass. As we sat there a few feet apart, Kelly asked me to toss him some of the extremely tasty trail mix that Kolby’s wife, Joleen, had sent along for our hunt. I tossed it over to him and turned my head back toward the drainage and raised my binoculars back up to rest on top of my nose.

Logically answering questions like the one my mother asked me can sometimes prove challenging. Explaining a passion that is unfamiliar to those around you often doesn’t provide them with the eloquent response they’re looking for. However, on an emotional level it can often be summed up simply by moments like this one.

“Bear,” Kelly said in the loudest whisper I think I’ve ever heard in my life. It felt like a lightning bolt suddenly struck my heart.

I turned my head back toward Kelly and about 600 yards away over his shoulder on the side of the mountain, there he stood: that big, beautiful, dark chocolate boar. Still working right to left on the same logging road, patiently lumbering along and stopping to eat the green grass on our south facing slope as he saw fit.

“The wind is perfect, grab your gear and let’s go get him,” Kelly said.

With the wind in our face as we hiked up the logging road toward the bear, the only thing racing faster than my heart was my mind.

“Calm down. Go through your mental checklist.

You got this,” I told myself as I tried to fix my thoughts on the processes I knew were important in the moment. I was excited, but I felt ready.

After quickly going up the logging road, we knew we should be getting close. We turned the next corner and there he was, standing broadside eating some grass on the fringes of the road. I tried to get set up in time to get a shot on him, but in my nervousness I had a hard time getting comfortable with my rifle. Suddenly he was out of sight. He was walking in a section of road that ebbed into the mountain, but was still coming toward us. I had a decision to make that I wasn’t excited about. “Am I going to take this frontal shot when he turns the corner?” I asked Kelly. www.bear-hunting.com

“Yes, he’ll be at 75 yards—-it will get the job done,” he responded.

Suddenly, there he was. The vision of him turning the corner and stopping and staring right at me—the big white blaze on his chest almost glowing in my mind—as I looked at him through my rifle scope will stick with me for some time. Boom! The sound of my rifle cracked as I released a round from my .308. “High right, high right,” Kelly said. I missed. I racked another round, pointed it straight at his chest, and did what I hadn’t done the time before.

“Breathe, David,” I told myself. I breathed out slowly with control, and with a steady trigger pull I released another round. Almost simultaneously, the bear started to turn to try to run. In doing so, he set up perfectly for my rifle round to pass through both lungs and the bear expired almost immediately, moving just enough to roll down the mountain about 60 yards.

In line with the spirit of the trip, we skinned out There was a lot of glassing in this trip. A good set of binos is great idea on a western hunt.

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and quartered the incredible bruin as a group and packed his meat and hide 4.6 miles down the mountain. We later discovered he squared six feet and a half inch—considered by many a once-in-a-lifetime bear for that area.

Everything about this trip, from Kolby’s selfless decision to take our group of rookies hunting, to Kelly not leaving my side in hopes of helping me get a bear, to our team hiking out together, it was all more than I could have dreamed when the idea of this hunt took root in my heart. I believe our hunt particularly embodied two tenants of the mantra, “Guard the Gate”, which has helped define Bear Hunting Magazine for some time now: mentor new hunters and help shift hunting culture. In many ways, it embraced these ideals that I believe will help carry on and protect the tradition of bear hunting for generations to come.

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The author got his first bear! It was a mature boar squaring over 6 feet.

This was a team effort. Being selfless and working together is one way to: #GuardTheGate July/August 2022

www.bear-hunting.com

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Close Encounters...

by Tommy Dale Lane @tommydlane

...of the Bear Kind!

It was opening day of the 2009 Arkansas bear season and our area had not yet been hit with the typical early fall rain and windstorms that usually blanketed the forest floors of the Ouachitas with acorns. I had several good, consistent bears using the baits (and by good, I mean bears that I would be proud and satisfied to hang my tag on).

I got to my stand around 2:30 pm, about three hours before my game cameras told me would be the most advantageous time to be there. Upon arrival, I saw my bait had been hit hard the night before and the evidence of feedings from the past twenty-four hours were obvious. I walked towards my bait, three hours early mind you, and when I got even with the tree my climber was attached to, I sat down my bow and removed my backpack to be as efficient as possible. I opened my backpack and removed two cans of sardines to spread over the area for a scent booster—a

I sat for five hours without a single hint of a ritual I go through almost every hunt. I cracked one can open and began walking towards my bait barrel, bear’s presence and decided to make the long trek back down the mountain with what little daylight I had concentrating on not spilling any of the delightful left—there were only fifteen minutes or so left of legal smelling fish flavored soybean oil on my hands.

I take two steps and look over next to a huge light and it was deafeningly quiet. So, I climbed down pine tree where I had placed a five-gallon bucket full and began tidying up before leaving. Remember before of homemade “Bear Crack”. I remember thinking that when I mentioned regretfully having to pick up my bow? a twenty-four hour clean up on that amount was im- Well, I didn’t learn a thing! I sat my bow down, again, and pressive. I took one more step and heard a shuffling turned to put my card back in my camera, all the while faintly but not all the way consciously hearing a steady, in the brush just to my immediate left. I turned and heavy breathing. Now, you bear hunters know exactly was within fifteen feet of one of the biggest bears what I’m talking about here. Prime bear hunting can octhat had been using my bait. He just froze in place looking at me because he hadn’t initially seen me as cur in some of the most horrible early fall heat waves we have, and bears are huge, black, and furry—not a good he rushed into the bait to get an early jump on the combination to make a consistent living in. So, I was buffet I had set out.

I looked at him motionless for about ten sec- hearing a bear dealing with his internal cooling mechaonds, then slowly looked over my shoulder at my bow nisms and did not realize it at first. After it finally dawned on me, I turned and to my utter dismay there was another sitting on the ground just a few feet away. In that moment I remember that I never felt fear, not saying one of my bigger bears standing broadside looking at my I’ve never been scared of a situation with bears I’ve bow, about eight feet away from it.

Well after my first encounter, I figured it would been in, but at that time I just remember thinking, “I never happen again. Fool me once, shame on you, fool wonder if I can make it to my bow?” Well, the short me twice, well, I’m still an idiot! He quickly sees me and answer to that inquiry would be, not even!

I watched the bear swiftly disappear, knock- shows me his spot-on impression of a bulldozer as he leaves. I wiped the disgusted grin off my face in the ing over small saplings as he retreated. As all bear remaining legal minutes of the day, regained myself, and hunters know, to see a bear is a successful hunt, so I was already ahead of the game in my book. I then once again wrote it off as a victory for simply getting a glimpse of my foe, my obsession. proceeded the short distance to my bow, wiped I packed away my things, reloaded the card in my the sardine juice off that was now covering my left forearm, and regretfully picked up my bow. I turned trail camera, picked up my bow, and began my descent and hurriedly made it to my barrel, emptied the cans down the long, dark, and overgrown trail. I hadn’t gone one hundred yards down the path when I felt a very close (bow now in hand), and retrieved the card from my game camera. After completing my “starting rituals” presence in the small, matted pine saplings along the and climbing the tree, I began looking at the pictures side of my walkway. At first I knew something was there and then in a millisecond my mind had now concurred on the card with my 35mm camera. I discovered I with the rest of my fleeing body that something was, in had bumped the same bear while approaching the fact, there! Not only there, but within two feet of where bait and he had not retreated far before he deI was standing gazing into the black shadowed undercided to return. Well, that built my confidence in brush. I had walked up (or down I should say) within inchmy stealthiness but bottomed out my opinion of my es of a satellite bear that wasn’t sure what I was either awareness. till we met. We both quickly made a joint decision not to remain in each other’s company any longer and parted ways. I was like a toddling schoolgirl screaming some words that I believe I had made up in that moment at the top of my lungs and the bear huffing something about, “I thought you were one of us!”

From that day on, I always carry many important lessons under my now informed hat that I will never lay down again. First, get a blow sling if you don’t have one. Bears do not own a watch. Second, bears are one of the most thrilling things to encounter that exists. And finally, I now know I can run twenty-five miles an hour in very low light conditions, downhill, through moderate to heavy obstacles, leaving a faint screaming trail through the woods. I’m incredibly fast…when I need to be!

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www.bear-hunting.com

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Idaho DIY: The Best Tough Baited Hunt Ever Sometimes the tough ones are the most memorable

by Bernie Barringer

The closure of Canada to outsiders was disappointing to me on many levels. For several years I have done at least one spring bear hunt in Canada, and I travel to Ontario for fishing, camping, and generally spending time in the bush multiple times a year. In 2020, I exchanged my Canadian bear hunt for a Wyoming hunt, which was loads of fun and culminated with a nice chocolate bear. During the winter of 2021, it became clear that Canada wasn’t going to open the borders any time soon, so I began to scheme and plan about another spring bear hunting adventure—or two—in the US. I ended up settling on two hunts for May and June, one in Idaho and one in Maine. I’ll explain the unique spring Maine bear hunt in a later piece, but for now I want to relate the experiences I had in the mountains of Idaho, which would become a hunt fraught with difficulties and drama that you just can’t make up.

The drama started well before the hunt as I began researching areas and calling people I knew from Idaho and people who had hunted Idaho previously. I’d done a hound hunt about 10 years ago in the Idaho panhandle, but I’d never baited on my own in the state, so it was a real learning experience. One common theme that kept coming up was the issue of trails being blocked by snow slides in May. For this reason, I decided to choose lower elevations, which proved to be the right choice.

I also called Forest Service and Game & Fish personnel probing for information. In the end I settled on the Selway River area and called my South Dakota buddy, Virgil, to ask if he wanted to go along. He immediately agreed as expected, even though he had busted up his foot in a treestand accident and was still on crutches. He knew his mobility would be limited but he wanted to go and do what he could. He then asked if his son, Isaac, from Texas could come along, and I agreed.

Lots more research and I had the area dialed in, even choosing some good looking bait sites and the perfect camp spot based on what I had seen on aerial photos. In early May, I loaded up and hit the road with a bunch of bait, a Polaris Ranger, a truckload of camping gear, enough food to feed an army, and a lot of enthusiasm for the hunt. Virgil would be bringing his 4-wheeler, another side-by-side ATV, and his usual good attitude which is something I love about hunting with him. Isaac would fly into 22

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Missoula and rent a Jeep for the trip to the mountains.

My first indication that things were going haywire was when I arrived at the resort where we would buy our tags and found the store closed. It was only 7:30 a.m., but the guy who runs the store was hanging around the restaurant, so I asked him what time he would open the store. His answer was 10:00. I just needed a license, and he had the keys in his pocket, but despite my pleas he wouldn’t unlock the door and sell me one. I decided to go on down the road another three hours and set up camp. I eventually ended up going an hour and a half the other direction and bought a license at a small bait shop in a little town.

The second, third, and fourth roadblocks came in quick succession. I had rumbled down gravel roads for an hour looking forward to setting up camp at a place I had picked out when upon arrival, I found an outfitter set up there. He had several wall tents, ATVs, and a half-dozen hounds. Fortunately, I had a backup camp spot in mind (I always have a plan A and a plan B on these hunts). However, he also pointed at my Polaris Ranger and told me I couldn’t use it on any of the forest roads because they are all limited to ATVs less than 50 inches wide. Gulp.

In all my conversations about bears, baits, and ATV use, you’d think one of the officials I talked to would have mentioned that. But no, we were limited to using the two side-by-sides on the main roads and all the backcountry trails we intended to use were limited to one 4-wheeler for three people.

Then he dropped the real bomb on me. Seems a whole lot of other people had decided to go hunting in Idaho because of the Canada border closure.

The valley was full of bear hunters. The outfitter told me that he had baits on all the trails and I would later learn there were three other groups of hunters baiting in the area. Over the next week, we would find that just about anywhere you could pull off the trail and get far enough from a stream to legally set a bait, there would already be a bait.

I went ahead and set up camp a mile down the road, which turned out to be a fine place. When Virgil and Isaac arrived, I broke the bad news to them and we began to formulate a plan to get a leg up on all the other hunters. It went something like this; we would just outcompete them. Trail mix and pastries coupled with excellent calling scents such as Northwoods Gold Rush would give us an edge, plus we would set up as far from the other baits as we could and just try to offer something better to the bears than the stale breads and popcorn being www.bear-hunting.com

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The truck is loaded down with gear as the guys cross the Idaho line.

used by the other hunters. I had learned from hunting these mountainous areas that once a bear finds the bait, he’s likely to hit the bait 2-3 times a day for the first couple days, then settle into a regular feeding pattern which would likely be right after dark. Because of this, we decided that as soon as the cameras showed that a bear had hit the bait, we would hang and hunt immediately.

Despite the fact that we had our licenses, we learned that you can’t get bait site tags at license vendors so we had to drive all the way across the state to Salmon and get them in person at a Game & Fish office. That one’s on me—I should have come across that in my research. Before we even got out of the valley we were camped in, Isaac’s rental Jeep got a flat tire, so we spent a couple extra hours in Salmon getting the tire fixed and dealing with the rental company.

We finally went to work locating good spots and putting out baits. It was incredibly difficult to find spots that were far enough from the road and far enough from water as required by Idaho law. Maybe a half-dozen times, I hiked up a drainage carrying everything required to put out a bait site, only to find there simply wasn’t a legal site available and had to walk all the way back out. This was steep country and we climbed mountainsides looking for good spots. By the end of the second day, we had only four baits out. We discovered that we simply had to work harder than the other hunters and go where most people aren’t willing to carry heavy buckets of bait and haul stands.

Over the next couple days, we checked baits and had a couple nighttime hits. Some of the other hunters left the area which gave us some optimism.

We drove the 45 minutes out to a resort to buy some ice and they let us use their wifi to check emails and 24

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phone messages. I was stunned to find that my son had called and left a message that my wife had COVID and had been in and out of the ER three times in the past two days. She was not doing well at all.

Of course my first reaction was to pack up and go home. Could I leave Virgil and Isaac hanging? Almost all the equipment both for camping and hunting was my stuff, so I was in a real predicament. I called him and he said he was staying with her, that they had sent her home with a bunch of monitoring equipment, and I should stay and hunt. I tried to talk to her but she was barely able to complete a sentence.

That night I stared at the roof of the wall tent most of the night, trying to decide what to do. The next day I drove back and called again. He said she’s doing fine and he and my second son were both taking some time off work to stay with her. I went to the woods with a little bit more peace of mind. I had decided to explore another road that was quite a few miles from camp, but closer to the resort at the end of the road. I saw what appeared to be a great spot close to the road and walked in to have a look. About 100 yards from the road I heard ravens croaking, which was a bad sign. Sure enough, another bait.

The next stop was a mile up the road where I walked down the ridge off a point and there was a pullout on the forest road. Lo and behold, I found a spot that looked terrific and had no sign that anyone had hunted it. I was a little uneasy that the nearest stream was 500 yards down the slope and probably a drop-off of at least 1000 feet. But I baited it up, dumped some oil spiked with Gold Rush, gave it a good soaking with Northwoods Beaver Castor spray, and put a camera on it with optimism.

That evening, Isaac hunted a bait that had been hit but saw nothing other than a cow elk up close. Virgil stayed July/August 2022

A canvas tent and canopy is a great combo on this type of public land hunt.

in camp and did a little exploring on the side-by-side.

The following morning, I headed down the river for 45 minutes on rough gravel road to check on my wife again. She was a little better and able to talk on the phone with me. I asked her straight up, “Do you want me to come home? I will—just say the word.” Her answer just confirmed to me what I already knew when I won the wife lottery 42 years ago. “What could you do if you were here?” was her answer.

I headed back up the mountain with a sense of peace I hadn’t felt for a few days. Walking into the new bait on the ridge, I was surprised to find two Putting calories in for all the calories expended hauling bait.

The terrain was challenging. Hauling the bait was no easy task. www.bear-hunting.com

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piles of bear scat on the way in, then a bait that had been hit and two more piles of scat at the bait site, which were bigger than the other two.

The camera showed one bear at the bait, then the bear turned and chomped on the camera so it was pointing the wrong way and didn’t get a photo of the second bear. Time to hang and hunt.

I arrived back at camp to gather my gear and chatted with the guys a little. Another bait had been hit by a small light-colored bear and Virgil wanted to hunt it for the evening. I decided to run up the mountain on Virgil’s 4-wheeler and check one more bait, in case we wanted to put someone there for the evening. This bait was way above camp on a series of switchbacks in a cool canyon with heavy cover. On previous days, the cameras had shown two yearling cubs using the bait, but I hoped that other bears would find it.

When I walked up to the bait, I was shocked to find it covered up with a huge mound of branches, sticks, grass, and leaves. I know what that means: Grizzly. I got an eerie feeling that I was being watched and my heart was hammering as I pulled the camera off the tree and bailed off that mountain as fast as I could run without pitching headlong into the dirt.

Once again, back at camp, the camera revealed that one of the bears had chomped on the camera and moved it. I was crushed that I didn’t get a photo. Next time, I am definitely taking bear safes to bolt the cameras to the trees.

I headed 14 miles down the river, turned back up the logging road, and parked near the bait on the ridge. I hung a stand on the bait and climbed in early. It was early afternoon and I was expecting a long sit. Considering the circum-

This deer kept trying to get food from the camp.

The bears wouldn’t leave the trail camera alone.

Finally a good pic of a chocolate color phased bear.

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The author with his Idaho public land black bear!

stances, I had decided that any legal bear was going home with me. This tough hunt was not a time to be selective. I knew there was one small bear on this bait and one a little bigger than him, but the one I was after was the first one.

And that first one showed up only a half hour later. I saw black moving through the bush about 200 yards down the slope from me. Over the next half hour, he slowly closed the distance using extreme caution. He was clearly terrified of something.

I guess when you’re a small black bear living in grizzly country, you live on the edge of panic all the time.

Eventually the bear came into range and I put an arrow through his heart. He bailed off the mountainside and piled up against a 30-inch log 75 yards away.

Thank goodness for that log or the bear would still be rolling. The following evening, Virgil hunted that stand hoping the other bear would come, but mine turned out to be the only bear we would see during the week.

This was a memorable hunt because of the good company, amazing scenery, and the hard work that makes a guy want to eat well and hit the sack early. Plus, we had the added bonus that we learned a lot about hunting in steep country with loads of competition. I’m convinced that the strategy of hunting immediately upon finding a bait that’s been visited is the right tactic for these situations, and that’s the biggest takeaway from this hunt. Each time I do these DIY public land bear hunts in new country, I learn a little more. And that’s just as important to me as killing bears. www.bear-hunting.com

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www.bear-hunting.com

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Keys to Early Season Success

by Doug Boze

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@bozeandbears

July/August 2022

It’s the beginning of May as I write this. My grass is growing at a rapid pace, weather is unpredictable with glorious sunshine one minute and hail the next, and the wounds of the cancellation of the Washington spring bear hunt are still fresh and painful. Summer hasn’t even hit yet but in my mind, I am wandering back to the late days of summer, when the warm evenings carry a welcome breeze to kiss the back of my sweaty neck as the Nighthawks divebomb and let loose with their zoooom sound as they dart overhead. Thoughts of mosquitos harassing me as the sun sets and the comforting crunch under my feet from gravel and dirt take me back to my childhood and our gravel driveway I’d play in. Bear hunting in a t-shirt is usually how I end my summers and the “see me not” blood sucking flies thank me for it. But I am months away from this joy.

Trying to give very specific tips for bear hunters on what bears are eating nationwide is a difficult task. Obviously, food sources are not the same in the Pacific Northwest as they are in, say Arizona, or even the eastern side of my state.

Therefore, I want to focus on ideas and strategies to help you narrow down for yourself exactly what the bears are eating this time of year (or anytime really).

After reading this, you should have a good basis to further your knowledge no matter the season you are hunting bears.

I wanted to share with the inexperienced (or unsuccessful) spot and stalk bear hunters what I look for in the early fall season for bears. The main thing you should always be looking for is what food is currently available. What can help you decipher this if you are not familiar with the local bear food preference? Scat!

Photo by: Kolby Morehead

www.bear-hunting.com

@kolby_morehead

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Bear scat is the king of bear sign. Inspecting it can tell you if it was left recently. You can also tell what some of what food source the bear is keying in on.

(Left) The scat came from a spring bear hunt. The bear was keying in on grasses after emerging from its den. Notice how it ismore solid and tubular compared to the piles on the right.

(Right) Both piles of scat are from bears in the fall keying in on berries.

Notice the color and the undigested remnents along with the more vibrant color.

Fresh bear scat can tell you several things, such as what they are eating (by simply smashing the scat and trying to match it up with local berries, plants, and the like). It can showcase how long ago the bear was in the area (how fresh is the pile, has it been rained on or dried out from the heat?). Is it a bigger bear (the bigger the diameter of the scat, the bigger the bear, theoretically)? And finally, are there lots of piles or just a couple?

If you continue having issues with figuring out what they are eating, call or email your local game biologist or warden and ask for a little advice. Food for bears really varies throughout the regions of North America; it’s very regional specific. But think berries, masts, fruits, insects (ants, termites, hornets), and the sort. If you know of a lone apple, plum, pear, or cherry tree out in the woods, keep a close eye on that bugger! Also, don’t be afraid to check out the local hiking forums online. You’ll often see hikers post photos of bears off of trails showcasing where the bears are and what they’re eating. These can offer great tips to help point you in the right direction. I am not saying hunt off a super popular hiking trail, but if you see a photo of a bear eating blueberries at 2000 feet elevation on trail X, that gives you some good insight.

When I find fresh bear scat, I almost always smash it with my foot or dig through it to see what the bear has been into (I’ve even found a few hooves in them). This little action can provide invaluable informa32

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tion for you on what the bear is eating. Don’t recognize the seeds or structures in the scat? Break apart the local berries, fruit, plants, etc. to see if you can find some matching parts. I have done this early on in my bear hunting career and it pointed me in several good directions when I had nowhere else to turn. Smashing the pile can also tell you how dry it is (if it’s old) and disfigures the pile so that if you happen to come back down that trail again, you know you’ve already seen that pile. Learn to distinguish between fresh, stale scat (as I like to call it) and old scat. This comes with experience.

In your head, always think, “find food, find bears”---a simple but complex mantra. Bears are constantly searching for food, especially as the year moves on. This should be your primary focus when searching for a good bear hunting spot because it’s a bear’s primary focus too—that and minimal human interaction. The less people the better. Once you figure out what they are eating, now you need to figure out where they are eating it. Locally, I will be focused on areas with water and shade, like a marsh, creek bottom, lake or pond, even a seep in the ground that might feed down a small valley.

Generally, these areas are brushy and provide food on several levels for many animals and are a good place to start your search. If I am not finding scat or other signs, such as tracks or scent marker trees, I might move on to another locale. I will often walk slowly and just obJuly/August 2022

“FIND THE FOOD, FIND THE BEARS” -DOUGLAS BOZEserve my surroundings, watching closely for the unobvious signs of bears. For example, a torn apart stump or log, an alder that has been broken at 5 or 6 feet high where the bear has snapped it over his shoulder, bear hair on briar thicket bear tunnel, overturned boulders, and the list goes on. Slow yourself down and become very observant.

Older clear cuts where the brush has come up nicely is another favorite, especially with a mature stand of trees that borders the area with a creek close by.

Predators seem to like edges and bears are no exception.

Watch the edges of tree lines for bears feeding on the brush that borders the trees. Sit quietly and glass with binocs and listen carefully. You’ll often hear a bear feeding long before you see it. When glassing, look for pieces of bears. Many times I will see only a paw come out of the brush and drag down a tall berry bush so the bear can eat it. But of course, be wary in this situation and always be sure of your target.

Remember, bears like to be close to cover. Additionally, bears get hot due to their heavy coat and fur color. Early season (which is August for bears locally), it gets very warm during the mid-day—mid 80s or worse—and like bears, I get hot too. I will often hang by a creek and gold pan or quietly wade in the clear, icy water for a bit while I wait for the cooler afternoon/evening air to move in, then I’ll start my hunting. In reality, I am hunting while I am hanging out, but I might start to walk to different areas www.bear-hunting.com

as it cools down to try to find one feeding.

My son took his first bear a few years ago while I was swimming in a creek pool next to a log jam.

Right in the gravel bar, the bear came out at maybe 40 yards. But that’s another story altogether. So, this would be my other tip besides, “find food, find bear”, which is to pay attention to cover and cool, shaded areas. I am not saying you won’t find bears out in the heat, but they tend to stay close to areas that offer protection from the misery of the sun’s rays.

If you are lucky enough to live in an area where you can get up between a couple drainages and glass for some distance, especially in the early dawn or dusk hours (late afternoon), this can be highly advantageous to you. This will allow you to cover lots of area with your eyes, without spreading your scent throughout the area. As most of you know, bears have incredible noses, so avoiding them catching your scent is key to any hunt. I personally play the wind and don’t bother with “scent blocker” sprays and the like, but that is me. Side note here: make sure if you use a cover scent, it is legal to do so (in my state of Washington that is considered baiting). If you catch a bear on one of these glassing sessions and the darkness is falling fast, don’t fret. Early in the season, the food in the area might be enough for the bear to stick around, provided he doesn’t get pushed. Try to come back the following Bear Hunting 33

This is the author standing beside a black bear marking tree.

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The author likes to key in on the edge of dense cover near a creek or stream when looking for predators.

morning or evening and work the bear if you don’t have time for a stalk that evening.

Elevation and light play an important role in food availability for bears, so if you are not finding food at your current elevation (or side of the hill which might be getting less sun), change it up. Locally in the Pacific Northwest, bears are usually pretty low during the early season and then slowly work their way higher and higher until the end of season because they follow the berry crops. Sun exposure also plays a big role. If a berry bush is shaded much of the day, it is less likely to produce fruit before a bush that is in full sun most of the day, which could be just yards away or across a gulley.

Take notes either in your head or on your phone as you work your hunting area. If it isn’t ripe this second, the spot may be beneficial within a week or so.

As for my early plans this season, I intend on going back to where I shot my bear last year in August. A winding creek, choked with brush and logs, but which offers food, water, and cover. Not to mention, fairly easy travel along the sand bars—which bears can appreciate. In this spot I am referring www.bear-hunting.com

to, there are huckleberries that will be ripe on opening day (which tend to grow right out of old cedar stumps), salmon berries that will be ready, various logs and stumps for insects, and it stays cooler than outside of the tree canopy. Additionally, as the hucks and salmon berries go out, other berries will become readily available, keeping the bear in the area. This area is also inundated with predators too, so the deer could use a little help with this issue. I had on my trail camera several bears, at least five different cougars,

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Crocs and bear hunting, a winning combo. The author utilizes these when crossing water.

That’s a nice bear track!

This is the author after a successful fall bear hunt.

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and three failed deer stalk attempts within a week. I ended up shooting a bear there last year in my imitation Wal Mart brand croc sandals after an afternoon swim. It was pretty great!

Be patient with your learning curve if you are having trouble finding success. Take time before you shoot to ensure you are not taking a sow or a sow with cubs. Remember to enjoy every moment of it: the sunrises and night falls, the sun-soaked naps and the rain-soaked retreats, the thirst and hunger, triumphs, and failures. As my dearly departed mom, Rose, once said years ago on her death bed as I held her hand waiting for the inevitable, “I wish I could go elk hunting one more time. I know I can’t, but I wish I could.” We only have so many hunting seasons in us.

This season, take the time to wander and get to know your hunting grounds. Learn the plants and what becomes available at what time, watch for bear trails, and become closer with nature. Listen to the whispers of the land as it will speak to you, if you only take the time to hear it. This will help your chances of success in spot and stalk bear hunting greatly. Just don’t let me catch you swimming in my log jam creek pool, or we’ll have a problem. Well, not really, I could always use a pack mule. Happy hunting, my friends.

The author is eat up with bear hunting and wrote the book ‘Ultimate Guide to Black Bear Hunting.’ If you want to learn more about bear hunting this is a great tool to build new knowledge or dust the rust of off what you already know.

www.bear-hunting.com

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Pennsylvania Bear Drive

“Please, don’t shoot a bear!” my wife says as I head out the door to meet up with a great friend of mine and a group of others to go bear hunting. We had just had a new well drilled for our house and she feared that a taxidermy bill would just compound our financial situation. I told her it was very doubtful I would even see a bear, let alone harvest a bear.

I have seen black bears in the wild a few times here in Northeast Pennsylvania, but I had never seen a bear while hunting. My father was in his 40s before he harvested his first PA black bear. I had just convinced myself that it would be a long time before I would have the opportunity to harvest a PA black bear. I have always held the notion of harvesting one on a pedestal of achievement as a PA hunter.

Up until 2005, PA only held a 3-day rifle bear season the Monday through Wednesday before Thanksgiving. In some wildlife management units (WMU), the bear season was extended into the first week of rifle season for deer (which was the week after Thanksgiving). In an effort to give more opportunities for hunters to harvest bears, the PA Game Commission created a 2-week muzzleloader bear season in the middle of Oc38

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tober. Up until 1984, the average bear harvest in PA was less than 1,000 bears a year. The bear population has increased over the past several decades to the point the PA Game Commission is trying to prevent the overpopulation of bears. “Rather than permit a hunter to harvest more than one bear per year, eight bear seasons restricted to specific seasons and sporting arms now offer more opportunity to more hunters,” says John Hayes of the Pittsburgh-Post Gazette. This increased opportunity has allowed the hunters more opportunities than ever to harvest a bear. In 2019, PA hunters set an all-time record of 4,653 bears harvested.

Now remember, PA does not allow baiting or hunting with dogs. The most successful way to hunt PA Black Bears has traditionally been by conducting drives. There are two groups in these drives, the hunters doing the walking (or drivers) and the hunters in front of the drivers waiting for the bears to run towards them (or standers). Standers are the ones who have the greater chance of seeing bears and/or shooting at them. The terrain in PA varies from rolling farmlands in the southeastern part of the state to the July/August 2022

Appalachian Mountains that run from the southwest end of the state to the northeast. These differing terrains pose different types of drives. In the mountains, hunters tend to thick timber or blow downs where bears can hide but are near a food source. Where we were hunting in the northeast, the valleys are full of farmland surrounded by mountains. In these areas, hunters have the best of both worlds. They have the thick timber of the surrounding mountains with the food-rich farmlands in the valleys. Bears love to come down from the mountains and feed in farmers’ corn fields to fatten themselves up before winter. These bears will do thousands of dollars in crop damage to these corn fields since they will flatten huge patches of corn as they eat it. Most farmers in our area want these bears out of their fields, so we have very little difficulty getting permission to hunt on their land.

Back to the fall of 2020, I had a prior commitment to a deer stand the first Saturday of the PA muzzleloader bear season. My buddy, Eric, and a couple other hunters had gotten into some bears in some standing corn at the base of the surrounding mountains, but their shots were unsuccessful. Eric called me up and convinced me to dust off the old inline muzzleloader—I hadn’t shot it in years—and join them the following weekend.

I told my wife I would try to do most of the driving for this hunt and out the door I went. The group I was hunting with met at my friend Eric’s family farm around 6:30 and headed out to some fields with www.bear-hunting.com

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standing corn that they had seen some bears in the previous week. I was a stander for this drive. It was unusually warm that morning, but the weather forecast called for some rain and a cold front to move in by the afternoon. I always get nervous as a stander, thinking of all the possible shooting lanes I have and where other hunters are standing to make sure I can shoot safely. I also make sure I know where the drivers are coming from and what exit points the bears will likely take. Despite my nerves, I was ready. The drivers were getting closer to the end of the corn rows (which is usually when the bears will break cover), but we had

no luck.

After a couple more drives as a stander, it was my turn to be a driver. I remember thinking to myself that my wife could breathe easy since I would be a driver the rest of the day. The field we were going to drive was an L-shaped corn field with Golden Rod and some trees to the right of the corn field. We started out in the lower part of the “L” driving to the long part. As we entered the longer part, I heard, “Bear, coming in!”

Immediately, I heard the bear running right at me and the corn started parting like the Red Sea. I could hear it snorting as it sprinted closer and closer. I knew if I didn’t

The author with his first black bear.

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move it would run me over. I took a few steps back, clicked my gun off safe, and as the bear entered the row of corn, I took the shot. The bear stopped a few rows of corn over, panting hard and snorting. I couldn’t reload that muzzleloader fast enough since the bear was wounded and only a few feet away from me. As I tried reloading, it took off again.

This was a large corn field with a wounded bear; being color-blind makes tracking blood quite difficult for me, but luckily I had some help. We tracked the bear back out of the corn under some pine trees where I made my final shot. My first PA black bear—I was overcome with excitement.

It took me back to that little boy who just harvested his first buck or gobbler. Eric made the phone call to my wife, telling her I had gotten a bear. She thought he was playing another joke on her. When I was handed the phone I heard, “You have got to be kidding me.”

My wife laughed and said she was excited and not to take the bear anywhere before my son could see it. The next phone call was to my dad who, without hesitation, came and helped us with the bear. He also said the taxidermy bill was on him. Since my grandfather paid for his first bear, he would pay for mine as long as I did the same for my son.

I was never a dedicated bear hunter. I always thought that a bear would just wander by while I was out in the combined deer/ bear season in the wildlife management unit I hunt in. The increase in hunting opportunities the PA Game Commission has implemented is helping hunters get out in the field more. It is necessary to help maintain the bear population as it continues to grow—we have more bears being harvested than ever before. The October muzzleloader season is a great time to be out in the woods or corn fields for big PA black bears. It is a hunt I look forward to every year now and I have chosen to dedicate more time to being a bear hunter. I am officially hooked; I cannot wait to get my son his first PA black bear. www.bear-hunting.com

It’s clear hunting this will be a family tradition.

With no bait or hound hunting allowed in PA, a black bear drive is the most successful style of hunting.

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Legendary Bear Hounds: Part 44 MD’s Elephant Mountain Brin Owner, Mark Dufresne

by Steve Fielder

@stephen.f.fielder

“I know there are other dogs of her caliber, because I have hunted with some, but she was just that one dog for me” - Mark Dufresne Mark DuFresne is this writer’s personal best example of an outdoors renaissance man. Wildlife biologist, world-class taxidermist, professional Maine guide, and hunter/breeder of some of the most respected and acclaimed Plott bear dogs in North didn’t know America are labels he deservedly wears without who to contact. justifiable argument from his peers.

He recalled the Born in Western Massachusetts, Dufresne Swampland-bred says it was “in a hill town, much like in eastern dogs of his youth, dogs Tennessee and western North Carolina with with tremendous noses simple hill folks.” As a young man, he attained and grit beyond bethe educational tools he needed to pursue a lief. He remembered career in wildlife biology. Taxidermy came what those dogs along as an offshoot and is the trade for could do and was which Dufresne is best known today. His frustrated with dogs Elephant Mountain Brin striking a work, including two amazing mounts of that were quitting bear from the rig. pairs of bull moose with antlers locked in bears. battle, has earned him worldwide acclaim.

In his He’s an innovator, constantly striving for realism words, he tried about in his mounts. Recent work in improving the head everything, having dogs from several different lines mounts for large bears is one example. across the country. However he finally settled upon a Dufresne has always been serious about the certain female and things improved from there. breeding of his Plott bear dogs. Farm life provided “I didn’t understand breeding,” Dufresne said, “I had his introduction to hunting dogs. Being raised on a been exposed to genetics in the wildlife field but farm, Dufresne hunted whatever he could hunt with through the Plottdogs.com website, I began to look dogs. A good friend named Chip Sprague, the close up other hunters. I was not afraid to ask questions friend of the legendary Plott hunter/breeder, Leroy about dogs and I kept coming back to Plott dogs. I met Haug, of Indiana, came into a bar where DufresSteve Herd from Kansas. He brought a four-month-old ne was waiting on his father to finish his beer and female pup down to me at the American Plott Associainvited young Dufresne to go bear hunting. “I had not tion’s Breed Days in Tennessee. I fooled with everything bear hunted at that point,” Dufresne said, “We had a under the sun with that pup. A neighbor had trapped great adventure and caught a nice bear. We climbed a woodchuck and it got under a rock. She dug and a mountain toward the baying hounds. It was like an barked at that woodchuck for six or seven hours until, amphitheater with all the racket the hounds were at about nine or ten o’clock that night, I became afraid creating as they barked at the treed bear. Steve the rock was going to fall on her.” He kept her after was at the bottom of the tree. There was a pistol that and named her Brin. shot and out came a ball of black with brindle dogs Dufresne continued, “She was about ten swarming it—a real wild west scene. I was hooked.” months old when bear season came in. I took her to a Unfortunately, bear hunting with hounds tree in Vermont and she barked at the tree. Later, the was to be short-lived in Massachusetts. In Dufresbig dogs were trailing a bear. There was a high-tenne’s words, “We woke up and we had no more bear sion power line and I saw a big bear standing up, hunting. It was voted out.” The political scene had marking a telephone pole. I ran over to the truck and changed and everyone had to sell off the bear dogs. grabbed her. The other dogs were trailing on the hill.

Dufresne was away from bear hunting for a time She smelled the bear and got up on her hind legs, but, as a biologist, did assist in cougar hunting with roaring. The bear ran on the same side where the dogs dogs in Oregon. When he came back home, he went were cold trailing. I cut her loose and she left, barking bear hunting with friends. Attempting to build his every breath. The big dogs came to her and she was own pack of bear hounds, he started with hounds the last dog we caught off the bear five or six hours he could afford but that wasn’t working. Without later. I didn’t know how gritty she would be but she a network of hunting friends across the nation, he had some pretty good dogs to run with. We just kept 44

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hunting her after that and she kept getting better and better as she went along.

“I was hunting some cornfields and one farmer was having trouble with bears,” Dufresne reflected, “A big bear was hitting a bait and we bayed it all day. It would break and go fifty yards. All the dogs fell off except Brin and she was in there still barking every breath. It was getting late. This had gone on since daylight and it was now 4:30 or so. We had about a half hour of daylight left. I said, ‘I’m going to try one more time to kill it.’ I got up there and she had it stopped and I heard her get caught. It was that crushing silence. I went in and she was laying on her side and couldn’t really get up. There wasn’t any way I could carry her off through those ledges and spruce thickets, so I sat there for a little bit and she finally got on her feet and we hobbled off the mountain. I was a young fellow with kids and really didn’t have a lot of money for going to the vet. I looked her over and I really didn’t see anything on the outside other than toenail holes and the usual stuff, so I brought her in the house. I never house-broke her, but she didn’t mess in the house. She couldn’t walk there for about three days. I had to put a towel under her and carry her outside to use the bathroom. She was all swelled up, kind of jelly-like with that rice krispy skin all over her. I just kept nursing her along,” he said.

“I went back to hunting and went over to one of the cornfields I was hunting for the farmers.

I had left something inside the house and had left my truck door open. Brin had never moved off the couch. When I went back to the truck, there she sat.

She had managed to climb into the cab of the truck.

I looked at her and said, ‘What are you doing?’ It was the funniest thing. She wouldn’t look me in the eye.

She was looking out the passenger window. I said, ‘Alright, you want to go that bad, I’ll let you go’---never figuring I would do anything but let her go for the ride. We got to the cornfield where she had hunted in training season. It was full of bears and she knew where we were. She jumped over my lap and fell on her face when she jumped out, but into the corn she went. Actually, I had to catch her because she wasn’t wearing a collar. I tackled her and put one on her and said, ‘If you want to go that bad, then go.’ It wasn’t five minutes until she was bayed solid out in the corn.

I cut a couple of dogs in and they treed it. She wasn’t barking much but she was treeing and you could tell she was hurting. We rolled the bear out and she had a little chew and off we went. I said, ‘That’s a dog that has heart right there.’ I was impressed because she was a mess.

About a week later, I had her back outside at her doghouse and was checking her belly and stuff just to make sure there wasn’t any hernia or anything. I would poke her belly and something would stick straight up. Off to the vet’s we go. He examined her and said she tore two major muscles off her pelvis. He said the fact that she was running, much less mobile, mystified him. He said, ‘If we go in there and repair it, she would have more scar tissue than she would if it heals.’ We just let it go and it healed itself.”

Dufresne hunted with Brin until she was thirteen years old. Here are his thoughts on his legendary bear hound: “Her trailing ability was her strongest strength. Her intelligence coupled with that ability enabled her to do an outstanding job. I believe the bobcat hunting, the way we hunt on foot with the dog, helped to develop her natural ability and made trailing tough tracks look easy. In thirteen-plus years, she went backwards on tracks four times and there were extenuating circumstances on each of those.

“She was a fun dog to hunt with. She could run into a bait or strike a track from the rig and run to it, never breaking stride, then hook onto the track the right way and roll out instantly. One time we watched her traveling across a hardwood ridge, just trotting along. We got in front of her and led some dogs into her. We thought she was jumped at the pace she was traveling. We released the new dogs as she came across just above us. To our dismay, they went to her and stood around like there was nothing there. She never broke stride trotting by us with her head straight up in the air. We discovered later she had actually been trail-

Legendary bear dog, Elephant Mountain Brin, taking a much-deserved rest on the dog box.

www.bear-hunting.com

Bear Hunting

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Maine Guide, Mark Dufresne, with his legendary MD’s Elephant Mountain Brin and a bear.

Hunt Big Color

B&C Score: 20 - 8/16”

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ing an old track.

“She always seemed to make the near impossible look easy. She would drift a track at a ridiculous distance.

Somehow, she always knew when the game made a turn and she never blew a corner. Sometimes you could not pack to her because she was so far off track.

I watched her as a young dog drift a bear from 75 to 100 yards off track.

When the bear turned, she turned. One time on a hunt the bear crossed, angling across the road. She hit the road and ran, kicking up gravel while looking to her right where the bear had crossed. I believe she knew the road was faster than the thick swamp the bear was running in. She crossed a bridge over a brook and hooked right, cutting down an old logging road. Keep in mind, the second she came off the bear track she stopped barking. About 100 yards down that road, she opened and hooked to the left side and just left the area on the track. It wasn’t long and she was looking up at a bear.

“She used her mouth right, never barking off track and if she was barking, she had the track 100% of the time. She was very tight-mouthed as a yearling on old tracks and on cats, she was dead silent until jumped. But by her third season, she had developed into a very open dog on any track, a dog that, in my opinion, used her mouth perfectly.”

Dufresne began to realize Brin was getting old. At about eleven or twelve years old, she exhibited a swollen lymph node in her neck. It started to get larger and she got an infection. He said, “I had her on a pile of antibiotics and the swelling would go down and then she would go hunting and it would come back. That was an ongoing process for quite a while. That was through hunting season. I said, ‘Well, I’m going to run her until she doesn’t want to run anymore.’ I think, for a bear hunter, the worst thing is to see your good dog get old and when, although they still have the heart, they start getting outrun by their kids. She started doing goofy things. When they would catch up with her, she would give up and go find her own bear. I would find her hours later bayed up on one. If they would run by her, she seemed to say, ‘I’ll go find one that’s my speed.’ She was famous for that.”

“The infection came back repeatedly. Toward the end of it, I guess it would have been her thirteenth summer, I took her rigging. She still loved to go. I had started to notice that there was another tumor inside her belly (there was a July/August 2022

Mark and Brin with a nice Maine bobcat.

Mark Dufresne with the son of Brin named Reaper and a nice bear. www.bear-hunting.com

bulge on one side). I took her in and the vets checked the place on her neck. They said if they operated, it was all blood-engorged and contained all the nerves that control breathing and everything else. It got to the point that it was dragging her down. It ended up, late that fall, she still would go out and jump bears, but her stamina was gone. It was coming into November and I finally saw that she was looking like a skeleton. I was cooking hamburger and rice trying to keep her going.

She had lived inside with me for about two years and I had to face the facts and put her down. Those good dogs don’t give up. I had the vet tell me, ‘This dog shouldn’t even be here.’ Right until the bitter end, she would run until she couldn’t go. At the end, I found myself wishing she would get killed by a bear because I just couldn’t end it myself.”

In Dufresne’s mind, Brin’s greatest contributions have been the way she taught him how to hunt and how to develop a trail dog. He says he learned a lot from her. Secondly, her offspring have carried on where she left off. “I have a son of hers, Reaper, who is now ten years old. I think it’s a fair statement to say he’s as good and is perhaps a little better than she was, although he’s a little different type of dog.”

Mark Dufresne is still a young man when we compare his remaining years in the bear woods to mine. No doubt he will continue to breed and hunt bear dogs that will meet his expectations or close.

But when he evaluates them, the yardstick will be a 45-pound bundle of brindle hair and grit called Brin, a legendary bear dog indeed.

Mark Dufresne and the legendary Tennessee bear hunter, Roy Clark, with Reaper and a black bear.

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Bear Steak and Ale Pie

by Timothy Fowler

“Try bear pie made with stout,” said Peter, my bear hunting partner, one evening while relaxing by the fire of the outfitter tent after harvesting a black bear, “Annie makes one that is delicious.” I was telling Peter that I needed to come up with a good bear recipe for the next edition of Bear Hunting Magazine and I was feeling in a bit of a rut.

Annie was kind enough to share her bear pie recipe and pointed me to Jamie Oliver’s YouTube video on beef and guinness pie. This is where I started and then riffed my adjustments to suit my taste. She reminded me there was no shame in buying premade pastry, which is exactly what I did.

Firstly, a spring bear harvested from the Boreal Forest is the nearest to very lean beef, if I am forced to make a comparison. Spring bears tend to be lean and clean. Bears are just getting moving after a long winter’s weight loss program and are scrambling between two top priorities: breeding and eating. Mostly what is available forage-wise is clover, grasses, and, if you are lucky to find them, dandelions. When spotting and stalking, we look for green patches of grasses, clover, and yellow flowers (and freshly dropped bear scat, of course).

In Alberta, we can buy two bear tags. Each wildlife management area has its bear hunting seasons. Some areas have no black bear season, some 48

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@timothydfowler

have one tag, and some have two. The area where we hunt allows each hunter to take two bears, one with a general license and one with a supplemental license. According to the large carnivore specialist in Alberta, there are 4,000 more bears on the landscape this spring because of canceled bear hunts the previous two years due to Covid.

Our spot and stalk hunts are relaxed. We set up the outfitter tent in the Boreal Forest. Mornings usually include a second pot of coffee and often bacon and eggs. Sometimes we don’t get rolling until after lunch. This time of year, it is light until 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. It seemed we were early this year because there was limited scat, and the clover and dandelions were slower than normal. Peter took a young boar, which turned out to be delicious and the hide will be tanned fur-on and made into something useful. We were not gunning for the biggest bear or no bear, we were gunning for a legal bear. The first one we see that’s legal is going to be pie.

We butchered the bear, cutting the largest leg muscle to make steaks—in my case these were destined to be bear and stout pie. The bones were chunked up with my hand-bone saw and will be made into a demi glace.

Here is the road map to a fantastic English Style Bear Pie. July/August 2022

Equipment • • • • • • • •

Cutting board French knife Rolling pin Garlic press (optional) Measuring cups Wooden spoon Dutch oven Deep pie dish

Ingredients • • • • • • • • • • • •

• • • • • •

1 kilo or two pounds of bear steak cut into 2” cubes Coarse salt and black pepper to taste 3 cloves of garlic, smashed 3 shallots, peeled and sliced finely top to bottom 1 sprig of fresh rosemary, stems removed and chopped coarsely 2 green onions, chopped 1 white onion, sliced 1 large carrot, peeled and diced 2 sticks of celery, diced 1 cup celery leaves, chopped 2 tablespoons of tomato paste 1 500 ml can of black stout (about 2 cups).

I used a local brew which would be my recommendation, but guinness works just fine 1 cup of dried mushrooms, chopped medium (cover in boiling water and let steep for 20 minutes) 8 ounces of shredded old cheddar cheese, divided into two 1 pack of frozen prepared puff pastry (I used Tenderflake) 2-3 tablespoons of flour 3 tablespoons bear grease or olive oil 1 egg, beaten with a fork (for the egg wash to seal the pastry)

Here, laid out, are the main ingredients for the bear pie.

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Method 1.

Cut the bear steaks into 2” chunks. Season with coarse salt and pepper and toss to incorporate the salt and pepper. Set aside to rest and absorb the salt while preparing the other ingredients for the recipe.

2. Preheat the oven to 325 F. 3. Boil water and cover the chopped dried mushrooms with hot water to steep.

4. Prepare the rest of the vegetables as described.

5. Heat bear grease or olive oil over high heat in the dutch oven, add the bear cubes and sear to brown, stirring occasionally.

6. Add garlic, shallots, onion, and carrots. Continue on high heat stirring often until the onions are caramelized.

7. Add the celery and rosemary and reduce the heat to low.

8. Add the tomato paste, stir into the bottom of the pan, and cook 1-2 minutes.

9. Stir well and then stir in 2-3 tablespoons of flour.

10. Add the mushrooms and the liquid that covers them.

11. Add the stout: bring to a simmer, remove from heat, cover, and place in the oven.

12. The bear will take up to three hours to completely cook.

Check every hour to ensure there is enough liquid in the dutch oven. Top up with beef stock if needed. Taste test the bear at two hours to determine if it needs another hour (my bear was a young one and ready to serve at two hours, but an older boar will need three hours).

13. Once the bear is cooked, remove the dutch oven and place it in a cold-water bath. You want to knock the heat out of it or it will melt the pastry lining.

14. Roll out the pastry to cover the base of your pie plate (I used a small dutch oven. A skillet would work as would a deep-dish pie pan).

15. Place half of the cheddar cheese on the bottom of the ‘pie plate’.

16. Cover the bottom of the ‘pie plate,’ fill with cooled bear mixture.

17. Top with the rest of the cheddar.

18. Brush the edges of the pie pastry with egg wash.

19. Roll out the top to cover the pie. Optional: gently score the pastry with a knife before placing it on top of the pie.

20. Place the pie top. Pinch the edges to join the top and sides of the pastry.

21. Brush the pastry top with egg wash.

22. Bake for about an hour at 375 F or until the pastry is golden.

23. Serve with steamed buttered greens or your salad of choice (dandelion greens would be fun).

Hopefully, you have saved a pint of whatever stout you used in the recipe to share with your pals that have joined you for pie. This was a bit of a surprise for me. Meat pies have not been a regular thing in our house, but going forward they will be. This was delicious.

Here is a look at the diced and shredded ingredients.

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Bear cubes sizzling in bear fat.

A light scoring with a knife gives an nice detail to the pastry topper.

Drape the pastry over the bottom of the ‘pie’ plate.

In this case it is a small Lodge Dutch Oven.

www.bear-hunting.com

Bear Hunting 51

Pretty huh? Now serve that up to the hungry crowd and wait for the applaus!

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July/August 2022

NCBHA Member and Fellow Bear Hunters, There’s quite a bit going on this summer. Our North Carolina General Assembly is in SHORT SESSION and we find two (2) house bills that should concern North Carolina bear hunters, HOUSE BILL 986 and HOUSE BILL 1072 HOUSE BILL 986 - AN ACT RESTRICTING THE TRANSPORTATION OF DOGS Primary Sponsor: Rep Grier Martin (DEM) from Raleigh; Sponsors are: Representatives Harrison (Guilford), Logan (Mecklenburg), Nasif Majeed (Mecklenburg) and amazingly, Rep Raymond Smith (Sampson).

The Bill denotes, that an operator of a pickup truck or vehicle having an open bed or open cargo cannot transport a dog or dogs in the bed or cargo area of that vehicle unless: the dog is under the physical control of a person other than the vehicle operator; “humanely secured” in a cage or other container; or “humanely restrained” by a “harness manufactured for the purpose of restraining animals”.

This Bill quietly got past several of our dog hunting organizations and was caught by the NCBHA once it was filed on May 19, 2022. On the surface it might seem somewhat logical, however twice the Bill uses the phrase “Humanely”, and that caught our attention. First and foremost, humanely secured and humanely restrained are ambiguous and undefined, and would be an open-ended nightmare in terms of enforcement. Second, the Bill implies that dog boxes and collars must be “manufactured” for the purpose of “humanely” restraining or securing dogs. What happened to the days that hunters built their own dog boxes?

The Bill is presently before the House Judiciary 2 Committee, after which it will likely go to House Appropriations Committee and then the Rules Committee. The NCBHA has communicated with the Judiciary 2 Committee Chairman, requesting that additional language be added to exempt hunters and hunting dogs and add language limiting applicability to public paved roads.

HOUSE BILL 1072 - AN ACT TO DISAPPROVE A RULE OF THE WILDLIFE RESOURCES COMMISSION ALLOWING HUNTING OF BEARS IN CERTAIN AREAS MANAGED AS BEAR SANCTUARIES. Primary Sponsor(s): Rep Pricy Harrison (DEM) from Guilford, Rep Becky Carney (Mecklenburg), Rep Caleb Rudow (Buncombe) and Rep John Ager (Buncombe). Sponsors are: Representatives Autry; Ball; Belk; Brown; Butler; Dahle; Harris; Logan; and Morey.

The Bill generally states that: The Rule, to allow special controlled hunts on three specific bear sanctuaries, that was adopted by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission on February 24, 2022, and approved by the Rules Review Commission on May 19, 2022, is disapproved by the legislature (if approved and ratified).

It’s important to note that the Rule was taken before the RULES REVIEW COMMISSION on May 19, 2022 and duly approved. (The Rules Review Commission is part of the Office of Administrative Hearings is www.bear-hunting.com

an independent quasi-judicial agency that was established to provide a source of independent Administrative Law Judges to preside in administrative law contested cases.

It was created to ensure that the functions of rulemaking, investigation, advocacy and adjudication are not combined in the administrative process. As a consequence of this policy, North Carolina operates under what is referred to as the “central panel” system of administrative adjudication.

In short, the Bill sponsors are attempting to overpower the scientific recommendations and findings, public participation, and due process of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and sportsmen and women.

Perhaps the most noteworthy element is that the sponsors all appear to have animals rights and possibly anti-hunting sentiments, which should alarm hunters. The NCBHA has communicated with the Chairman of the House Rules, Calendar and Operations Committee, expressing concern over HB-1072’s attempt to invalidate the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission’s Rule and approved by the Rules Review Commission, as unacceptable.

We will remain activity engaged in thwarting these Bills and similar Bills. However, don’t find solace where none is warranted. The years 2022 and 2023 are already shaping up to be a very dangerous Legislative Session. We are already tracking and engaged in discussions regarding proposed legislation intent on infringing upon the rights of North Carolina hunters to hunt by traditional means.

Regarding the federal state of affairs - it’s July… gasoline and diesel prices are extraordinarily high, with no relief in sight. A little hotel room is pushing $200/ night, medicine and food are at historic highs, and firearm ammunition (while available) is not affordable: all of these issues affect hunters and their ability to go hunt and enjoy themselves and fill the freezer. As if that wasn’t enough, hunters have to contend with disconnected federal legislation such as: H.R.2325 - Bear Protection Act of 2021, and S.3472 - Bear Poaching Elimination Act of 2022. Keep that in mind come November!

Back to Bears… Our Mountain (western) bears are out and rummaging for something to eat. We have received a lot of photos of big bears and bear sows with gangs of cubs. The early indication is suggesting the summer will be much like 2019, where wide regions produced abundant soft and hard mass. Throughout the Piedmont (central) bears continue to be seen, even in city environments.

They are roaming wide trying to find sources of food. Bird feeders, pet food bowls, garbage cans and backyard gardens are prime targets. There are even a few reports of sows with cubs, which suggests bears are going to be an ongoing management challenge to maintain at “0” growth in the Piedmont. Coastal (eastern) bear reports indicate a steady number of bears being seen through the region and farmers are finding crop deprivation is increasing. Like the mountains, we’ve received a lot of photos of big bears and bear sows with cubs, possibly not as many as last year. If the summer trends are any indication, the regional population is looking fairly strong.

We invite you to join the only statewide association dedicated to bear hunting and hunting with dogs. Membership applications and renewals should be sent to: NCBHA Member Services, 130 Holly Mt Church Road, Mt. Gilead, NC 27306. Our website is www.NCBHA.com. Be safe!

Bear Hunting 53

Wisconsin Bear Hunters Association Inc. July/August 2022

Wisconsin Bear Hunters’ Association 2022 Annual Raffle Winners $ 10,000.00 Cash or 2022 Yamaha Viking UTV . . . . . . . . . . . . LuAnn Schneider, Athens, WI Traeger Pro 22 Grill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kenneth Michiels, Mason, WI Springfield 1911 Defender .45 acp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Val Olson, Woodruff, WI Wasatch 18 Gun Safe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrew Lewis, Arpin, WI Savage 555 12/28 O/U . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Katie Wisse, Oostburg, WI Kimber Micro .380 acp Rosewood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tom Hindal, Sheldon, WI Sig Sauer P365 9mm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bob Meyer, Westboro, WI Pit Boss Pellet Smoker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Billy Borntrager, Black River Falls, WI Glock 20 Gen 4 10mm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Donald Woiak, Nekoosa, WI Savage 110 Apex .300 Win Package . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Don Semann, Sparta, WI Ruger American Go Wild 6.5 Creedmor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrew Boortz, Weyerhaeuser, WI Browning Abolt III 30-06 Springfield Syn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jeff Kunde, Greenville, WI $ 525.00 Scheels Gift Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jon Brissette, Porterfield, WI Wicked Ridge Rampage X-Bow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Randy Feyereisen, Hudson, WI Stoeger 20 Ga Camo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gary Wartgow, Butternut, WI Stoeger M3000 12 Ga Camo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jim Rice, Dubois, WY Sitka Stratus Vest & Pants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Richard Delis, Spencer, WI $ 525.00 Scheels Gift Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David Walker, Tillamook, OR Garmin 66SR GPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Henning Logging, Hurley, WI Kenetrek Mountain Boots 400 Gram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Matthew Dennis, Janesville, WI Smith & Wesson 642 .38 Spl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Greg Radtke, Neenah, WI Leupold SX-2 20-60 Spotter & Vanguard Vesta Tripod . . . . . Wally Rydzewski, Deerbrook, WI $ 525.00 Scheels Gift Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Grant Gorgen, Mineral Point, WI Xenek Ground Blind & Alps Blind Chair . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tony Bruger, West Bend, WI Mossberg Patriot .243 Win Package . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Allen Lew, Thorp, WI CZ 457 Trainer 22lr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 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Dave Schmalfeldt, Burlington, WI Scheels Rain Jacket & Bibs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Schoettel, Horicon, WI $ 522.00 Scheels Gift Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael Lane, Mosinee, WI 2 Cuddeback Cuddelink Trail Cameras . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Allen Rabideaux, Bayfield, WI Foxpro inferno Predator Call & Digital Nightvision Binocs . . Tom Jensen, Neenah, WI Ruger Security 9mm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Melissa Dawes, Shiocton, WI Mystery Ranch Popup Pack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Alex Ballweg, Lodi, WI Hummingbird Helix 5 Locator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Allan Hembrook, Weyerhaeuser, WI Vortex Crossfire 10x42 Binocs& Impact Rangefinder . . . . . . Barbara Frazier, Monroe, WI Winchester SXP 12 ga Black . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Robert Wilson, Middletown, NY Benelli Supernova 12 ga Black . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Candy Freer, Hudson, WI Lead sled rest, Tannerite, Gallery target . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Henning Logging, Hurley, WI $ 500.00 Scheels Gift Card . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thomas Altman, Marshfield, WI Benchmade Osborne Knife. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cole Porter, Nekoosa, WI Yeti Hopper Flip Cooler & 4# Yeti Ice Pack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Scott Trettin, Kaukauna, WI St Croix Premier Rod & Daiwa One Series Reel . . . . . . . . . . . Josh Hafferman, Bowler, WI

Drawing was held March 26, 2022 All state and federal regulations apply.

Winners are obligated to pay all tax, licensing and fees associated with prizes.

License # R0011342-A-65210

Thanks to all who sold and bought tickets for our annual raffle!

Thank You!!

Mail to: WBHA, 594 Rural St, Berlin, WI 54923 Call John Trochinski 920-229-0365 or email at bigjohntro@gmail.com 54

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4/22/8 - WI

July/August 2022

There’s a new dispute in Michigan wildlife management, and it’s reviving an issue hunters and conservationists have repeatedly addressed in recent decades.

It all centers on who calls the shots when it comes to hunting regulations in the Great Lakes State.

A supermajority of Michigan voters sided with a coalition of hunting and conservation groups known as Citizens for Professional Wildlife Management in 1996 to approve Proposal G, which gives the state’s seven-member Natural Resources Commission exclusive authority to regulate the taking of game.

The move was a means to insulate decisions on hunting regulations from politics, and to stipulate game must be managed using scientific data and sound management principles.

In 2014, Citizens for Professional Wildlife Management followed up with a citizens petition approved by lawmakers that stipulated the same approach for sportfish management.

In the years since, lawmakers, officials at the Department of Natural Resources, and state hunting and conservation groups have agreed that the NRC is the ultimate authority responsible for hunting and fishing decisions based on the best available science.

That changed this winter, when DNR officials altered boilerplate language in a memorandum to the NRC regarding furbearer regulations that cited an old state statute, MCL 324.40107, essentially asserting the DNR, not the NRC, has the authority to set new hunting units, quotas, bag limits, and season dates.

Conservation leaders raised issues with the language in the memorandum and the DNR later removed the reference, but the DNR continues to pursue the issue, which prompted Michigan United Conservation Clubs, the state’s largest hunting and fishing organization that spearheaded Citizens for Professional Wildlife Management, to take action.

MUCC confronted the DNR about the dispute, and the answer from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration is concerning.

The official response: “The questions pertaining to where particular authorities reside are important for both the department and the commission to carry out their duties. Presently, the commission and department are working together to further clarify some of those questions and are doing so in conjunction with the attorney general’s office. Further, no changes from historic practices in how orders are developed or executed will be made until or unless that review recommends that changes are necessary.”

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has worked tirelessly to keep gray wolves under federal protections, advocated for expanding gun control, and aligned herself with animal rights activists.

The situation motivated MUCC to hold emergency meetings with the folks who helped to craft Proposal G, and none “remember any discussions about the old statute,” MUCC Executive Director Amy Trotter said.

MUCC officials also consulted with the Michigan Resource Stewards, a group of mostly retired DNR and Department of Environmental Quality professionals, as well as MUCC’s wildlife committee and others, and it was “all-in on the (Natural Resources Commission) as the decision-maker,” Trotter said. www.bear-hunting.com

“It’s my feeling talking to members and partners, they desire that authority in the NRC’s hands,” she said.

Those conversations led to the Michigan Resource Stewards submitting an interim resolution for consideration at MUCC’s annual convention titled “Reaffirmation of MUCC’s dedication and belief in Proposal G and an independent, transparent Natural Resources Commission.”

The resolution recounts MUCC’s efforts over the years to grant the NRC exclusive authority to regulate fish and game, and calls on the organization to “take action to ensure Proposal G’s original intent is upheld.”

“The current DNR administration has found and applied a section of Michigan statute that most everyone had thought was superseded when Proposal G was passed in 1996. This section of law, MCL 324.40107, gives the DNR the authority to set bag limits and quotas, season dates, and geographic boundaries of units.

Under this interpretation of the law the NRC would only have authority over method and manner of take, equipment, and things like baiting and APRs,” according to a backgrounder on the proposal.

“The DNR has begun to publicly wield this authority in a manner that subverts the intent and spirit of Proposal G, and is the first administration to separate this power publicly,” the document reads.

The MUCC proposal requires a two-thirds majority vote of members to become official policy, and it’s expected to pass when members meet for MUCC’s annual convention in Lansing on June 24.

The Michigan Bear Hunters Association played a key role in promoting both Proposal G and the 2014 citizens petition to ensure the NRC is the ultimate authority for managing fish and wildlife, and MBHA directors plan to stand behind that commitment by supporting the MUCC proposal later this month.

“It’s very important to have that separation between the NRC and DNR,” MBHA President Keith Shafer said. “The director of the DNR is one individual appointed by the governor, whereas the NRC is usually appointed by a couple different governors and they have to have a consensus on things.”

The NRC is comprised of seven members representing a variety of different Michigan outdoor interests, from hunters to former DNR officials, to lawmakers and conservation leaders. The diversity makes it difficult, if not impossible, for politics to overrule reason and science, and that’s precisely why Proposal G is critical for the best interests of not only the fish and animals of the state, but also the hunters, anglers and trappers working to protect their rights.

And while the impetus behind the DNR’s attempt to shift the power dynamic isn’t exactly clear, the MUCC proposal will send a message to all involved that the state’s leaders in conservation won’t stand for it, and will do whatever it takes to ensure it doesn’t happen.

Join MBHA to make our voice stronger, and receive our association’s 16-page publication, The Bear Facts, four times a year, plus Bear Hunting Magazine, with its MBHA column, six times a year.

To get your membership (worth $20) and magazine (worth $25 more), send only a $20 check, made out to MBHA, to Phil Hewitt, and his address is 7796 Ainsworth Road, Lake Odessa, MI, 48849. Please include your name, address, email address and phone number.

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55

Mike Falvo Fall of 2021 300lbs 11th bear.

Morgan Skinner 1st bear 380lbs Eastern NC

James Jarrett Fall Hunt 41 S/W revolver Colville, Washington

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Cody Forer’s 1st bear Virginia December 2021 Treed by two Laika dogs

July/August 2022

Shane Hagen 1st Bear September 2021 Two ear tags from relocationTrouble bear

Lane M. Olt 550lbs.

November 2021, Eastern North Carolina

Zane Hubbard 1st Bear Clearwater County, Alberta

Ben Trevino Eagletown, OK 2021 Oklahoma Archery 480lb

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Email your high resolution bear photos to info@bear-hunting.com or mail a copy to PO Box 168, West Fork, Arkansas 72774. We reserve the right to not publish photos based on image and photographic quality. www.bear-hunting.com

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The Strategic Bear Hunter

by Bernie Barringer

Four Hunts, Four Color Phases, One Outfitter Roger Driesenga got the color phase

Roger Driesenga is an unassuming man from grand slam in a most unexpected way the little village of Zeeland, Michigan. At 78, he’s one of the most active people you’ll ever meet. “I get up early every morning and work until 9:00 at night,” he exsaid, “Put me in there!” Scott did as he asked and the plains. “I have no health problems.” Roger has a hobby cinnamon bear rolled in by mid-afternoon. Roger had farm where he raises a huge garden that grows enough his first color phase bear for his collection. to share with all the neighbors, some animals that He had so much fun he decided to give it are more like pets, and more than 100 rabbits which another try in 2018. On this hunt he passed a few black he breeds for sale to pet stores. “I still put up over bears, still looking for a color phase. Because Scott 100 bales of hay by myself and I’m only 150 pounds,” doesn’t have cameras on most of his baits, everything he says. He does his own taxidermy and mounts deer is a surprise.

Sure enough, later in the hunt heads for others. He took in over 100 deer mounts this after a couple moves, a big blonde bear rolled in. Rogyear. Busy guy. er’s .280 Remington pump gun sent a Nosler Partition He has his own museum of nearly 400 animals, on its way and Roger now had the two toughest color big and small, that he mounted himself. It includes phases in his museum. Four color phase bears and he mostly animals that have been taken on hunting trips had the two hardest ones first. The rest should be easy, across North America since his retirement. Roger loves right? to share with others and his ever-present smile gives Well, actually, it was easy. Roger went back to away his perpetual good nature and positive attitude. hunt with Scott in 2019 looking for a chocolate. But a The museum in his house is another way to share with huge black bear interrupted his plans. He passed the others. “I want people to be able to see animals that big, mature male. But it was the biggest bear he had they would normally never see!” ever seen in person and he started to have doubts He spent most of his life as a produce manag- after passing it. A chocolate bear presented itself, but er at a chain of grocery stores in his home area, not he passed that one as well. “It was maybe three years making a huge income but taking good care of what he old and not very big,” he said. Just not really what he made and doing a few side hustles to pay for his hunt- wanted to represent in his museum. After a couple ing adventures. And that leads us to his color phase more evening hunts, he ended up back on the stand grand slam, which took place in such a remarkable where the huge bear had shown up and sure enough, way. The story needs to be told. the bear came back. Roger ended his hunt with a big “I met Scott Smith of Canadian Wilderness black one. Three of the colors in three hunts.

Outfitters at the Outfitters Show in Grand Rapids, The following year, 2020, put a crushing blow Michigan,” Roger remembers. “He had a picture of a on the hunting plans of a lot of people who love to musk ox on his brochure and I was interested in hunting bear hunt in Canada. It drove Roger crazy, but he musk ox, so I kept the brochure and his business card.” didn’t do a Canadian hunt of any kind that year as the Some time later, Roger got the idea that he border was closed. In 2021, he decided he needed needed color phase black bears for his museum, since to get his bear hunting fix in the U.S., so he booked a most people in Michigan, he says, don’t even realize spring hunt in Idaho and, you guessed it, shot a chocthey come in colors other than black. A couple years olate bear. He now had his color phase grand slam later, he came across the Canadian Wilderness Outfit- in just four hunts in four years, but this story takes an ters’ literature again. Scott’s brochure had color phase even more interesting turn. bears on it, so Roger called him up and set in motion With the border still closed, he didn’t expect to be able one of the most remarkable experiences any bear hunt- to hunt with Scott in the fall of 2021. But just a week er could have. before his hunt was scheduled, the Canadian border In 2017, Roger and his buddy, Vern Kreihoff, opened up. It was a fiasco getting shots and tests, but headed to the Duck Mountains to hunt with Scott. after all the rigmarole, he ended up in Scott’s camp on Vern goes along on many of Roger’s hunts but doesn’t opening day at the end of August 2021. always hunt. Roger likes the company and Vern just On his mind was the small chocolate bear he’d likes to come along. That first year, Roger decided he estimated to be three years old in 2019. He figured wanted to hold out for a color phase bear, he didn’t the bear would be a shooter by now. That’s what he care what color, and he wasn’t going to wait for a big focused on, but the bear never showed. He hunted one. a couple stands and passed a few bears, but then it Roger saw a few black bears, but one day happened. “Good things just happen to me,” Roger Scott told him that a color bear had come in on him laughs. I say that positive people with positive attiwhile he was baiting a site, but it wasn’t very big. Roger tudes seem to make their own luck. “When that nice 58

Bear Hunting

July/August 20220

2017 | Cinnamon

2018 | Blonde

Roger Driesenga is an avid hunter and taxidermist. At 78 years old, he completed a color phase grand slam in four years with outfitter Scott Smith and Canadian Wilderness Outfitters.

2019 | Black

2021 | Chocolate

chocolate color phase bear walked in, I knew I had the grand slam with Scott.”

Four hunts, four different color phase bears, and one outfitter.

Roger has no intention of ending his bear hunts. “I don’t know how much time I have left. I’m ready to go any time. If I live to be 100 and if I can get in a tree, I’ll still be hunting bears!”

If you ever get near the small town of Zeeland, Michigan, I’ll just betcha Roger would love to drag you down into his basement and show you his incredible museum of mounted animals. And I’m certain he’ll get especially excited when he shows you his color phase grand slam!

Roger has his own museum of nearly 400 animals big and small that he mounted himself.

www.bear-hunting.com

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@backcountrybrian

Western Bear Hunting with Brian Strickland

Paddling the canoe across the bay in sight of the Gulf of Alaska, I couldn’t help but think about where I was. It truly was a surreal moment. It’s not every season I get to hunt such destinations, and with the ocean’s rich, salty breeze rolling across the bow and a black bear feeding on the tidal flat within eyesight, I knew there was no other place I wanted to be at that moment.

Like many of you, spring means black bears, and there is no better location than Alaska’s Prince of Wales Island to chase them. It literally is a black bear island paradise, a rainforest ecosystem that is perfectly balanced for them to thrive. Tags are only issued in their annual draw and I was one of 180 lucky non-residents who got a ticket to this spring affair. Unlike grizzlies and brown bears in Alaska, a non-resident does not need a guide to hunt them, making them an ideal dangerous game option for the solo adventurer. Needless to say, I was elated when I finally stepped off the ferry after a full day of travel.

There are really two ways to hunt bears on Prince of Wales Island. You can stick to the road system, slipping down the countless logging roads looking for them feeding on the green shoots along the edges, or take to the water and focus your attention on the flats during low tide. With the number of bears the island boasts and the seemingly endless miles of logging roads and tidal flats to slip into, finding an opportunity was pretty easy. In fact, there was not a

Bear Island Paradise Adventure comes in all shapes and sizes, but it’s hard to beat the Last Frontier day I did not have multiple bear encounters. But like anything else, it comes down to finding the right bear. You don’t travel to Southeast Alaska for just an average bear. Plus, with Prince of Wales growing the largest black bears on the planet, you certainly don’t settle for average. It was a 7-foot Ursus americanus or nothing for me and I was using my bow and arrow to seal the deal.

My plan was relatively simple: use map imaging like OnX to dissect locations, marking several waypoints in the process to check out, and then hunt them when the wind and tide were right. With access to both a rented truck and a canoe, as well as a 2577 square mile island to roam, I was off and running that first afternoon and it wasn’t long until I had my first of many encounters.

Slipping down the logging road an hour before, it just looked like it was where a bear would feed. With the dense cover on one side and a small grass flat on the other, it screamed “big bear”. When I eased towards it again in the fading light a couple of hours later, it didn’t disappoint. His head was enormous and his body wasn’t too shabby either.

It’s easy to say you want a 7-footer before a hunt begins, but when you’re looking at a legit 6-plus footer with a head the size of a large jack-o-lantern, thoughts change. With his head buried in the tall green shoots, I slipped into range.

And just when I was beginning to think this was too easy, the capricious island breeze set me straight. In an instant, his head popped up and he jolted out of sight, causing my pride to shrink.

There was not a day that the author didn’t see multiple bears.

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For the next several days, sights like this were the norm. If it wasn’t the switching wind or an unseen twig underfoot, it was simply bad luck—like having the rental truck break down once. Sometimes you just have slumps as a hunter and my much-anticipated Alaska adventure was turning into one of them. With days now ticking down to hours, I was running out of time and options. But with one tidal flat still left to check off the list, I shouldered my pack and made the mile hike in.

The further I slipped down the trail towards the flat, the more bear signs appeared.

Breaking into the open flat, it was obvious I had saved the best for last. A brackish creek snaked down the middle towards the ocean and both sides were thick with rich grass and bear signs.

With the sun beginning to set, I slipped down the edge of the creek with the wind in my face, and just when I was reaching the edge of the flat, he appeared. He was easily one of the top three bears of the trip—a no doubt 7-footer—and he was coming right towards me. Before I knew it, 200 yards had melted into 35, and I was in perfect position for a broadside shot.

After kneeling down to lower my profile in the grass flat, I drew my bow and settled the pin. Just like the first bear, everything was falling into place, and I began to pridefully think about how my last-minute heroics would end.

As they say, “it ain’t over until the fat lady sings,” and just when I was about to drop the string he turned and stared directly at me. Although bears are not known for great eyesight, at 35 yards it’s a whole different story. He obviously knew something wasn’t right, so as his scarred face

stared directly into mine and I contemplated a frontal chest shot, he made other plans.

As he quickly turned I touched the release and helplessly watched as my arrow glanced off his side, burying in the thick grass behind him.

Needless to say, I was crushed. With well over a dozen stalks and nearly three dozen bears seen, it was not the way I wanted the hunt to end. So close but yet so far, as they say. While I watched this bear island paradise fade away from the stern of the ferry the following day in disappointment, all I could do was hope the tag gods would smile on me once again in the future.

That’s some good bear sign. Pince of Wales island has some huge black bears.

The author hopes to return to this bear rich habitat in the future.

Hopefully he draws the tag again in the future! www.bear-hunting.com

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ry

Great Hunts

Bruin

Destinations

California Golden Bruins

by Al Raychard

Ah, California. The Golden State. I’ve visited California several times over the years and have to say it’s a beautiful place. There’s few highway drives in America that compare with the scenic splendor of Big Sur, or at least none I’ve traveled on. The Yosemite Valley is simply stunning, and the giant redwoods and sequoias are something to marvel over. Even the desert regions have something unique to offer if you like dry, hot landscapes. Yes, California has an impressive list of beautiful places and is a nice place to visit and take in the wondrous sights. However for largely for political reasons—the seemingly endless onslaught on the 2nd Amendment and hunting—I wouldn’t want to live there.

But that’s just me.

Just as a reminder, California is the state with the bear on the state flag. The bear displayed is supposedly modeled after “Monarch,” the last California grizzly in captivity that died in 1911. It’s interesting and sad to note that at one time what is now California was called the “Bear State”, and prior to statehood in 1850 scientists estimate some 10,000 California grizzlies inhabited all areas of the republic except the Mojave Desert. The last hunted grizzly was killed in Tulane County in 1922 and by 1924, the California grizzly was designated extinct.

If you were to believe the Humane Society of the United States, the black bear may be headed down the same road. Since 2021 the HSUS has tried to do away with bear hunting in California twice, basically citing climate change and increased drought and forest fire activity as reasons. The first attempt would have just done away with bear hunting, but the bill before the legislature was withdrawn after its sponsor was bombarded with calls and emails from state and national hunting groups. The second attempt asked for an indefinite moratorium until a wide-reaching list of demands can be met, which would have resulted in the same thing. The HSUS also pointed to a drop in bear harvest numbers as proof the state bear population is in “steep decline”, and called for an update in the state’s black bear management plan. Fortunately both attempts failed, although it is doubtful the battle is over. Anti-hunt groups and those who claim not to be anti-hunt but animal welfare groups are rich, politically powerful, and persistent.

The thing that eats at my craw about attempts to do away with bear hunting, or any regulated hunting for that matter, is they are never built on scientific fact.

Although they don’t come right out and say it, they know better, and our trained wildlife biologists don’t have a clue what they are doing. The two most recent attempts to do away with bear hunting in California are prime examples.

Black bears in the Golden State are actually doing extremely well. Back in the early 1980s, it was estimated California was home to 10,000-to-15,000 bears, 62

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primarily in the state’s northern coastal ranges, northern mountains south of the Oregon border and down along the Sierra Nevada range. Today the estimated number is between 30,000 and 40,000. The health of California’s bear population is not only sound and doing well but robust. Bears are widely distributed, expanding their range, and occupy some 52,000 square miles of the state’s territory. Both bear numbers and range have been increasing since hounding was outlawed in 2013. Bears are now being seen in areas of the state including the central coast and Transverse mountain ranges in the south where they haven’t been for years, and in some the number of bear/human conflicts have been increasing.

It is interesting to note while bear numbers have been increasing in recent years, the number of bears killed have not. California has had a science-based harvest quota of 1,700 in effect for a number of years. Once that number has been reached, the hunting season is closed. In 2021, a preliminary 1,267 bears had been killed in California. In 2020, the number was 1,028, in 2019 it was 1,389, and in 2018 the number was 1,260. You have to go back to 2012 when hunting bears with hounds was legal to surpass that number. Recent attempts to raise the harvest quota to 2,000 have failed.

Despite the no bait, no dogs, and other regulatory challenges of hunting bears in California and continued attempts to prohibit bear hunting altogether, bear hunting continues to be popular—although tag sales do fluctuate year to year. In 2020, the last season for which figures are available, 30,387 bear tags were sold. The vast majority, some 30,249 tags were purchased by residents, nearly 10-percent over 2019 and over 17-percent higher than the previous ten years averages. California also seems to be drawing more attention among non-residents as a bear-hunting destination. In 2020, non-resident bear tag sales increased by more than 36-percent over 2019.

And there are good reasons to consider bear hunting the Golden State. Hunting licenses and bear tags are easily obtainable and compared to some “top” bear hunting states in the west, they are affordable. Currently there is also no limit on the number of bear takes available. Additionally, there is plenty of public land to hunt.

California is home to 18 national forests entirely within its borders—20 if you include two shared by neighboring states, which is more than any other state in the country.

Combined they offer over 20 million acres, much of it prime bear habitat and within the state’s bear hunting zone. California also has its share of color-phase bears.

Red-tinted cinnamon and blonde specimens may run as high as 60 to 80 percent in the Sierras, shades of brown and chocolate are more common closer to the border with Oregon, and off-colored bears of various shades are well dispersed.

July/August 20220

Estimated Bear Population: 30,000-40,000 +/Areas Open to Bear Hunting: Much of northern and central California and some southern areas. See 2022 hunting regulations for specific details.

California Overview

Spring Season: No Fall Season: Yes. General bear season dates vary depending upon unit. In Units, A, B, C and D, X8, X9 and X10 and X12 open with general deer season ending December 25. For portions of Units X1, X2, X3 and X4, X6a, X6b, X7a and X7b open October 8 and close December 25. Archery season in all zones August 20-September 11.

Annual Limit: One adult bear. Prohibited to take cubs and sows accompanied with cubs.

Baiting Allowed: No. Scent sprays dispersed into the air allowed. Scent products applied directly to rocks, trees, brush, and other surfaces intended to draw bears to a specific place prohibited. See regulations for detailed information.

Legal Weapons: Most centerfire calibers, muzzleloaders, shotguns, handguns, bows, and crossbows. Crossbows may not be used during archery bear season. Check regulation for details.

License Availability/Fee: Resident hunting license-$54. Resident Bear Tag- $52.41. Non-resident hunting license-$188.74. Non-resident bear tag-$334.05. Hunting licenses are available at CDFW license sales offices, authorized license agents statewide online and by phone. Telephone 1-(888) 565-1458. To purchase licenses online or by phone, proof of hunter education must be on file in the Automated License Data System. Bear permits are available at CDFW offices.

Color Phase Potential: High.

Contacts: California Department Fish and Wildlife, 1-(916) 928-5805, www.wildlife.ca.gov.

For daily updates on bear harvest 1-(888)277-6398, www.wildlife.ca.gov/Hunting/Bear

www.bear-hunting.com

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Fleshing it Out with Timothy Fowler

Keep Breathing! @timothydfowler

When you stop breathing, you die. I stopped breathing 29 times an hour the night I did my sleep apnea test.

Let that sink in. I stopped breathing almost 30 times each hour!

The other related test showed my blood oxygen levels had dropped well below what is safe, my heart had raced, and my breathing was stressed trying to recover from this. Additionally, this might explain what my respirologist calls ‘diminished memory access’ (I recently have had trouble recalling some experiences and details). He says that some of this might come back. My wife sleeps better now because I don’t snore anymore. My hunting partner reports it is much quieter in the tent––he’s sleeping better on the hunts we share (the night of the test I snored 630 times an hour).

Now that I have just been diagnosed with sleep apnea, I got my CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine and hooked up my facemask and slept like a well-fed baby. In fact, the first night I used the CPAP machine I had the best sleep I have had in a decade. A few days later with this new sleep routine, I feel like a new man.

The day after first using my CPAP machine, Kate (Mrs. Fowler) asked me how I slept. It took me a minute to gather myself because I felt so good.

My sleep had improved unbelievably after years of struggle. I now have more energy and I am no longer nodding off in the afternoon.

Hunting, fishing, and hanging out outdoors take energy. I want to continue to do this fun stuff, but that requires this energy and some level of good health. From setting up camp to stalking black bears to picking mushrooms, quadding, walking, and humping quarters of the game back to camp—there’s much to accomplish. The week after I got my CPAP, I set up the Outfitter tent for a week-long hunt and used my fancy little machine rigged up to use in the tent with a lithium-ion battery that is good for two nights and most of a third night. I charge it with the cigarette lighter in my truck or use the Honda generator.

All this is interesting, but did my performance improve? Well, I was not the guy that got to tag a bear this trip. But, I did have plenty of energy to help skin and haul the black bear my hunting partner killed. Oh, and I did shoot the head off a jack rabbit with my 300 R.U.M. without a flinch. With my newfound energy due to sleeping better, I wasn’t nodding off uncontrollably after lunch. I felt better all day long. Better performance is yet to be determined.

The opportunity to hunt puts me in close touch with some of my favorite people on the planet, 64

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Take a scan of what you need to do to keep enjoying this wonderful hunting life we have and share.

including my boys, my closest friends, and my brother.

The experiences we share at camp and working together to make a hunt successful just can’t be replicated. I want to do everything I can to be able to continue these important activities.

Now, take a moment to consider the fun stuff you do and what it takes to do them. What can you do to ensure your ability to continue these experiences? If you snore, ask for a sleep apnea test; it could change your life.

If you snore loudly, you might have sleep apnea. (Although not all patient with Sleep Apnea snore.) Sleep Apnea happens when you sleep and the muscles in the throat relax, and the airway narrows or closes.

Several things happen at that moment: your blood oxygen level drops, your brain signals to your heart to speed up, and you get an urgent message to wake and breathe. This can happen 30+ times an hour.

There is a long list of potential symptoms from headache when you wake up, to being generally cranky, falling asleep easily in the afternoon, gasping for air during sleep, and being observed to stop breathing while sleep. Sleep Apnea can be serious. The C-pap corrects all of this.

The C-PAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) machine functions by providing gentle positive air pressure while sleeping to ensure your airway remains open.

Patients report sleeping much better and experiencing better feeling of health.

July/August 2022

The author was tired of being tired and found a new quality of life and his experience in the outdoors became more enjoyable.

The author uses this battery bank to run his CPAP maching when sleeping off the grid.

Teddy here is demonstrating how a CPAP machine is used while sleeping.

The author is ready for his next adventure with his new found energy!

www.bear-hunting.com

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{Hounds and Bears} Column

IN Hot PUrsuit @

By Barry ‘Bear’ Siragusa

thehuntinghound

Spring in the mountains of Scandinavia is suspiciously similar to winter virtually anywhere else in the world. The snow is still deep enough to swallow a hound up to its ears. The winds blowing out of the arctic are bitter, the trees are still devoid of leaves, and the birds are silently waiting for warmer weather before beginning their annual courtships.

However, signs of spring are there if you look for them. The Sandhill Cranes are starting to arrive from southern horizons, back to the coastal cornfields and wheat fields. The foxes are singing their love songs—tone deaf, poor things—and the days are getting longer with the sun hanging in the sky in the evenings like a weak incandescent bulb.

Also, the Eurasian Brown Bear is making its presence known again as food becomes more plentiful. These are not the fast and athletic black bears like houndsmen run in the USA. The bears in Scandinavia are huge, hungry, and aggressive. They don’t tree and (like yours truly) would often rather sit back and argue than need to run.

In Norway’s fun-loving neighbor country of Sweden (Sweden is Ernie to Norway’s Burt) the bear training season is about to start. Pre-season training and conditioning is a crucial aspect of getting the hounds ready for the fall bear season. However, don’t just take my word for it. Norway’s premier Plott Hound man and bear hunter, Jon Steinar Vangen –in tandem with his duties as the host of Norwegian Outfitters TV– has been hunting brown bears with plotts in Sweden for years, and he knows the importance of being deliberate about preparing for the spring season.

“Well, they need to go into the season in good shape. They can’t be slow and fat after the winter and be agile enough to stay out of reach of these bears. The longest run I had with my dogs was 45 miles before it bayed up. It was 21 hours before I caught the dogs,” says Vangen.

Complicating the matter even more are the rules that dictate that scandinavian bear hunters are only allowed to drop two dogs on any one bear. Also, motorized transportation is not allowed once the dogs are on the ground and the tracks need to be cut “organically”, which means no baiting.

The hounds need to be gritty, smart, and hard headed while still able to keep themselves safe. The kamikaze hound will go out in a blaze of guts and glory, probably during its first season. The intense “in your face” dog that forces black bears to tree will almost certainly get itself injured or killed by a member of the 700+ pound walking bear clan.

To get his dogs ready for such a challenge, Vangen uses an ATV with a special frame attached that allows him to road his plotts year round–in spite of Norway’s summer leash laws–allowing him to keep them active during periods between hunting/training seasons or even 66

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Hunting Brown Bears with Hounds in the land of the Vikings while they are recovering from injuries. It has made his dogs tireless, tough-footed, and fit for the fight.

Sal, a four-year-old plott that was badly injured last autumn, is getting back into shape on the ATV. Vangen has full control of speed and training intensity on the ATV, which gives Sal the best possible rehabilitation.

Sal was picked up and bitten through the pelvis by a 600 pound brown bear, and then stayed with the bear fighting and working with his partner hound, Rolf, until Vangen arrived. It wasn’t until the adrenaline had subsided that Sal acknowledged his injuries. Vangen drove nearly a day to find a veterinarian that would work with him to save Sal after the first vet was not willing to consider alternatives outside of putting Sal down. Sal has proven Vangen made the right call by making a full recovery. If that kind of dedication to each other doesn’t put a lump in your throat, I don’t know what will!

Once the hounds’ feet and muscles are hardened and ready, the next step is determining which two hounds will work well together. Remember, Sweden only allows two hounds at a time to be dropped on bears.

When asked how he determines which hounds will run together in pairs, Vangen says that it comes down to a slow accumulation of knowledge over each hound’s entire life. He gives the impression that it requires an overall assessment of each hound to inform his decision about which hounds will operate well together, compliment each other’s strengths, and compensate for each other’s weaknesses.

I ask him about the possible combination of two hounds, Rolf and Dan. “Rolf and Dan as a pair would get themselves in trouble,” laughs Vangen. “They are both very intense, so they would rile each other up and literally bite off more than they could chew.”

I ask him which hounds he would use to balance an intense dog.

“My experience has been that a hound’s ability to cold trail is connected to how smart the hound is,” muses Vangen. “They need to be smart to cold trail. The hotter nosed dogs seem to be more likely to do something before thinking. My coldest nosed dogs through the years, like Ace and Smoke, have been smart and usually not the ones who get themselves into trouble.”

Vangen says that the imported North American dogs, who have made their bones hunting black bears, need time to adjust and learn how to tackle these brown bears. One of his best hounds was Ace from Canada.

“When Ace arrived, he charged in and treated his first bear as he would have treated a black bear: putting pressure on him to get him to tree,” says Vangen.

“Instead of treeing like a black bear, that bear attacked and bit him in his chest and ear. After that, Ace was still very gritty, but learned how to work without getting hurt.

July/August 20220

Scandinavia only allows hunters to use two hounds at a time in pursuit of eurasian brown bears.

When hunting brown bears with two hounds it is important to balance their intensity.

I have taken many bears with him, and he was never again injured after that first bear. He was a great dog.” Another Canadian plott named Smoke (with S/M brands on his ears) has taken over and filled Ace’s shoes.

Vangen has developed a system for running bears with only two hounds. Once the driving is done and a track is cut, he will assess how old the track is. On a fresh track (within 5 hours old), he may drop the pair of hounds together. If it is an older track, he will let his colder nosed hound—like Smoke—work the track without distraction until he has the bear lined out before dropping the other hound.

Running big brown bears with two hounds may sound counterintuitive to most North American bear hunters. Here in Scandinavia, due to those rules and regulations, two hounds has to be enough. The hunters and their hounds have adapted, and the hounds learn to protect each other while doing it. Vangen has ample video footage of his hounds harassing a bear whenever it turns its attention onto their partner.

I marvel at how only two plotts can contend with such a massive and dangerous animal.

“Two hounds can get out of the way of a charging bear faster than a big pack can…most of the time,” says Vangen with clear admiration in his voice.

Then he laughs and adds, “The plotts are special dogs.” www.bear-hunting.com

When hunting brown bears with two hounds it is important to balance their intensity.

Scandinavia only allows hunters to use two hounds at a time in pursuit of eurasian brown bears.

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Bandit Hat! For sale only www.bearhuntingmagazine.com Bear Questions/Answers With Al Raychard

Q-I understand Canada has a ton of black bears, but which province has the largest bear population?

A-As a whole, Canada is home to an estimated 500,000 black bears and by all means and measures the population is increasing. Bears are found in every province and territory except Prince Edward Island. Quebec and Ontario have among the highest numbers but British Columbia has more bears than any other province. According to the BC Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, the black bear population is currently estimated between 120,000 and 160,000, or about one-quarter of all black bears in Canada.

Q-You’ve probably been asked this before, but why are color-phase bears more common in the West than in the East?

A-The most common consensus is based on environmental factors, although genetics may also play a role. With very few exceptions nearly all bears in the east of the Great Plains and eastern Canada are black. It is believed the melanin-rich hair is more resistant to abrasion in the heavily-forested habitats, plus it provides a higher insulating factor during harsh winters. Habitat conditions in western states and provinces are different—it is more open, hotter, and bears are more exposed to direct sunlight. The lighter shades of brown, cinnamon, and blonde helps reduce heat stress and allows bears to feed longer during the day when spring and summer foods are most abundant.

you can do some fishing during your down time.

I’ve generally found bears are more active on the baits in the spring since they haven’t been out of hibernation very long and natural foods are not as readily available. On the other hand, bear weights tend to be slightly lower in the spring due to weight loss during the long sleep and you’ll have to fight hordes of black flies and mosquitos. Fall bear hunts can be combined with moose and/or caribou hunts, bears have gained back a lot of weight over the spring and summer, biting insects are less of a problem, and bear skins have a tendency to be in better shape in the fall, especially late in the season. With all things considered, if killing a Newfoundland bear is your primary objective, for me a spring hunt would be my choice, and biting insects be damned!

Q-I’m thinking about a crossbow bear hunt in Canada. Are crossbows legal in all provinces, and do they have to be registered at the border?

A-Crossbows are legal for bear hunting in nearly all provinces and territories but are not generally allowed during any specific archery season.

Some provinces also have specific areas where crossbows may not be used. The best thing to do is check with your outfitter when booking your hunt for details. Newfoundland finally legalized their use for the 2020-2021 season. Currently the Yukon is the only jurisdiction in Canada where crossbows are prohibited for hunting. No, under Canada’s federal Firearms Act crossbows, like all bows, do not require a firearms license Q-I’m retiring this fall and have dreamed of hunting bears in or need to be registered at the border. I would, Newfoundland for years. Would you recommend a spring or fall however, recommend declaring the bow on the hunt?

U.S. side before entering Canada to prevent any possible hassles upon reentry. By declaring the A-Depends upon what you’re looking for. I’ve hunted both several bow, you have proof you brought the bow times and like both. The spring hunts are with you and didn’t purchase it in Canaonly about hunting bears, although many Submit your questions to da. camps are located on or near water and alraychard@sacoriver.net

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