The Fifth of Five Bear Camps

For a good ten minutes I had been hearing inconsistent cracks of brush to the south, slightly up from where I was perched. The spot was familiar, not just because I had sat there many times, or seen bears from it. A few years back I shot a bear from this same spot on a finger of a ridge that pokes out into the topside of a clear cut. Comfortably nestled between a couple of rotten stumps, my ass parked on a bed of soft wood chips left behind from a grub digging bruin. When I had settled down there was a small pile of scat from one of the bug searching, berry eating resident I was looking for that had to be brushed aside.

The spring hunting season was rapidly winding down, a scant evening and day left. for the month of June. The last four days of the season conveniently lined up with my four days off work. Between the start of the black bear season and the final four days there had been five trips, along with a smattering of days out around home. First camp of the season turned into a scouting trip for fall mule deer since no bear sign was around. Luck graced me on the second camp of the month, the meat was so delicious a second tag was ordered up. With a freezer dangerously low in the wild game department another bear would make up the difference until fall.

Mid-day coffee breaks and good reads at camp.

Two and a half days into the last four and the freshest sign around were the piles of grizzly shit littering a thick, grown up clear cut of alder and black berries. With a need for new bear hunting vistas I’d headed into an area I spend a lot of time grouse hunting, and stepping over splatters of fall berry explosions. While previous hunts for grouse had sent me through thicker spots, in the last days of the spring bear season I was glassing clear cuts, power lines and old forest fire zones.

Drive, hike, sit, glass, drive, hike, sit, glass and repeat, this was the order of the days and without seeing hide nor hair of a black bear, eventually the decision was made to move on. It wasn’t far and it was on the way home. This is an area where things happen, where I’ve seen, stalked and shot some bears. A perfect spot to spend the last day and a half.

Sure enough, proven spot, proven clear cut, proven glassing perch and bear-like noises coming from my right. Out of nowhere a thick headed, jet black bear appears in the clear cut ten feet from the tree line. The small ears, blunt nose all give off boar vibes through my binoculars. The decision to shoot was made in a split second, Mother Nature didn’t seem to agree. The binoculars hadn’t settled in the harness, the hand hadn’t even reached for the rifle when the wind swung a 180 degrees. I may have wanted the bear in the freezer, watching the pads of his feet sprint away indicated nature hadn’t intended for it to end that way today..

See you on the water or the mountains.

Matthew Mallory