Spring Bear: A Review

With the thump of my truck door closing so came a close to our spring bear season. A season that James and I had put in for on a whim and ultimately drew with no points and no real knowledge of bear tendencies. We began the season in earnest, scouting early and often, talking with local biologists and identifying our routes on maps. We read articles online, sighted in our rifle, and put our boots on the ground. However, as the world of bears go, they remain safe from these two hunters until fall.

Entering into this weekend we mark the arrival of Memorial Day weekend and it is only fitting that we enjoy ourselves and do all the things that so many Americans have sacrificed their lives for. This weekend many will head out to barbeques, travel countless miles to visit relatives and soak up the late spring sun. Others of us will take time for ourselves, blessed with the opportunity to be able to hunt throughout one of the most gorgeous landscapes in the entire country. Here, just outside Baker City, we wanted to get out for one last hunt and enjoy the Elkhorn Mountains.

We would meet up early in the morning and drive out to the now familiar country northwest of Wolf Creek Reservoir. Knowing that this would be our last go around James suggested early on that we just cover ground; forget about being as quiet as possible and just go. Now that’s not to say that we were merrily laughing and breaking sticks over our legs but that even with a little pace to our walking we could still be quiet, the heavy winds aiding us in this endeavor, and cover country.

Moving with purpose we began our search through the woods, vigilante for new sign. We walked into several new meadows and young timber stands that were littered with understory debris, the areas that we hadn’t yet focused much of our time on. We would end up coming across quite a bit of old sign from last summer/fall but obviously, it wasn’t what we were hoping for. However, the fact that bears were standing here at some point during the year had us at least a little more optimistic…a little. Despite these mild confidences, as the day would wane on the signs were all the same, old and more or less irrelevant. We could see our season fading in the distance.

We walked for many hours but as the sun began to push towards the high sky and an afternoon of commitments crept up upon us, we began the make our way back, realizing that the woods and our bear friends had out maneuvered us this year. We now knew that Blondie had escaped. And then, upon reaching the road just below our truck we were reminded of why we, the Haines Hunters, go about life the way we do and why we will always push that extra mile. It would end up becoming an encounter that would reaffirm our beliefs and hunting philosophy.

Laughing at ourselves and making the final trek up to the truck we could feel the quiet of the afternoon shake with the rumble of an old truck approaching. The men that drove up to us were, as James would later joke, “how the other half does it”. These men, covered in camo and guns at the ready asked us how the hunt was going and being polite and courteous we joined in the conversation, back and forth about the bears we hoped to see. Now, by all means the guys in this truck were nice gentlemen and even guys you wouldn’t hate to share a drink with but ultimately, their idea of hunting and our idea of hunting are worlds apart.

They are satisfied to drive around in a truck all day, glass slopes, and eat their snack food; banking on the chance that a bear will cross the road in front of them. They are out shape, out of breath, and out of touch. They wear camo for...well, we’re not really sure why. These men will likely go home and tell loved ones that they’ve spent an amazing day in the great outdoors when really, they have done nothing more than what anyone with a four-wheel drive vehicle and some free time can do. I think we can all agree that that is not what most of us are looking for when we go out to hunt. And I’m not afraid to admit that there are certainly times during a given hunt that it may be necessary to huddle up in your truck, drive the forest roads and cover country, but when that becomes the norm rather than the exception, you may have to reconsider your approach.

If there is one thing that James and I pride ourselves on it’s that we are willing to go where others shy away and if there is one more hill that might provide one more vantage point we make the hike up. It has been our mantra from the beginning. We see guys on TV go to guided hunts in Texas, set up “managed” fields for deer in the mid-west, and hear stories of hunting shows that fly their stars to the tops of rocky cliffs to chase chukar; that is not how we choose to get things done.

We put our boots on the ground, drag our asses up and down hills and drainages and when the hunting is over we step out of the truck at our respective homes and our legs feel like they’ve been pounded on for hours. We’ve taken in the backwoods of eastern Oregon and truly spent a day in the mountains. We don’t claim to do it better than anyone else or even the right way; we often just hope that there are more like minded hunters out there. More men and women that live and abide by a tradition that seems to be lost in a world of technology and motorized transportation. Those willing to go beyond, to push themselves, and work for whatever mammal or bird they seek, will be rewarded ten-fold in the end.

James and I may not have gotten our spring bear this year but we can leave with our heads held high. Could we have put in more days? Sure. But the days we did spend out there we didn’t drive around, looking at open slopes and wondering; we got out of the truck, climbed steep terrain, and made the most of our time. And finally seeing our one elusive bear was the culmination of those hours spent on the ground. Were we to have stayed on the main roads it was a bear we most certainly would have missed.

Come Thursday, the official end to the season, there will undoubtedly be some who have a bear hanging in their yard and a charcoal grill will resonate with the sounds of sizzling meat. Perhaps many of those hunters will be ones who were driving along, saw a bear, stepped out of the truck, and shot the bear across the road. Their friends will come over and ask them how they did it and they will tell their story in grand detail and make the most out of what really comes down to a be road hunt. But then there will be those who, as the bear meat sizzles on the grill, tell of adventure and pursuit in the arid forests of eastern Oregon. They will share stories of the miles hiked, the hours pushed through brush, and the culminating moment when the bear was first seen and a gunshot rang out in the afternoon hours. Those men and women will sit back and they will not tell over exaggerated tales of a road hunt but they will tell a story, a hunting story, of two people, in the middle of nowhere, hunting black bear in the Elkhorn Mountains. Those men and women, those hunters, will truly have something to say.

I hope that James and I can tell that story someday but for now, we share the story of our encounter and move on to the fishing season. However, we will not forget the lessons learned this year. We will try our best to take that knowledge and with a little bit of luck return next year, wiser and better prepared, to hunt our elusive black bear and perhaps even see Blondie once again. Let the countdown begin.