The Icon of the North American Wilderness

 I don’t even know where to start with this one…and hoping I don’t ramble too much and turn this into an essay. A lot of folks ask me what got me into bear hunting, and to be completely honest, it was 100% on accident. I was invited on my first bear hunt in Maine, in 2015 through a DM on Instagram. An outfitter saw I was going to be at the Great American Outdoor Show in PA, and offered me a discounted hunt, and I took advantage of the opportunity, knowing absolutely NOTHING about bears or bear hunting. That first hunt was successful, but honestly, far from memorable…it was actually a pretty horrible experience, but nonetheless, an experience. It was a hunt over bait. I did everything wrong. I fell asleep in the blind. I made noise, I played on my phone…but somehow managed to be 1 of only 2 guys in camp that week to shoot a bear (sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good).

                There was something that resonated with me during my time in the bear woods though, and I booked another hunt for the following year. Different outfitter, much better time, and again over bait. I did bait hunts in 2016 and 2017 and harvested 2 nice boars each hunt. Again, something about being out in the woods, with an apex predator, just felt so completely different from deer hunting. There was something that made it more exciting, it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, it was primal. Deer hunting, for the most part, is pretty damn safe, because it’s predator vs prey…but bear hunting…bear hunting is a game of cat and mouse between predators…with a much higher level of danger, and usually lower success. The uncertainty of the hunt, knowing that bears were NOTHING like I’d expected them to be, drove me to this hunt. I’d always thought of bears as clumsy, awkward, loud…but then seeing them in their natural habitats…seeing how smart, how cautious they were…how they moved like ghosts…unseen and unheard…it made me want to get closer to them, made me want to hunt them more on THEIR grounds.

                Bait hunting was fun, but something about it felt artificial. So, I decided to try hunting over hounds. At this point in time, I’d become obsessed…addicted. I watched videos, I’d read articles, I studied bear behavior, but I still couldn’t explain the fascination with bear hunting. It was just something I was drawn to, something that made me feel more connected to the wilderness than I ever had chasing deer and ducks. Then, as I was researching hound hunts, I stumbled upon a series of videos by Clay Newcomb, of Bear Hunting Magazine. I watched a few videos on his hound hunts, and then watched a video where he was hunting out of a natural ground blind, using a bow made of stick and string, and a bear LITERALLY, walked into the end of his arrow. His emotions were raw, and pure. I felt them through the video, and I could relate to it. It was hunting like no other, primitive, dangerous, rewarding. To be that close, there was a connection I couldn’t describe, but I needed it. I was hooked after that.

                I dove deeper into bear behavior, bear anatomy, and decided that this was it…bear hunting was my new addiction. Finally listening to Clay’s podcasts connected all the dots. In that Arkansas drawl, the first time I heard him refer to Ursus Americanus, the North American Black Bear, as the “Icon of the North American Wilderness”, I knew that’s what it was…that was the missing piece to the puzzle. There was a mystique about bears that I couldn’t place my finger on. Growing up in New England, I knew they were there, but had never seen one in the flesh. In all my time in the outdoors, they had eluded me. I’d seen deer, moose, coyotes, rabbits, but never a bear. I’d seen bear sign, been in areas with lots of bear activity, but never actually seen one. I remember that first hunt, and seeing that black mass disappear from one side of the clearing the bait bucket was in to the other. I thought “are you kidding me…that was it? I’ll never see him again”, until he reappeared and I took my shot. After that, I realized why I’d never seen one before. They were skittish, quiet, and smart. Unlike the portrayal I had heard of growing up.

                The more podcasts I listened to, magazines I read, forums I perused, the more I wanted to hunt bears. But, not just here in Maine and New Hampshire. Everywhere. I decided last year, that, that would be my hunting goal. That would be my “Grand Slam”. Taking a bear everywhere I legally could in North America. To me, that’s better than any Super Slam chasing Big Horn Sheep or Caribou.

Thinking more about it, maybe what drew me to it, was that when I started hunting, and even growing up listening to stories of other hunters, no one talked about bears. No one I knew had ever hunted bears. It was always other big game. Deer and moose and elk. Even now, people say “you hunt bears? Why? Not like you can eat em”. As I sat here and wrote this, I actually remembered the first ever guided hunt I attempted to go on in 2010ish (it never happened by the way). I tried to book a deer hunt in Maine with a few buddies. None of us had ever hunted before, so we had no idea what to do. I called an outfitter and he tried to persuade me to hunt bear instead. He told me it’d be a much easier hunt, with better success. I remember thinking back then, “who the hell hunts bears?” …it just wasn’t something people talked about…and now, here I am.

                                Realizing you’re alone in the woods, but not really, in the bear’s home, gives me a sense of nervous excitement. It’s a rush I hope I never get sick of. The primal nature of the bear hunt is what gets me going. I think, as big game hunters, we’re always trying to figure out a way to connect to those that came before us. The thrill of the hunt comes every time I’m in the woods…but it’s never as big as when I’m chasing bears. Thinking of sharing the woods with an animal that is so iconic in the American wilderness and folklore, is what does it for me. An animal that struck fear into the hearts of early settlers in this country. An animal that is on cave paintings of early Native Americans. An animal with amazing population and sustainability, but can only be seen when IT wants you to see it. All of these factors play into the mystique and untamed nature of the bear. They’re also the factors that makes me so eager enter their domains, and track them all across this continent.

As Clay would say: Keep the wild places wild, that’s where the bears are. And there’s never been a truer statement.