There are many hunts I have experienced with others, and one that stands out in memory was a September evening with a young couple that wanted to hunt black bear…We arrived at a salmon stream that I knew well, the stream was busy, gulls and eagles were present in numbers to make their cries and movements the dominant sensory experience around us…
Then the bears started showing up, a sow with two cubs along with a couple of smaller bears, were working the stream below and above us with about 150 yards of distance open to our view, we sat and waited…after about 20 minutes I saw some movement above and in front of us, a bears head appeared and scrutinized us with a somewhat irritated expression, I looked to Eric and Brittanie to see if they were aware of the bears presence to see them occupied watching the creek, the bear faded back into the timbered slope…
We watched the scene below us, unveil as I turned my attention back to the creek, then I became aware of the frantic cries of a cub beginning to mingle with the sounds of gulls and eagles, it rose to a higher more fervent pitch then began to decline, fade and then disappear altogether… A few minutes later, another bear crossed the creek and climbed the far bank, I looked at Brittanie and asked whether she would want that bear or not and she shook her head “no”, I looked at her husband Eric and he made a shooting motion, to which I replied “go ahead” He raised and fired…The placement was perfect, I saw the impact of the round on the bears hide and it made it into the brush before another round could be fired…
I started to cross the creek to his side when I heard him say ‘Hey, this bear was eating a wolf!” In all my years of being around black bear I had never heard of or seen such an occurrence and rather than question, I decided to see for myself…it was the bear cub we had heard earlier, the paws were still attached to the legs which had no meat left in them and the head was still attached as well…but in between everything else was eaten, it was a brutal circumstance of natures balance and the first time I witnessed it…
We still hoped to find a bear for Brittanie and it was not long in coming…upstream about 100 yards, a bear appeared, the hide looked beautiful and the wind was perfect for a stalk on it…the bear did a quick circuit across the gravel bank and then back into the alders, and that gave us time to get Brittanie set up at a downed log 50 yards closer where she had a good rest to shoot from…And it came back out, straight towards us and presented its spine and shoulders clearly…the fur rippling as it walked, with a gentle breeze stirring it along with the movement of its body…I had told her to shoot when she felt comfortable and the shot rang out within a minute, it went down quickly and stayed there…she had her bear!
So we began to skin it While Eric worked to bring his out to the creek…We worked on Brittanie’s bear and then met Eric as he dragged his downstream to a good place to skin it, we saw no more bears and the creek had fell silent, with the descent of darkness…
The night was clear and cool with a light breeze, While the tide was rising we loaded the bears…pushing out from the shore with a paddle, disturbed the luminescence as I moved the skiff towards deeper water, it accented the beauty of the evening and made patterns of light as the paddle turned and pushed…Once we were deep enough to run the engine, I steered out of the shallows and soon we were moving towards town…what an evening, birds, bears and the beauty of southeast…a privilege to share and partake of!
