Stretching the Distance
Challenge Accepted
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Soothing Bear Balm
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Adventure in the Yukon Flats
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French Canadian Black Bear Tourtière
Nov/Dec 2021 Volume 22 - Issue 6 Cover photo by @SkullBoundTV
by Jana Waller
Adventure in the Yukon Flats
by Bear Newcomb
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Challenge Accepted
18
By Jordon Vaughan
Price of Entry
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Use of Leashed Tracking Dogs
By Dawson Smith
A Very Propitious Event
By Tim Fowler
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by Clay Newcomb
PR Bear River Bullet
Black Bear Tourtiere
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Bear Grease Balm
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Stretching the Distance
by Kolby Morehead
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Bear Guns | .30-30
By Joleen Morehead
By Brian Strickland
Columns
Cuddeback Trail Camera Contest Winner Win a Cuddeback Camera!
58 Bowhunting Bears
by Bernie Barringer - Bear Guru
60 Western Bear Hunting
“Bear-Squatch” Rich Standen Michigan
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 - Guest
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Hunting 5 5 BearBear Hunting
Adventure in the Yukon Flats
By Jana Waller @skullboundtv
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Bear Hunting
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Bear Hunting 11
Challenge
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Accepted
A young hunter's pursuit of an ARKANSAS public land bruin By Bear Newcomb
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photo by Issac Neale
Bear Hunting
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It was the fall of 2017 when my dad and I were driving back from an unsuccessful hunt in the national forest in Arkansas. We had hunted all day and were frustrated at how little our expedition had produced.
My dad explained to me that we hunt here because while we may not have very much success, the day that we do, it will mean so much more. He told me that if we wanted to go kill a deer or bear, we could go to the bait pile and could have a much better chance at killing one, but we hunt on national forest because there will be so much more behind the animal that we harvested. I understood. Not long after that in the same long drive home after talking more on the subject I made a commitment that I was going to try to kill my first bear in national forest. This was a massive commitment. Over the course of the next year two of my siblings killed bears over bait and I had very few chances to hunt in the national forest where I was planning on killing one. The hunts that I did go on were unsuccessful and not enjoyable for an 11-year-old boy. The year after that I watched my sister have opportunities at massive bears and my brother who was 10 at the time had already killed a bear and was looking to kill another one while I was spending days in the woods with my dad and seeing nothing. The next year at bear camp there was an open bait site and I had nothing to hunt other than squirrels. My dad and my sister were out hunting a 400+ lb. bear so my dad was not aware of the situation. I was 13 at the time and was not thinking about my commitment and saw my opportunity and took it. So, I went up to the bait with Mr. James Lawrence and we sat there for an hour when a bear came into the bait. He gave me a good shot and I
let an arrow fly. My bow was sighted into 20 yards and the bear was at 25 so my arrow dropped and clipped its leg doing minimal damage. Looking back at it now, I am so glad that I missed that bear. But after missing that bear, I was more driven to kill a bear on national forest and it gave me a clearer sight of my goal. Every bear season my dad would always talk about how one day he was going to turn me loose in the mountains by myself and I was going to camp there until I killed a bear. From the ages of 10-14 I would always fantasize about the idea of going in the mountains by myself and killing a bear. In the summer of 2021, I knew that the upcoming bear season was going to be the year that I killed one. I told my dad that I wouldn’t care if I didn’t even get a chance to deer hunt if I could just get a bear. It was the priority. I shot my bow every day and practiced from every position the bear could possibly be in and from every distance that I could get a shot. I was not going to miss. In mid-august the weather was extremely dry, and it was not looking like it was going to rain anytime soon. So, my dad and I went into the woods on mules to a spot where there was a small water hole that kept water year-round. There was no other water at the time within half a mile of this pond, so we set up a camera to monitor the water source. Over the course of the next month bears started coming in there consistently. This got me excited. Every day after school I would check my phone hoping that my dad had texted me a picture of a bear. The entire week prior to opening weekend no bears had come in. There was a sudden drop of temperatures two days before the season and the bears were nowhere to be seen. This got me extremely
The author’s older sister took this bear over bait.
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The author spent three nights solo in national forest in pursuit of bear.
The author’s younger brother took this bear over bait.
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It’s all smiles on the mountain after a successful ‘Sheep Hunt of the South’ bear hunt!
The author’s arrow hit its mark and showed evidence of a vital hit.
The author celebrating with close friends Brent Reaves and James Lawrence.
The author celebrating with his father and grandfather.
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nervous. I checked the weather for that weekend, and it looked like it was going to be hot. This was a good sign, but I was still discouraged. I got out of school early on Thursday afternoon and headed down to bear camp. I stayed at the cabin that night. I woke up the next morning and went to go re-bait the spot that my dad would be hunting at. This took until 2:00 pm in the afternoon. Immediately after that we headed to the spot that I would be dropped off at. Once we got there, I packed away the last of my stuff and got ready to go. I said goodbye then headed into the desolate Arkansas wilderness. It took me two and a half hours to get to where I was planning on camping. It took me 45 minutes to set up camp, this left me another 45 minutes of daylight. I decided to cook one of the 4 freeze dried meals that I brought. By the time I finished it was dark and I had nothing else to do. I sat in the solitude of the pre-autumn forest and thought about my plan for the morning. I woke up at 6:30, ate a clif bar and took off the opposite way of the pond to do a morning spot and stalk hunt. I was walking slow and quiet when I saw a deer at 30 yards eating white oak acorns. When the deer’s head went behind a tree I quickly moved in closer, stepping quietly on rocks. I got within 20 yards of the deer when all I could see was its body. I could have shot the deer, but I knew that if I did it was going to take all day to get it out and I would not have been able to bear hunt that day. By this point it was 9:00 in the morning and I needed to be at the water hole by 10:00. So, I started walking back to my camp. When I got back to camp, I grabbed the tree saddle, tree steps, a few snacks, and a climbing stick to use as a platform. I started out towards the water hole which was 0.6 miles from my camp. I made it there in 35 minutes. I quickly set up my tree saddle and started hunting. I sat for the rest
Nov/Dec 2021
The author and his father with the author’s first bear after a five year pursuit.
of the day but saw nothing. The next morning, I did the exact same thing. Once I was done with the spot and stalk hunt, I went to the water hole. About 1 hour into the hunt, I heard footsteps coming from the north. I looked through the trees and saw a bear cub, then I saw another one, then I saw the sow. The sow was a color phase bear. They came in and drank but the sow knew that something was off so they left as quickly as they could. This was very exciting. Rarely have two bears come in on the same day so I had very little confidence in one coming in. The next day I didn’t have any luck with spot and stalk, so I went back to the water hole. This was my last day in the woods. My dad was picking me up at dark right where he dropped me off. I sat for 4 hours before I heard what I knew was a bear. Its footsteps were confident unlike a deer or squirrel. I looked to my right and saw a black bear coming my way. It was right next to my wind line. I watched it dig up a yellow jacket nest and get swarmed, so it started coming to the water hole quickly. It walked behind me and then stopped 5 yards from my tree. I slowly turned around and put the 20 pin on the bear. I knew that at 5 yards the arrow was going to shoot 1 inch high if I used my 20 pin. I squeezed the release, and I watched the arrow hit the bear right where I was aiming. It gave off a loud growl and took off running down the side of the mountain. I was so excited, more excited than I had ever been in my life. I immediately texted my cousin who was in school who I was talking to right before the bear came in. She said that there was a small celebration mid class with the people who she was sitting with. Then I texted my dad’s Garmin Inreach because he did not have service where he was at. Then I
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by Jordon L Vaughan Photos by | @DavidFishphoto & @JordonLVAUGHAN
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PRICE OF ENTRY
“I would hunt, but it’s just too expensive.” Last fall a guy at my gym rattled off that phrase. I couldn’t count the number of times I’ve heard someone say this, and I have to admit I’ve always taken it as a lame attempt at defending one’s manliness after they’ve been outed as a non-hunter. Hearing it this time I began to wonder if I’ve been too judgmental all these years. My introduction to hunting happened back in the mid-90s. What could that first hunting season cost with today’s ammunition shortages and complicated licensing systems? I left the gym, but the thought stuck with me. It rolled around in my head for four months before I finally decided I had to put it to rest. Early in the year I locked up all my hunting gear and started planning my 2021 Idaho Spring Bear season as if I was a new hunter. The goal was to start with zero gear and take an animal on the tightest budget possible—the hunt for the bargain bear began. My home base was Boise, Idaho and I wanted to avoid long trips, the extra gas, big coolers, and overnight equipment that came with them. If I truly was a rookie, I also figured coming home each night would give a good opportunity to dry out wet boots and spend some time on Google maps finding new routes that weren’t blocked by washouts and snow. Early planning involved some time chatting with a hunter friend of mine named Zach, and I still don’t consider his assistance cheating. In the centuries before internet forums, hunting was learned by way of conversations with experienced hunters, and I needed his help as I recently moved to Idaho and had only hunted in the eastern parts of the state. Talking through some of his old haunts we settled on an area where he’d seen bear only an hour north of Boise, not far from the Payette River. Bear season in that Game Management Unit (GMU) ran from April 15 to June 7, though mountain snowpack wouldn’t allow my truck on the forest roads until May.
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Location set, next order of business was getting a rifle and I quickly found 2021 was not a good year for gun shopping. This spring in Idaho a lot of sporting goods stores were out of low-priced rifles and the rest were quite proud of the few they managed to hang on to. A stroke of luck came one morning at the local Cabela’s which received a shipment of new Savage’s Axis models with mounted Weaver scope. I quickly purchased one in 30-06 ($359) before they sold out. Sighting in the scope at the desert the next day went well. Once I manned-up for the hefty trigger pull I managed 3/4-inch groups at 200 yards ($52 in ammunition).
The author navigates to an area shared by his friend.
Boots came next and for that I splurged. I picked up a pair of Bridger Mid Hiking Boots made by Oboz ($233). I considered cheaper boots, but the destruction done to my feet by previous hunting and hiking trips in inadequate footwear overcame my inner tightwad. The Oboz were the perfect mix of comfort and durability for the price. These boots held up to the mud and snow of my bear hunt and have done well through a follow-on backpacking trip in Wyoming, and my 2021 Montana and Idaho elk hunting trips. The last decade has brought the hunt-
The author set out to build a bear kit with the tightest budget possible. Check out the table at the end with a breakdown of his spending.
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ing community all manner of fancy, moisture wicking, chemically coated, triple gusseted apparel, but for my day trips to a ground blind I decided I could do without most of it. Temperatures vary in early May in the mountains of Idaho from the 30s to the 70s, which is mild compared to what your average Boise resident is outfitted to deal with in the heart of winter. After picking up a Cabela’s Signature Space Rain Jacket ($89) and a long sleeve camouflage shirt ($17) for outer layers I pulled a stocking cap ($0), multiple fleece layers ($0), wool socks ($0), and last year’s pair of khaki jeans ($0) from my own closet.
The author gets donuts for bait from a local donut shop.
A new hunter would need a good knife and Outdoor Edge’s Trailblaze ($17) was quite impressive for the price. A trip to Home Depot brought a little jab saw ($8) for working through any bone. I raided my own cabinets for a headlamp, first aid kit, rope, and a duffle bag ($0). For packing bait and gear in and out I used a hand-me-down external pack frame ($15-$30 at your local used sporting goods store). My gear finally set, once enough of the snow cleared from the forest roads, I made my first trip north. A quarter mile from my truck I confirmed Zach’s rockstar status with two different sizes of muddy bear prints in snow. After a morning of hiking, I found a shooting lane that allowed for a hill top ground blind and small pit bait site. The GPS in my cellphone measured the blind to bait site distance at 110 yards. After building the blind and filling the pit with donuts ($0 local donut shop leftovers) I went home and burned through a few more cartridges ($26) centering my scope crosshairs for 110 yards.
The author finds a set of bear tracks!
The author stacks limbs and uses a shovel to prepare the area to bait.
The author packs bait in a frame pack to his remote hunting spot.
The author used the gps on his phone to calculate the yardage to the bait.
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Bear Hunting 29
French Canadian Black Bear Tourtière by Tim Fowler
@timothydfowler
A Celebration
Both Thanksgiving and Christmas deserve celebrating. Families of hunters get the bonus of adding game to special holiday menus. A traditional French Canadian centre-of-the-plate item is the classic meat pie: Tourtiere. This one is made with bear meat and the pastry is made with bear fat: a double whammy of celebratory goodness from the boreal forest. Discovering Game Cherise Fowler, my daughter-in-law, takes her food preparation seriously. And since marrying my youngest son, Josh, she has upped her culinary game by focusing on wild harvest. Cherise’s relationship with game meat, bones, and fat has completely changed since getting tangled up with Josh. She makes a crazy-good French Canadian–inspired bear pie meat called tourtière. A light touch of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves seasons tourtière. What follows is a little background and a visual and written approach to making delicious Christmas Eve– worthy Bear Tourtière, including flaky pastry made with bear fat. Before an invitation to dinner at our house more than a decade ago, Cherise had never eaten wild meat. “The first dinner [at Josh’s parents’ home] we had deer. I had no idea what to expect because I had no experience with it. I think the only thing I’d heard was that it tasted gamey, which meant nothing. The tone of it meant it wasn’t good. It was delicious. I think it was a mule deer loin with a simple rub. I didn’t grow up with a ton of red meat in the house so red meat wasn’t my preference. I also typically liked my steak more well done before getting used to medium rare–cooked game at the Fowlers’ home.”
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Celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas with a classic tradition French Canadian Meat pie: Tourtière That was more than a decade, a wedding, and two kids ago. And many, many notches on Josh’s Buck Vanguard’s leather sheath. Cherise has embraced game, and the year that Josh brought home two bears encouraged further exploration. “I remember Josh bringing home the bear hides. And black bear Tasso ham––that was amazing. When we put that in cassoulet, I think that’s when bear registered for me, because it had a unique flavor you couldn’t get in regular ham. We use smoked bear shanks, in cassoulet and bear fat for pastry for regular meat pies.” Josh and Cherise have done an excellent job as ambassadors for wild meat. It is sort of an outcome, not really a mission. “Everyone we have over for dinner knows Josh hunts and probably knows in the back of their mind that it’s possible that game is on the menu,” said Cherise. Even their two-year-old daughter is loving her wild meat. Sausage is among her favorites—whether elk, black bear, or mule deer. As parents, they encourage her to try a bit of everything. “I like that Adeline is trying a variety of things,” said Cherise. “We want her to try everything. As much as we can, we like to expose her to different things. I think it’s fun to give Addy some stuff like that now because she is at that stage in childhood when she’s discovering everything. She talks along with her meal: ‘This is good. I’m eating bear. Daddy, I’m eating bear.’ That makes it fun as well.”
Nov/Dec 2021
Addy certainly thinks mom’s black bear tourtière is a winner. I think you will too. From a macro-planning perspective, acquire the bear, plan to grind with the bacon and pork in advance of preparing the tourtière. Purchase fresh whole spices, and a micro plane or fine grater, if you can. Have a good look at the recipe, make a list, and assemble all of the ingredients. This recipe makes two pies. Pick some high-bush cranberries (Viburnum edule) if you have them in your neighborhood. The Pastry Duchess Bakery in Edmonton, Alberta, is known locally for their French pastries. Cherise adapted the pastry recipe from the Duchess Bake Shop cookbook by Giselle Courteau by substituting 50 percent bear fat for the recipe’s butter amount. We doubled the batch, as tourtière is a big effort so we might as well make two. Chill 2 cups of unsalted butter and 2 cups of bear fat. (Go ahead and use 100 percent bear fat if you like. I can tell you it works great.) Measure 8 cups of flour and 2 teaspoons of fine salt and sift into a large bowl. Cut the fat into playing dice–sized cubes and rub into the flour. Your goal is to have butter and bear fat about the size of corn kernels. Fill a four-cup measuring cup with ice cubes and water and stir to chill. Pour 2 cups of ice water over the flour mixture and mix just enough to bring the dough together in a ragged ball. Divide into four. Wrap in plastic wrap and return to the refrigerator.
Weights and Measures: Gram Scales As a hunter and a Red Seal chef, I can tell you that grams, kilograms, liters and milliliters are so much easier to manipulate mathematically than pounds, ounces, cups, quarts, and pints. My strong advice is to buy and use a scale—in fact, buy two. Buy a 5kg (11-pound) digital scale for the heavier ingredients and buy a gram scale (max 200 grams) accurate to 0.1 gram. An assortment of scales start at less than $20 and are available online. A scale will change your life in the kitchen. Resistors say scales are limiting, but in fact, they will free you to master repeat culinary performances because you have an accurate baseline to either make the same item again or make a well-informed change based on your records. Not enough cinnamon in the tourtière? When spices are measured accurately you have an informed baseline from which to build the next version. A Note About Note Taking I take meticulous notes on recipes as I make them, weighing ingredients at each step. Even recipes given in cups and tablespoons are weighed, so I can correct something if required. Often my dinner guests want to know exactly how I did something, because I have good notes, I can share what was done in a repeatable format.
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Bear Hunting 39
Four Ingredient Bear Grease Balm
by Joleen Morehead
@joleen_morehead
There’s something so satisfying to me about the multiple uses bear grease provides. It’s a bear hunter’s
liquid gold. It’s great in pastries, in soap, and is very moisturizing. Bear fat will make even the toughest of hands, smooth as a baby’s bottom. It also doesn’t hold any strong smells associated with other animal fats when rendered. Bear grease has been used for topical skin care for generations and some believe it is good for joint pain. Essential oils like eucalyptus or menthol would be good additions to this recipe to make it more like an icy hot or vapor rub (Caution: don’t use too much as it could irritate your skin).
Ingredients: 1 cup of Bear Grease 1/4 cup of Jojoba Oil 1/4 cup of Stearic Acid - (See side bar) 50 drops of Essential Oils
Tools Needed: Glass Jars Normal Kitchen Tools
Sold? Let’s make some Balm! 42
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1 Step One:
Measure out 1 cup of bear grease and 1/4 cup of stearic acid. Put them in separate jars and heat up in a pan full of water.
2 Step Two:
Turn on the burner to low- medium heat. Be patient with the warming up process. Be careful to not splash yourself when heating or melting any sort of solid/ liquids and make sure you wear proper
3 protection. The Stearic Acid will melt quickly but just keep double boiling until the Bear Grease is melted and warm.
Step Three:
4 www.bear-hunting.com
Once both the Stearic Acid and Bear Grease are melted, first pour the Bear Grease into a medium sized bowl. Then pour the Stearic Acid in the same bowl and whisk vigorously. WHISK, WHISK, WHISK! Stearic Acid Stearic Acid cools down very quickly and you will want to combine as Stearic acid is a safe addimuch as you can before it cools. tive derived from vegetable I made the unfortunate mistake of fat. It is used to thicken, pouring the stearic acid before the emulsify, and stabilize bear grease. Save yourself some formulations in the personal time and don’t do what I did! care, cosmetic, and candle making industries. It is food Step Four: grade and safe for use. We Whisk in 1/4 cup of use stearic acid for projects Jojoba Oil into the that require bear fat to be Bear Grease and solid at room temperature Stearic Acid mixture. for balms, waxes, lotions, candles, etc. Bear Hunting
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Legendary Bear Hounds:
PR BEAR RIVER BULLET Article by Clay Newcomb Orginally published in the Nov/Dec 2015 issue
Breaking the Pace Legendary bear hounds come in all shapes, sizes and colors. Some are registered dogs
with generations of trackable pedigree, while others are crossbreeds. One thing is for sure, bear hunters are interested in dogs that will put a bear up a tree, or bay it on the ground, for as long it takes. Papers won’t produce a bear dog, but generations of solid breeding practices will. Undoubtedly, the Treeing Walker is one of the most popular breeds of tree hounds in North America used for big game hunting. In the third article in our Legendary Bear Hound series, we highlighted a line of legendary Walkers, the Nance Bred Walkers. In this article, we will talk about a hound out of New England that has some Nance breeding in it that qualifies for this series. The dog’s name is ‘PR’ Bear River Bullet. Trell Hartford lives and hunts in the White and Ossipee Mountains of New Hampshire. Trell began bear hunting when he was a kid with his friend, and legendary New England houndsman, Mike Lord (Mike passed away last year). However, Trell didn’t start to build his own pack of hounds until 2006. Once retired from hunting, Bullet went to work with owner Trell Hartford regularly. In his prime, Bullet was known to tree a 1/2 mile in front of the pack regularly.
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Most of this region consists of wide-open hardwood forest. This is likely just the type of bear habitat people on the Eastern side of the country dream about for bears - The Big Woods. As good as this may sound, the Big Woods offer some unique challenges for bear dogs. The bear will run long, hard, and fast. They’ve got room to stretch out and set the pace of a race. You’ve got to have fast dogs, according to Trell. “You’ve got to have a dog that will run to catch,” he says. “A dog that I want to hunt has got to be able to catch the ‘80-pounder.’ In the open woods, I need a dog that can break the pace. A bear will set a pace that he can run all day. You’ve got to have a dog that will break it.” As it turned out, Trell’s first hound he got in 2006 would be the one that would set the standard for “breaking the pace.” Finding Bullet ‘PR’ Bear River Bullet was born March 14th, 2006. A friend of Trell’s, by the name of Kirk Rogers, raised the pup until he was two-and-half years old. Trell was just getting into bear hunting, and he was looking for a top dog to start his pack. “When I knew I was going to start bear hunting again, I figured I would look for one really good dog to start with,” Trell remembers. He sold a 1967 Pontiac GTO to buy the dog on a two-week trial for $3,500. Quality has never been cheap. The dog was out of some top big-game breeding. The pup was out of ‘PR’ Ashley’s Sebastian (sire) and ‘PR’ Bear River Terra (dam). The grandsire and dam on the sire’s side was ‘PR’ Huffs Studly and ‘PR’ Huffs Daisy. Also on the sire’s other side the bloodlines also go back to Mike Lord’s breeding (Lord’s Jesse and Lord’s Haley). The dam’s side (‘PR’ Bear River Terra) goes back to a rich pedigree of champion coonhounds. In the three-generation pedigree on her side, she has over 25 Nite Champion and Grand Nite Champion titles. Spending that much money on a dog was big investment for Trell, and he wanted to know that hound had what it took to back up the price. Bullet started running with the other dogs when he was nine-months old, according to his owner Kirk Rogers. Even at that age he was really aggressive with bears and wouldn’t back down. To add to his lack of fear of bruins, the dog was extremely fast. This caught the attention of Kirk. By the time the dog was two-and-a-half years old, he was the top dog in the pack, but he hadn’t been hunted by himself much at all. However, the dog was too aggressive for Kirk’s taste, and so he decided he would sell the hound. Trell bought the dog on a two-week trial, and after the first week of hunting the high-dollar hound, he wasn’t impressed. “The second day I had the dog he Nov/Dec 20210
Legendary Bear Hounds Bear River Bullet (left) on the rig in New Hampshire when he was still hunting regulary. Bullet was known for his exceptional speed on the track. Bullet was documented treeing over 700 bears, bot including bays or reruns. All photos courtesy of Trell Hartford.
ate a porcupine. We hunted a few more days, and he got into a second porcupine. The vet bills were killing me, and I wanted to give the dog back.” Trell was frustrated. However, he got a call from a friend that would change the course of his bear hunting forever, as just the right opportunity arose for Bullet to prove the potential he possessed. Trell remembers, “The morning after he got into the second porcupine, a guy called me and said he had a bear in his backyard. Within two hours I was at the guy’s house with Bullet on a lead.” “I remember Bullet started pulling on the lead, and I let him go,” Trell said. Bullet struck out of the backyard hard and soon opened on the track. He pushed it hard, and within a short time he was treed one-and-a-half miles from the friend’s house. He had run and treed the track all by himself and done it with style. This was just the boost of confidence that Trell needed to keep the hound. In that first season of hunting, Bullet and a small pack of hounds treed 12 bears. It was a start, but Bullet really didn’t start to show his full potential until he was about threeand-a-half years old. Patience played a big part in developing the dog that would ultimately become a once-in-a-lifetime hound for Trell. Bullet’s Development Bullet began to develop as a bear dog, and in his second season with Trell, he began to use him as a rig dog. The
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dog really began to show his speed, and it became a problem because Bullet would catch the bear on the ground before the other dogs got there. This would put the dog in a one-on-one grapple with a bear, and Trell feared the hound would get hurt. “It was tough to get the other dogs to keep up with him, and he would be catching these bears by himself.” However, it was a risk that Trell would just get used to, and ultimately was a good problem to have. Early on, Trell remembers hunting with other houndsmen that would turn their dogs out first to strike a bear. After the dogs were 1/2 mile into the race, Trell would turn out Bullet. By the time they got to the tree, Bullet would be a ½ mile ahead of the pack, treeing the bear by himself. The dog was scary fast, and Trell began to realize that he had an amazing hound. To Trell’s credit, he has kept very good records of all the bears that his dogs have treed through the seasons. “Since Bullet was 3.5-years old we’ve treed around 100 bears per season. As of 2013, he has been a part of 567 treed bears in the time I’ve owned him, and he was said to have been on 50 treed bears before I bought him. That puts him at over 600 trees. These totals don’t include re-runs or bayed bears,” Trell recalls. “Most years he would tree
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