Bear Hunting Tips

An Overview of the Cabinet and Yaak Mountains

Online Editors — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:31:28 -0400

It might be tough to believe, but Montana hasn’t protected any of its pristine backcountry fish and game habitat as wilderness in over a generation—the last attempt to create wilderness in the Treasure State was vetoed by President Ronald Reagan over 25 years ago. That’s not to say wilderness doesn’t exist outside those areas already protected in Montana —far from it. But politics and a host of factors have come into play, leaving some of the most deserving fish and game habitat in the state essentially unprotected and exposed to various forms of incursion, be it from mining, oil and gas or even just unneeded road construction.

Field & Stream and Trout Unlimited, sensing an opportunity, have rallied behind U.S. Sen. Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, the product of a collaborative series of negotiations and meetings that will hopefully result in the creation of new wilderness across Montana, including areas in the state’s northwest corner in the fabled Cabinet and Yaak mountains.

To make the effort even more palatable to a vast array of public lands users, the bill also includes a logging component that will put Montanans to work salvaging quality lumber from managed, low-country forests that are feeling the full brunt of the West’s mountain pine beetle infestation, as well as concessions to off-road vehicle and snowmobile enthusiasts who use public lands in the region as well. By protecting new wilderness in the state, Sen. Tester is ensuring the long-term viability of hunting and fishing—these areas are healthy and populated with native west slope cutthroat trout, trophy herds of elk, moose, mule deer and pronghorn, as well as upland game birds like ruffed, blue and spruce grouse. Wilderness, it turns out, is a great place to fish and hunt, and by setting aside irreplaceable public lands under our nation’s highest protective status, we’ll protect our rights to access, fish and hunt in these remarkable places now ... and for generations to come.

What’s in the Cabinet-Yaaks?
Fishing assets: Native west slope cutthroat trout, native bull trout, brook trout, brown trout, rainbow trout.
Hunting assets: Elk, deer, moose, bighorn sheep, bear, wolf, lion, ruffed, blue and spruce grouse.
Other: This region rests along the Montana-Idaho-British Columbia border and includes high-priority recreational country for sportsmen as well as off-roaders and snowmobilers. Designating this land as wilderness while conceding other, lower-quality public lands for extractive uses, like logging, makes this effort unique.

Threats: Protecting as wilderness these and other high-quality backcountry areas will prevent unnecessary hard-rock mining and segregate important fish and game habitat from future road or motorized trail incursion. Protecting this area also protects downstream water quality.

An Overview of the Outlaw Triangle

Online Editors — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:34:02 -0400

The Outlaw Triangle is one of the most unique sporting regions in the lower 48. It's actually composed of two special places, the Little Mountain region of Wyoming, and the Green River below Flaming Gorge Dam in far northeastern Utah. It's called the Outlaw Triangle because Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid used the area as a hideout in the late 1800s.
The trophy trout fishing in the Green below Flaming Gorge Dam actually extends all the way downstream into the way to the Colorado border, but the first 20 or 30 miles or so of this prized tailwater could rightfully be included in the West’s “top 10 list of best trout fisheries.” Huge brown and rainbow trout chase flies and lures in the three “sections” of the river, giving the Green the reputation as a trophy fishery. Couple that with the splendor of the canyon, and the need to protect this special place is magnified. Trout Unlimited and Field & Stream are working to achieve “Scenic” designation for this stretch of the Green, simply to ensure that it remains the pristine angling paradise it is today for generations to come.

Currently there is a proposal to pump 250,000 acre-feet of water out of the Green River annually, then to pipe it across Wyoming and down to the front range of Colorado. If this were to happen, both the fishery on the reservoir, and the tailwater would be dramatically threatened.

If the Green is vital as an irreplaceable fishery to anglers, the Little Mountain region of Wyoming, just a stone’s throw to the north of the river, is just as important to hunters. Home to trophy herds of elk and mule deer, as well as the occasional moose and thriving herds of pronghorn, Little Mountain is one of the Intermountain Region’s most-prized destinations for big game hunting. In addition to its massive herds, the region also boasts sage grouse and, in its aspen-cloaked slopes, ruffed grouse, making it an all-around destination for hunters.

Little Mountain isn’t without its attraction to the backcountry angler, either. Several populations of native Colorado River cutthroat trout swim in hidden streams on Little Mountain, making for some unique adventure for the “cast and blast” sportsman interested in a truly special experience in a remote, yet accessible public lands paradise.

Unfortunately, Little Mountain has captured the interest of the natural gas industry—proposals exist that would transform this sportsmen’s dreamscape into something significantly less. Trout Unlimited is working with local stakeholders in the communities of Rock Springs and Green River—many of them industry workers themselves—to craft a plan that would allow for responsible natural gas drilling while protecting the unique resources of this treasured landscape.

Even with a glut of natural gas on the market, however, and with prices reflecting that, industry in the West, and on Little Mountain in particular, is aggressively pursuing new “inventory,” presumably to ensure a long-term future for drilling on public lands in the West. While TU and Field & Stream aren’t opposed to developing our domestic resources, there is legitimate concern that irresponsible planning and extraction will continue to erode our sporting opportunity, which is a huge part of the Western culture and heritage.

What’s in the Green?
Fishing assets: Trophy rainbow and brown trout, a few lake trout a few cutthroat trout, and native whitefish.
Hunting assets: Big bucks and big bulls haunt the rims of the canyon. Ruffed and blue grouse, excellent fall waterfowl hunting.
Other: The Green is one of the best backcountry floats in the nation, winding through a largely inaccessible canyon, apart from just a handful off put-in and take-out points.

Threats: Continued development in the region is stressing the viability of the resource. Keeping it like it is today is becoming a larger priority for all sportsmen and women in the region. Currently there is a proposal to pump 250,000 acre feet of water out of the Green River annually, then to pipe it across Wyoming and down to the front range of Colorado.

What’s on Little Mountain?
Fishing assets: Native Colorado River cutthroat trout.
Hunting assets: Deer, elk, pronghorn, sage grouse, ruffed grouse, bear, lion.
Other: It’s a recreational retreat for surrounding local communities.

Threats: Oil and gas drilling on Little Mountain could sully otherwise healthy native trout streams and bisect irreplaceable big-game habitat, infringing on opportunity for all who fish and hunt.

An Overview of the Roan Plateau

Online Editors — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:21:50 -0400

The Roan Plateau in western Colorado is the “line in the sand” for the Western sportsman who values intact fish and wildlife habitat and a unique sporting opportunity amidst a sea of industrial development. The Roan, which comprises only 1.5 percent of the entire Piceance Basin, rests above significant reserves of natural gas, but also provides refuge for trophy mule deer, elk, grouse, bear, mountain lion and pure strains of Colorado River cutthroat trout.

Unfortunately, against the wishes of sportsmen, surrounding communities, and Colorado’s federal delegation, the Roan was leased for gas drilling in 2008. Trout Unlimited and a host of conservation groups who recognized the value of the Roan for future generations, immediately challenged the leases in court, and that’s where the issue rests today—in the hands of a judge.

One important note: Trout Unlimited and Field & Stream have never opposed drilling for the gas beneath the Roan. Instead, we’ve proposed several ways to drill for the gas using state-of-the-art directional drilling techniques, phased in leasing, drilling and reclamation and plans to protect the Roan’s fragile streams. In these streams swim a unique strain of Colorado River cutthroat trout that has evolved isolated above an impassible waterfall. These fish are pure-strain cutthroats, and their environment is already pretty austere. Drilling for natural gas, particularly in this area, where industry oversight when it comes to safety and environmental protection has been lax, might be the one thing that would wipe out these priceless fisheries.

Working with hunters, anglers and guides and outfitters, Field & Stream and TU will not give up the Roan to wholesale drilling without a fight. With a glut of natural gas on the market today, and with technology available to ensure drilling won’t harm fish and game habitat, we see no need to sacrifice any further.

In addition to its fisheries, the Roan is home to excellent big-game hunting opportunities for deer, elk, bear and lion, as well as grouse and wild turkeys. It truly is a sportsman’s oasis in a sea of industrial activity.

What’s on the Roan?
Fishing assets: Native Colorado River cutthroat trout, brook trout.
Hunting assets: Elk, deer, ruffed grouse, blue grouse, black bear, mountain lion.
Other: The Roan is important for recreation, not only for sportsmen, but for hikers, campers and others. It’s also used by area cattlemen for grazing, and by hunting outfitters and guides as a deer and elk base camp.

Threats: Unnecessary and intrusive natural gas drilling threatens the water quality on the Roan, as well as the big-game habitat atop the plateau.

The 35 Best Photos From Field & Stream's 2012 Spring Trail Cam Contest: Round II

Dave_Maccar — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:15:02 -0400

Who says trail cams are only fun in the fall? Set yours out this spring, then send us your best photos. You could win a new Bushnell Trophy Cam HD (MSRP $323.95).

Here's how it works. This contest will have three rounds. The first, Round I, began, March 12, and closed on April 12. Round II ran from April 12 to May 12, and Round III from May 14 to June 14. We're giving away three Bushnell Trophy Cam HDs (MSRP: $323.95) in each round, one cam each to the top three entries, as chosen by our editors.

Congrats to users luna, mod70 and Semibald, who each have won a Trophy Cam for their shots in Round II.

So go set your trail cams up already. And have fun! --The Editors

Click here for more info on the prizes.

Click here to enter ROUND III of the 2012 SPRING TRAIL CAM CONTEST

Cougars Coach Mike Leach to Hunt Bears in Canada

Online Editors — Tue, 15 May 2012 09:55:04 -0400

--Chad Love

Quick, without thinking, name the most interesting, entertaining man in college football today. If you didn’t say "Mike Leach" then you're just plain wrong. The eccentric, pirate-loving, sometimes-befuddled-acting, but always-entertaining new coach of the Washington State Cougars makes that "Dos Equis" dude look like an accountant.

He's the funniest, most bizarre, off-the-cuff and unpredictable sports personality out there. Just how entertaining is Mike Leach? While he was the coach at Texas Tech, he actually made Lubbock, Texas an interesting place. Hell, even Buddy Holly couldn’t do that.

Well, look out, hunting world it seems that Mike Leach is going bear hunting, at least according to his Twitter feed yesterday, which read "Watching the movie Grizzly Man. Going bear hunting in Canada on Tuesday with Mike Pawlawski."

From this story on cougcenter.com:
Mike Leach is going bear hunting. That headline is not a joke. It's not a play on words, either. Mike Leach is, apparently, going hunting for bears in Canada this week. It is the offseason after all. There is, however, a lot of irony here. You see, Mike Pawlawski is a former Cal Bear. Or maybe he's just a Cal Bear -- once a bear, always a bear. Also notice how Leach phrased that tweet. He's going bear hunting. Pawlawski is a "bear" in the sense of his college affiliation. What Pawlawski doesn't know is that Leach is hunting him. He'll release Pawlawski into the wilderness, give him a head-start and go hunting. But seriously, Leach is watching Grizzly Man -- remember, the "star" gets eaten by a bear -- to prepare for a bear hunting excursion. This is the Cougars' football coach. And this is awesome.

So that brings up an interesting question: who's the most interesting man in the hunting world today? Whoever it is, doesn't matter, because he may as well just step aside and hand the crown over to Mike Leach, if the crazy pirate decides he likes this hunting thing.

The 50 Best Field & Stream Reader Photos from April 2012

Dave_Maccar — Wed, 02 May 2012 09:25:49 -0400

Each month, Field & Stream editors review the hundreds of photos submitted by readers to our Trophy Room. If your photo is chosen to be printed in the Game Faces section of the magazine, you’ll win a Rapala Fish ‘N Fillet knife!

Submit your photos here!

Here are the other best reader photo collections from this year:

January 2012

February 2012

March 2012

Would You Ever Put Your Head in a Polar Bear's Mouth?

Online Editors — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:36:29 -0400

--Chad Love

OK, a show of hands: How many of you think this guy is eventually going to end up being digested, and how many think this hand-reared polar bear will continue act like it's in a Coke commercial for the rest of its life?

From this story in the UK Sun:

Sixty-stone Agee has formed an amazing bond with tamer Mark Dumas after he plucked her from a zoo as a cub to star in films and television ads. The pair are so close they wrestle, kiss, nap and even go swimming with each other. Mark, of Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada, said: “If anyone else tried this they’d end up as Agee’s dinner. “The only people she likes are me and my wife Dawn. “I have worked with bears for 40 years, so I can read Agee’s body language and know how to behave safely.”

Bear Down: A Field & Stream Adventure on Prince of Wales Island

Online Editors — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 17:17:57 -0400

by Steve Rinella

Ronny and I were drifting in a Lund skiff 200 yards offshore along the coast of Southeast Alaska’s Prince of Wales Island, about 8 miles from my hunting and fishing shack. To my surprise, he’d just announced that it was no longer necessary for him to share in the duty of glassing for black bears.

“How do you figure that?” I asked.

He was kicked back on the bench seat, smoking a cigar. “Because I can tell without even looking that there are no bears within sight right now,” he said.

“How can you tell that?”
“Because if there was, you’d have said, ‘Uh-oh, there’s a bear!’”

There were limits to how far I could pursue this argument. Ronny’s a contractor, and I’m indebted to him for employing me all through college with higher-than-normal wages and lower-than--normal hours. So rather than pressing my case, I returned to my preferred position for observing bears: feet over the engine’s tiller, back against the gunwale, eyes on my binoculars. Ronny tried to return to his preferred position, but first he had to adjust his makeshift pillow of flotation jackets. As I scanned the shoreline, I noticed a black object emerging on a patch of sedges that grew along the seam where the coastal rain forest ended and the tidal zone began.

“Uh-oh,” I said. “There’s a bear!”
“See? I told you.”

The bear had a swayback, a potbelly, and a block-shaped head with ears that seemed short and rounded rather than tall and pointed. In other words, it looked like a good-size boar. But before we could form a plan, the bear fed its way back into the timber. I lifted the outboard out of the water and used an electric trolling motor to silently approach a point of land that would shield us from the bear’s last location. We beached the boat beneath a large cedar that had tipped into the water. A long stretch of shoreline reached away from us, and we watched it to see if the bear would reappear. If it did, the wind would be perfect for Ronny to climb out of the boat and make a stalk. (It’s illegal to shoot a bear from a boat on Prince of Wales Island.)

Maybe 15 minutes passed without anything happening. I assumed that the bear had either headed off into the forest or turned back the other way. I had a Knight & Hale predator call around my neck. I got to wondering if the plaintive bleats of a deer fawn might inspire the bear to come out and have a look. I cut loose on the call without mentioning my plan to Ronny, as I figured whatever happened would happen very far away. Instead I was answered by the sudden and close sound of claw on rock. Ronny and I both whirled our heads around to see a large male bear coming toward us like a pit bull crossing its yard to meet an uninvited intruder at the gate. If it had been a fish, we could have cast to it with a cane pole. I yelled at Ronny to jump out of the boat and shoot.

He glanced over the gunwale and gave a frantic announcement. “The water’s over my boots!”

“Your boots?” I yelled. “Who cares about your damn boots?”

By then the bear had realized that he was not approaching a wounded fawn after all. He spun around and vanished back into the timber. Without saying a word, Ronny and I started laughing so hard that it eventually became painful. It was his third close encounter with a boar in as many days.

A Bruin to Earn

While smart-asses do not generally make the best hunting partners, Ronny turns this generalization on its head. He’s an ambitious and dedicated grouse hunter, the kind who can turn a one-flush day into a one-bird day. He’s also a reliable friend who’s willing to make sacrifices for his buddies. One time, when I was down on my luck, he traded me a perfectly good Ford for a not-so-good chain saw. Though he didn’t realize it, I’d taken him on this bear hunt for reasons that went beyond my appreciation of his company. Years before, Ronny had been on a guided bear hunt in Canada that had left him with a bad, long-lasting impression. He’d gone up there as the guest of a business associate who’d arranged the trip. Their outfitter didn’t like to do anything in the morning. His clients would just sit around eating bacon and drinking coffee. In the afternoon he’d drive the hunters out to their stands, which were positioned near bait barrels along logging roads. The barrels had been filled with liquefied hard candy at a factory. Bears came in as though they were under a spell, like kids visiting their Halloween baskets the day after trick-or-treating. Later, Ronny remarked that the only thing he’d learned about bear biology or ecology was that bears behave in unusual ways when presented with a blend of refined sugar, corn syrup, artificial flavors and colors, emulsifiers, suspension agents, and preservatives. When Ronny killed a bear and inquired about the guide’s method of packaging meat, the guide behaved as though he’d never heard of something as outlandish as eating a bear.

Hearing this story put me into the position of being a bear hunting ambassador. I felt obligated to show Ronny another side of bear hunting—a side where bears go about their natural business in a region that forces you to develop an appreciation for the land you’re on and the species you’re after. As it happened, I had the perfect setup for such a task: a shack on the southern end of Alaska’s Prince of Wales Island.

That I own the place is thanks to the fact that my two brothers and I, back in 2004, simultaneously entered that brief period of life when you have money but no spouse to tell you how to spend it. Along with a buddy, we made the largely impulsive decision to buy the lopsided and shoebox-shaped structure that sits on tilted pilings over the tideline of a remote cove. The cove is surrounded largely by Tongass National Forest, and is accessible only by plane or boat. It is completely off the grid. We get our water from a gravity-fed hose dunked into the creek that comes off the mountain behind the house and flows beneath the front right corner of the deck. For the most part, phones do not get a signal. Electricity is from a Honda generator. Our hot tub is a Rubbermaid livestock watering tank that we shipped up on a boat from Seattle; the water is heated by a woodburning stove. Instead of a flush toilet there’s a hole in the ground and a bucket of lime. Mink drag their catch into the workshop and leave the bones and scales where they fall. Old-growth spruce and hemlock lean menacingly over everything we own—including the three chain saws, three outboard engines, one skiff, and dozens of rusted oil drums and hundreds of even rustier tools that the previous owner abandoned when he walked away from the place and never returned.

Whenever I’m justifying my purchase of the shack to my wife, I remind her that Prince of Wales Island has one of the—or perhaps the—densest black bear populations on earth. The animals inhabit a crazily shaped island with a third less landmass than the island of Hawaii but over three times as much coastline. Since it’s difficult for a bear to get more than a few miles away from the shore, you tend to see a lot of them hanging out along the water’s edge. This is especially true during the salmon runs of mid to late summer, when it’s common to encounter a gang of three or four mature bears milling around a stream mouth. As easy as it is to find bears during the salmon season, it’s not a good time to hunt them. Alaska tourism brochures love to show bears eating chrome-colored salmon dragged fresh from the water, but it’s just as common for them to eat dead and rotten salmon that they dig out of the mud at low tide. This leaves their flesh tasting like…well, dead and rotten salmon.

Some hunters will happily kill these salmon-gorged bears, but that makes as much sense to me as raising a tomato garden and then collecting the fruit after it falls to the ground and turns moldy. Rather, the best time to kill bears is within the first couple of weeks after their emergence from hibernation. Their salmon-flavored fat has burned off, and they’re eating little besides the grass found along the tidal flats and stream mouths. This gives their meat a beefy goodness.

On Prince of Wales Island, bears can emerge as early as early April or as late as late May, depending on myriad factors such as snow depth, air temperature, fat reserves, and even the gender and size of the bear. Typically, though, you’ll start seeing mature males consistently during the first week of May, and that’s when Ronny and I landed in Ketchikan. The weather was typical for that time of year: low 40s to mid 50s, plenty of rain. The next morning we hopped a small floatplane that landed us at the cove. It took us a day to get ready: We cleaned up after the mink that had scattered a hundred dollars’ worth of freeze-dried food all over the place. We hauled in some firewood and split kindling. We wiped away the new layer of mold that had grown over most of the shack’s interior surfaces since my last visit. And we waited for a high tide so we could launch the skiff. We started hunting early the next morning.

Blacktail to Black Bear

Prince of Wales Island is surrounded by an intercoastal maze, where small islands are scattered across the ocean as thick as black pepper sprinkled on a fried egg. To find bears in such an area, you want to look at either a lot of shoreline very quickly or a small amount of shoreline very carefully. I tend toward the small and careful end of the spectrum, though to make this work you need to make sure that the small area is the right area. Bears are looking for grass when they come out of hibernation. It grows best where there are accumulations of soil without the towering stands of timber that block out the sun. These conditions are generally provided where streams come roaring down from the mountains to meet the ocean. The annual flood cycle prevents the growth of trees, and the streams’ sediments collect as wedge-shaped deltas and low-lying floodplains just inland from the tideline. These are known as grass flats in bear hunting lingo, and you’re doing the right thing if you can cut your boat engine and drift on the current through a place where it’s possible to see two or three of these grass flats all at once. That’s what Ronny and I had been doing when our argument about glassing etiquette was interrupted by the bear that gave us the slip, thanks to Ronny’s momentary fear of wet socks.

We tried a different tactic the next day, mainly so I could avoid any nagging feeling that I’m a complacent hunter who’s stuck in his ways. Instead of glassing likely areas from the boat, I figured that we ought to split up and try some still-hunting. I dropped Ronny near a large grass flat in the late afternoon and then motored to a network of meadows formed where a shallow, braided river flowed into the head of a fjord. The tide was all the way out when I got there. I tied an anchor line to the bow of the skiff and carried the anchor across a couple of hundred yards of mud and busted clamshells. I figured I had a couple of hours until the water came up that high.

I moved slowly as I entered the first meadow, paying special attention to the shadowy edges where the grass ended and the timber began. Maybe just a half hour later I got a glimpse of a bear—or at least a bear’s rump. It was about 200 yards away, ambling away from me along the edge of a meadow. It vanished before I could tell if it was a male or female.

Figuring that I might see the bear again if I moved forward a bit, I continued carefully in an upstream direction. As I eased along, I caught another glimpse of the bear, a little farther away. Again it was just the rump, and again it disappeared. I crept forward until I reached a large uprooted stump where I could see the entire meadow. I looked around for several minutes, but there was no bear to be found.

I gave a few bleats on my predator call, half expecting a bear to come busting out of the trees. Instead, a blacktail doe crashed out of the timber and headed right toward me. I thought that the deer had nothing but an expanse of flat ground to cross, and I was curious to see how far she’d come before she realized what I was. But all of a sudden she mysteriously dropped from view. Apparently there was a dip in the topography that was big enough to conceal a deer, so I crawled in that direction until I came into view of an agitated female deer staring at a completely unconcerned male black bear. Both were hidden in a large, soggy depression. All I could see of the bear was the upper third of its body, but I could tell it was a mature male. I hunkered back down, checked the wind again, and crawled forward. The next time I popped up, the bear was only 40 yards away. I was shooting a Carolina Custom Rifle in 7mm Rem. Mag. and put a round through both of its lungs. The bear entered the woods along a heavily used trail covered in moss and bear droppings. I followed for about 30 yards and found a dark shape lying in the middle of the trail. I watched the shape for any twitches or movement. It was dead still.

By now I was worried about my boat. It was fixed to a light mushroom anchor and I had visions of it drifting away. I gutted the bear quickly, doing a careful job not to spill any fluids on the exposed meat inside the chest cavity. With the guts out, the animal was light enough for me to move it a little bit. I dragged it out to the meadow and sprawled it out, belly side down, with the pelvis split open. It would cool quickly in the evening air. I put my jacket over the carcass to add a touch of human odor that might deter other bears. Then I went back into the woods and dragged the gut pile off in another direction. Any bear that came along would go for the guts first—they can eat soft tissues in a hurry, wolfing them down before a larger bear has a chance to come along and steal them.

With that taken care of, I raced down to my boat. When I got within sight of the inlet I was relieved to see that the boat was still anchored in place, though it was now floating in deep water. I waded out up to my chest, feeling around for the anchor with my feet. Just when I was thinking that I’d have to swim for the boat, my ankle hung up on the anchor line. I pulled the boat in and then picked up Ronny in the early moments of darkness. He hadn’t seen a thing.

The Last Chance

Ronny’s bad luck continued. One day, for instance, we spotted a boar from the boat and hatched an initial plot to land on a small island just across the water from where the bear was feeding. After a short stalk, Ronny would be able to reach the bear by shooting across an expanse of water. But after we studied the layout of the island from a distance, we decided that the shot would be too far away. So, instead, we planned a convoluted stalk coming from down the beach and over a house-size outcropping of rock that jutted into the water—a stalk that somehow ended with me falling into a crevice in the rock and cutting my lip and biting my tongue and scratching my face. The bear was long gone by the time we got to where it had been. From there, though, we could see that the small island was actually only 200 yards away. It would have been easy pickings.

My concern about Ronny’s impression of bear hunting was quickly being replaced by a more worrisome concern that he’d come up empty-handed after a week of very hard and honest hunting. Those feelings were amplified even more when the last full day of our trip rolled around. We spent that morning still-hunting meadows along river mouths, and the rest of the day watching grass flats from the skiff. Toward dusk I announced that we were out of time, and we began the long trip back to the shack as the evening faded toward darkness. Ronny was at the tiller and I was up front, giving myself motion sickness by looking through binoculars as we cruised over the low swells. At one point I got a particularly long-ranging view down the length of the fjord, and I began a careful study of various blackish and roundish objects that littered the beaches far out ahead. Within seconds I blurted out the now familiar words.

“Uh-oh! There’s a bear!”

Killing a bear requires that a lot of things come together all at once, and this time the initial components all fell in place. The wind was right; the bear stayed on the shoreline and kept coming along; we found an out-of-sight place to land the boat where the stalk wouldn’t be interrupted by insurmountable outcroppings. Ronny climbed from the boat and made a careful upwind approach. He moved when the bear was occupied with feeding, and he held tight whenever the bear checked its surroundings. At 200 yards Ronny stopped behind a boulder to wait. From my vantage I could see that the bear was a solid boar. It moved another 30 yards toward Ronny and gave him a broadside shot. The bear went down hard and fast.

It was well past dark by the time we had the animal gutted and loaded into the skiff. Another hour would pass before we picked our way back to the shack through the dark and hazard-filled waters; another five hours would pass before we had both of our bears skinned and the boned-out meat packed for shipment. Toward dawn, as it started to drizzle, I watched Ronny kneel on the floor of the shop and run his hands through the thick and iridescent fur of his bear. He looked exhausted and relieved and rewarded, like a guy who’d just taken possession of something that he’d earned through hard work.

If you are interested in planning a bear hunt on Prince of Wales Island, visit the Alaska Department of Fish and Game website to download maps and information on permits and regulations for bear hunting in Southeast Alaska.

Bear Down: A Field & Stream Adventure on Prince of Wales Island

Online Editors — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 17:17:57 -0400

by Steve Rinella

“How do you figure that?” I asked.

He was kicked back on the bench seat, smoking a cigar. “Because I can tell without even looking that there are no bears within sight right now,” he said.

“How can you tell that?”
“Because if there was, you’d have said, ‘Uh-oh, there’s a bear!’”

“Uh-oh,” I said. “There’s a bear!”
“See? I told you.”

He glanced over the gunwale and gave a frantic announcement. “The water’s over my boots!”

“Your boots?” I yelled. “Who cares about your damn boots?”

A Bruin to Earn

Blacktail to Black Bear

The Last Chance

“Uh-oh! There’s a bear!”

The 50 Best Photos From Field & Stream's 2012 Spring Trail Cam Contest: Round I

Dave_Maccar — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 15:22:02 -0400

Who says trail cams are only fun in the fall? Set yours out this spring, then send us your best photos. You could win a new Bushnell Trophy Cam HD (MSRP $323.95).

Here's how it works. This contest will have three rounds. The first, Round I, starts today, March 12, and closes on April 12. Round II runs from April 12 to May 12, and Round III from May 12 to June 12. We're giving away three Bushnell Trophy Cam HDs (MSRP: $323.95) in each round, one cam each to the top three entries, as chosen by our editors.

Congratulations to users Kim Doucette Kelly, Isham C. Shelby and Stephen Schimacher who each will receive a camera for their entries in Round!

So go set your trail cams up already. And have fun! --The Editors

Click here for more info on the prizes.

Click here to enter ROUND II of the 2012 SPRING TRAIL CAM CONTEST