Story by Tim D. (The Crafty Woodsman https://www.facebook.com/The-Crafty-Woodsman-402541840170687)
Edited by Alex D.
May 14th, 2020
The COVID19 pandemic has stretched on for months now. Over these past months I have been talking to Brad Fenson about bear hunting and he has generously allowed me to pick his brain. I was filled with a sense of uncertainty, but I finally felt like I had enough knowledge to finally hunt a bear on my own. Even though it felt like a last-minute decision to go on a bear hunt, I was ready. I just had to keep Brad’s advice in mind: find the bear signs, hunt the bear, and stay until dark. I left the bait at home.
What I did do was call up my cousins, Michelle and Scotty, and ask if they were interested in joining me for a bear hunt of a lifetime. As first-time hunters, they were excited to try anything, and I wondered if they knew what they were getting into. So, we hopped in the truck and set off on our adventure with only a few basic things: Honda 420 quad, a tent, and some food. Heading out on the road early in the morning, we dropped a pin in the area Brad had recommended to me and we just drove. Two hours later we were deep in the back roads of Alberta. We spotted a promising camping spot and stopped only briefly. We took a mental note of the location but were too excited to even unpack our sparse gear.
Instead, we kept driving down the roads and scouting the area until we were desperate for a stretch. We pulled over and decided to walk up the road a bit to see what was up ahead. We leave the truck behind, and all our gear. Even for an experienced hunter sometimes we can have really bad ideas. About 80 yards ahead we come to a perfect south facing clearing and a ton of new grass growth that Brad told me to keep an eye out for. And wouldn’t you guess that right there was a huge black bear not 20 yards off the road and just in a patch of trees. He looked right at us completely unfazed.
We were caught completely unprepared, we had no choice but to back out of there as slowly as possible and get back to the truck for our guns without bumping the bear off. When we got back, we fumbled with our gear and stalked our way back to where we had seen the black beauty, but he is gone. My mind starts to race! Do I go look for him? Do we sit and wait? What do I do? I have both my cousins looking to me for the answers. Luckily, I have Brad’s teachings to fall back on: “get out of there, go set up camp, and hunt him properly”. So, we head back to camp and unpack. After we eat, I tell my cousins that we will go, sit, and wait for the bear. Scotty agrees to come along, but Mitchell was too tired from the early morning and long drive, so he decides to hang back at camp. Scotty and I set off.
Together, we stalk back into the clearing and we see that bear in the exact same spot as before. I look at Scotty and mouth “shoot him”. I only get a blank stare reply. He
has never shot a big game animal in his life and he is hesitating. It hits him like a ton of bricks: Buck Fever! What feels like an entire minute lapses before he nods “ok”, and he finally lifts his gun. It is only ten minutes until the end of legal hunting light. I mirror Scotty and lift up my own gun to a ready position, as back up. Scotty flinched, but doesn’t pull the trigger. He breaths, collects himself and bangs a good shot. The bear takes off and runs 80 yards to the tree line. I hit him with a follow up shot. The bear stumbles 30 more yards to the trees and then finally lets out his death cry.
Day one and we have a bear down after a long day of pushing and pulling. By the time we get the bear back to camp it is pitch black out, but the job isn’t done. We are skinning and gutting the gear until 3:30 am, but we still cannot wait for the day’s hunt. After such an amazing first day, we were pumped to get back out there. The next morning, we slept in a little bit and ate our breakfast making sure we were fueled up for the long day ahead of us. We got ready as fast as we could and were off. We flew out of camp looking for more clearings. We spent the day hiking through 100 square km with the quad. But it seemed like there would be no bear for us that day. I put in one last effort to look for signs. I hopped off the quad and wandered off on foot. There was a spot I wanted to check out up the road. When I left the road, I left a marker for the boys to find me. While I walked for signs, my gun dropped out of my arms and onto the ground, breaking my scope. I was not impressed. At that point, I called it a day and told the boys we were heading back to camp for supper. The rest of the night I wondered how I could fix this problem: three hunters and two guns.
The next day I decided that it would be easier with just two guys out at a time. Scotty stayed back, because he had a huge black bear already, and he lent me his gun. Mitchell and I set off a bit further down the road from where Scotty shot his bear two days before. We get to a large reclamation site and sight a good area to set up for our next hunt. We hike through a swamp by following the game trails, because of the easy walking. I notice a bunch of promising bear sign. We find a dry hill to sit on, and Mitchell and I build a small ground blind to sit behind.
Not ten minutes later, we hear a ton of crashing and snapping tree noises. Mitchell pulls up his binoculars and notices that there is a bear in a tree. Mitchelle points to get my attention. I glass her up and see a chocolate blonde bear at the top of a white popular. I know this is the bear I have been looking for. Excited, I start my stalk. I don’t take my eyes off her for a second as I wade through the swamp. I am pushing forward slowly. I am only about halfway to her when she starts her decent down the tree. I am getting nervous about losing her. When I finally get within 80 yards of her, she is on the ground between two trees and looking straight at me. I pause for a second and assess the situation, but I don’t take the shot. Instead, I decide to move closer to her. Suddenly,
I sink into the swamp all the way to my hips. When I loop up again, she is gone from the between the two trees. I scan the bush, but I couldn’t see her. I wait a few minutes longer in the cold swamp to see if I catch a glimpse of her moving between the grasses and trees. For a second, I mentally beat myself up that I missed my shot at her. Should I have taken the long shot while I had a chance? No, risking a wounding a bear is not a smart decision nor is it worth it.
I feel assured that I had made the right choice not to shoot. I knew in my gut that the bear is coming home with me. So, Mitchell and I set back up behind the blind on the hill. Barely two minutes after sitting back down again, there she was across the clearing headed up another tree. I wasn’t taking any chances this time. I stick to the dry land this time. I am crawling on my hands and knees to close the 300 yard gap between us. With thistle in my palms and knees, I inch towards her. Again, she goes down the tree, and I lose sight of her. Again, I wait. This time, she reappears right in front of me 80 yards away! I lift Scotty’s gun to my cheek and I feel the shake of buck fever. I take a deep breath and shake the fever off. I pull the trigger and my chocolate blond bear falls out of sight. Bear down!! My dream of a colour phase bear is realized.
Mitchell runs over to congratulate me and it is a feeling like no other. We field dress her and take a few photos before the 1,200-yard hike through the swamp back to the quad. I put her 220 pounds on my shoulders and off we go. Scotty saw the thick fluff as we pulled into camp and was as excited for us as we were. Again, we had a long night ahead of us.
Now it was time to complete the trifecta and get Mitchell his own bear. On the morning of day 4, Mitchell and I set off to find a new location. We head up a road on the quad and come across another new clearing. We pull up the path a short way and park. We begin exploring for signs. Yet after looking all day, we find nothing. We are both wore out, beat down, and sleep deprived. Mitchell has accepted his defeat. All day I am repeating the words Brad gave me: find the signs, follow the signs, keep your wind right, hunt until dark! Yet, after such an exhausting couple of days and seeing the exhaustion on my cousin’s face, I let Mitchell convince end the hunt early. So, we stalk back to the quad and drive up the road. Out of nowhere, a bear pops onto the road ahead of us. His blond hair was perfectly blended into the tall golden grass. For a second, I panic and my heart sinks. Quickly, I kill the quad and jump off. With the roar of the quad cutting and the wind gusting at our back, the bear didn’t stick around long. He was gone as quickly as he had come. Brads words shout back at me: STAY TILL DARK! But Mitchell’s doubt gets to me. Honestly, I begin to doubt myself too. I feel bad that I brought my cousin out here and he won’t get a bear after all of this. Beside, the wind is has swirled around to our backs again. We just jump back on the quad and head out as
before. At the mouth of the road, a thought comes to me. Turn right; not left. Head up the bear and don’t go to camp. The bear went that way to keep the wind in his face, that is what I would do.
I turn right and ahead away from camp. The same thing happens. 50 yards up the road the bear pops out and is gone in a blink of an eye. Follow the signs. It in now the witching hour as Brad called it days ago. I must convince Mitchell that this will work out and that we need to stay till dark. We need to get our wind right. Hunt the signs. With a last bout of self doubt, I text Brad. “Is it possible that after bumping him, not once but twice, that I could find the bear again?” Brad messages “yes, get the wind right, sit tight, and, wait till dark. And that is exactly what we do. We head up the road past where the bear was by about a mile. Then, we turn around and head back towards him, stalking very slowly. Mitchell and I get inside of 80 yards of where the last sighting was. Crash. A branches rustle from the bush ahead of us. With a satisfied grin, I think to myself “I have got you now!” With a newfound faith in me, Mitchell starts to forget how tired he is and how sore his muscles are. I could see in his face the extreme emotions flooding over him. The pressure had been mounting for days to produce a bear like his younger brother back at camp.
We do a five step stop technique. Through the trees, I see the bear up ahead no more than 50 yards. I point him out to the overwhelmed Mitchell. When he sees it, he lifts his gun, but shakes uncontrollably. I whisper to him. “Slow your breathing. Take a deep, long breath.” He takes control back and then, boom! He makes the shot. The bear takes 5 steps and that is it. It’s now over. We did it! The perfect trifecta: three bears in 4 days. What a trip!? We celebrate by yelling at the top of our lungs in joy. We all tagged our first bears together.
Back at the camp, we meet with Scotty who had everything all packed up and ready to leave. The joy on the two brothers faces as they hug in celebration was incredible. Scotty, Mitchell, and I were overwhelmed at what we had accomplished this weekend. All thanks to invaluable knowledge passed on from one hunter to another. Thanks to the experience Brad Fenson imparted on me, I was able to give my young cousins a taste for the hard work, commitment and thrive of a good hunt.
Thank you Brad,
