By Lukas Schulte
A black bear can be a lot. It can be a cute fuzzy cub weighing a few pounds, or 700 pounds of muscle and bones. It can be a caring mother, or a cub-killing territorial boar. Bears can be everything from a funny sight at a bait to a ferocious enemy in the thick scrub of the woods. Some show incredible intelligence, others choose brute force. Each and every bear is different, different in character, body size and behavior.
These are only some lessons me and my brother Simon learned during our bear hunt. We traveled the long way from Germany to the northern Maine woods to experience a week of bear hunting during peak foliage. Simon came with his bow, my weapon of choice was a rifle. We chose to seek the help of well-bred, highly trained dogs and their experienced houndsmen. After one week, my memories are shaped by respect for the bears, the hounds and the houndsmen. Jeff, Steven and Chuck gave us deep inside of their way of living and hunting. The traditional northern Maine sporting camp became our second home for a week, making us a small part of its more than 100 years of history.
All of us looked at the screens of the GPS-Units. The race was on, the pack of dogs had the bear going. From what we saw on the game camera pictures, it was a medium sized bear of about 200 pounds. Good enough for us. We kept on assessing the situation, trying to find out where the bear was headed. Then suddenly, Steven jumped into the truck. We followed, the engine roared and seconds later we flew over the logging roads. The bear would hopefully be crossing at the end of a dead end road in a few moments, and we wanted to be there. Once we arrived, loading the gun and running into the brush was one thing. We stopped on a small clearing, visibility no more than 15 yards in any direction. The barking grew loader, closing in on us. Any moment the bear would enter the stage. Cracking of branches announced the bear, less than 30 yards away. The safety was off, my finger rested on the trigger. Than a breeze in our necks. The bear stopped, and off it went.
In times where almost every hunting method but spot and stalk seems to be under fire, even by hunters, hound hunting not only for bears but for any game has received its share of criticism. It`s easy, they say. The dogs are forced to risk their lives, they are just tools, they say. Most of all, it`s claimed to be "not sporting". I don`t share these opinions. Witnessing a bear running in circles just to vanish once the dogs are confused will teach you that it`s not easy. The intensity, the will and the determination in a dogs eyes once he got a sniff of a bear will tell you, there is no force needed. Once you run a mile through thick brush and swamps to reach a bear just to have said bear disappear for ever, sending you home without your desired trophy, you know it is sporting.
Lots of preparation, endless hours of dog training, years of breeding and learning from mistakes are imperative for hound hunting. The baiting before and during hound season, the scouting, navigating in wild woods, choosing the right dog for the right situation are skills assembled over years.
Now the bear knew the name of the game. But there is no gain in complaining about the missed opportunity. We went back to the truck, unloaded the guns and drove off. We got a little break and had time to reassess what was going on. The bear clearly didn`t want to tree right now. It kept on running and running. Once the race straightened again, we took off to the next road we thought it would cross.
Minutes later we again left the truck, guns ready. This logging road was narrow, thick woods on both sides. The dogs were coming closer, so the bear was even closer to us. The trees swallowed the sounds of the surroundings, but suddenly we heard something moving through the woods. Or did we? And where? Right there or 50 yards down the road? Seconds later water splashed next to the road, and a bear crossed 45 yards ahead of us. The first bear I ever saw in the wild. What a magnificent creature. The shot I fired missed, as we later confirmed, and the bear was gone.
As with the bears, no two dogs are the same. Some are brave, others not so much. Some can run a bear at lightning speed for ours, others fall back in the race. Some dogs can sort out cold tracks for miles and finally jump the bear from its bed, others are easily distracted and need fresh scent to stay on the spur. At the end of a long hunting day, you probably needed all of them at one point. Often during our hunt, the english hound "Diesel" was let go first to follow the track to the bear. He has a tremendous nose and an iron will to find the bear. But once he jumps his foe and other dogs join the race, he falls behind. The faster ones take over, the younger ones. Those will make a hell of a noise and chase the bear as far as it will go. In the end, it`s the fearless ones like Lady and Chloe that stay on the bear, no matter what. Those dogs bay their enemy or have them running up a tree in search for safety.
"You gotta let Diesel do what Diesel does", was a common phrase of our three guides. He may be slow, and he sometimes may do stuff that seems nonsense to his hunters, but most of the times he gets it right. He`ll find the bear if he can do what he does. And others do what they do. You just have to know the strength and weakness of your dogs.
This was one of the lowest lows of my hunting career. How could I miss when it mattered most? To this day I still replay that moment and try to figure out what went wrong. But lamenting over misses doesn`t help either when you are hunting. So we pressed on. Or to put it right, the dogs kept on pushing the bear. They got back on it, and we witnessed them adding miles and miles. Around noon, finally a great sign on the GPS-units appeared: "Teed". The dogs were lifting their heads while barking, indicating a treed bear to the device around their neck. You never know for sure until you reach the bear and the hounds, but in this case, it was right. After a short hike of maybe half a mile we found a black silhouette sitting on big branch of a birch tree. 20 yards separated the hounds and the bear. Our eardrums were about to blow, that`s how loud the howling and barking was. Chuck and Steven secured all the hounds. Simon got ready as we all agreed in that if he had shooting lane for his arrow, he should take the shot. I had a hand on the stem of the tree as I was told that would keep the bear up in his spot. I looked up at the bear and was glad it was not lost after my miss. The hounds relentless pursuit would not be in vain.
When hunting black bears with hounds, the daily routine is pretty much the same every day. Waking up early and leaving camp an hour or so before daylight. The hunters start to check the baitides early for the dogs to have enough time to find and bay the bear in case of a fresh track. Baitsides are equipped with game cameras, but tipped over barrels will indicate that at least something bigger than a raccoon visited the bait. The excitement that builds up inside when going through the pictures and finding out if it indeed was a huntable bear is beyond description. And when the first dog is turned loose, hope for success rises to unknown heights. But that`s only where it starts. Bears can run in circles to put tracks over tracks, they can cross water or even swim downstream to confuse the noses of their followers. Some choose to fight, often leaving the four-legged companions with wounds on their backs and hind legs. A big old bear injured four dogs in one race that week. It was left to live another day when we finally could get hold of Chloe the last dog chasing it. As a veterinarian, treating them and easing their pain after they gave us their all was a pleasure. There is a lot that can go wrong in a race. We experienced a fair share of that during the week. You can`t guarantee hunting success ever, and it`s very true for hound hunting.
Simon drew his bow, his eyes locked in on the bear. In this noise, no one could hear the strings at the release. But the arrow nonetheless drove the fixed blades from the last rib of the bears right side forward. Through hair and skin, muscle and bones, lung and heart all the way to the offside shoulder blade. The black stump buckled, lost its balance and held onto the branch for a second. Then Stevens Lever Gun chambered in 32. Winchester Special barked, and the bear fell to the ground. Simon had agreed to a fast follow up to make sure no hound got injured in the bears final fight. It took 3 seconds from Simon's shot to Stevens, ending the bears agony.
The dogs are family to the houndsmen, no tools. We witnessed the anxiety in Chucks, Jeff's and Stevens eyes when one dog was missing at the end of one days hunt. The GPS-signal showed her being stuck in a nasty swamp, not moving in there for several hours. All of us headed in there, trying to find a way to the spot where she was. What would we find? A strangled dog? A drowned dog? Slowly we jumped from dead fall tree to dead fall tree, not knowing how deep the surrounding water and mud was. In the end, we found her. She had maneuvered herself onto a log but couldn`t go back. Simon and me, being the lightest of the group, finally found a way. We brought her back, glad she only had a miserable day and nothing worse. The dogs were turned loose to take possession of the bear. They bit, they pulled, and barked and howled as if there was no tomorrow. Simon stood next to the hound-bear-bundle, smiling amid his third ever bow kill. Once the dogs let go of their quarry, both of us ran our hands through the thick fur. The hide, the claws, the teeth. Every bit of a bear is wild.
I took a twig of a nearby spruce and handed it to my brother, congratulating him with a Waidmannsheil like we do at home. Simon took another twig, placing it in the bears snout as its last bite, another tradition we wanted to fill with life. A mix of emotions runs through every hunters heart when standing next to a taken animal. Pure happiness mingles with a bit of sadness. Appreciation for the work of the guides and the hounds and the joy of finally fulfilling a dream add to the strange blend of feelings that is so hard to describe and so well-known to hunters.
In 2014, animals rights activists from out of state pressed for a referendum, trying to ban all hound hunting and baiting for bears. Luckily, Maine's residents knew better what was good for them and the states wildlife. One can only hope that the old tradition of hunting bears alongside men`s best friend will be preserved. No hunter needs to practice every hunting method there is. But everyone should be well aware that his or her method may very well be next on the list. It`d be foolish to think animal rights activists will agree with spot and stalk hunting, with stand hunting or any hunting method in the long term. Once one method is banned, the next will be targeted. Only if the modern hunter conservationist defends the freedom of hunting and the freedom of choosing the method, hunting will be there in the future.
If the things had turned out in a different way, I could not write these words. Me and my brother would not have experienced the vast north of Maine. We never knew what a Maine sporting camp looked like, what the camaraderie in a camp was like. We heard stories of bears shot, saw the racks of bull moose above the fire place, enjoyed a beer with our fellow hunters at the end of a long day. I`m glad I had the chance to see the views, smell the smells, taste the tastes. And now, my very own experience answers the question if hound hunting is „sporting".
Steven and Chuck skinned the bear and prepared the meat for the pack out. No gun wound. A clean miss on my behalf. Simon took the heavy hide with the head, I shouldered some 70 pounds of dark meat. Luckily, the truck was parked not to far away. Once there, the drive to the tagging station and the ensuing paper work followed. Back at camp, we finished the day with some walked up grouse hunting close to camp.
In the following days we tried hard to find and tree or bay another bear, but luck was not on our side. No other bear was seen by anyone of us. Every bear we turned the dogs loose on gave us a slip in one way or another. In the end, that doesn`t matter as much as the time spend in the colorful woods, the new friends and memories made. A return trip lays somewhere ahead in my future, I know that for sure.