Delta Bear Hunt Day 4 - Dropping Guns (and Bears)

The cabin was quite dark and quiet so I slept really well.  After waking up and putzing around for a bit, everyone met for breakfast followed by a morning of fishing.  I went out in Derrick's boat with Justin.  It was a beautiful steely grey morning.  Fishing started out slow, but there was enough action to keep things interesting.  All the pike we caught were small, but it was still great to be catching fish.  I did catch one smally in addition to the pike.  Justin spent quite a bit of time using a flyrod, which would have been neat to see, but he wasn't able to connect with it.

On the way back in camp we stopped for a few casts in Petrushney (and I am just about sure that isn't spelled right) Bay.  It has been a very dry summer in Manitoba, but recent rains had started the water running again at the small waterfall at the mouth of the bay.

After soup and sandwich for lunch, we all headed out to go after bears.  I was headed back to Moose Creek, the same stand I had been on the previous night.  Matt was also on the same stand he sat on previously.  Mike was dropped off first at the other downriver stand that hadn't been sat on yet.

When Max and I walked into the stand there was a bear on the bait with his head stuck in the barrel.  The activity on this stand is incredible.  At least the bear ran off this time - likely because nothing was left in the barrel.

I got up into the treestand and got settled.  Max gave me the thumbs up before heading back to the boat.  Just as he got out of sight, the whole stand shifted in a jolting manner.  My rifle slid, banged on the footrest of the ladder stand.  I reached to grab it, straining my arm only to watch the gun tumble to the ground.  I stared in horror as my Ruger was sitting, barrel nearly straight down several inches in the dirt, like a planted tree.  OH SHIT!  I made sure everything else was secure and climbed out of the treestand.  The barrel was plugged with dirt.  I ran back to the boat.  In hindsight, I'm not sure what I was going to do at the boat that I couldn't do there, but two brains are better than one.  Max and I made an impromptu gun cleaning kit out of some saplings and some leaves.  We got the barrel at least mostly clean.

I nervously went back to the stand - since there had been a bear on it before, I wasn't sure it wouldn't have come back to the filled bait barrel.  Back in the treestand I get settled again - this time being overly cautious.  My mind pondered my rifle.  I would have been more nervous had the scope been hit or if it had been wacked in the action.  While dirt in a barrel is bad, ranges in bear hunting are close enough that impact would be unlikely to be shifted enough to give a bad hit.  Right???

The first bear came in at an early 3:30, surprising with all the gun falling and in/out of the stand.  It spent time getting the logs out of the barrel, but ended up pulling one from the top end of the barrel through the side hole - getting it very stuck in the process.  The bear was not happy and spent quite some time shredding the log with its teeth and claws to get at the food inside.  Note to self:  Do not get in a fight with a bear.

A second bear came in a short time later.  As with the previous night, both bears barely tolerated each other at the bait ... barely (or would that be bearly?).

The second bear only stuck around a short time, with the first bear staying for over an hour.  Then I had a long uncomfortable stretch where nothing was happening.  It was still a very nice evening.  Temperatures were perfect with some sun, but in the deep, thick woods it wasn't hot.  There were a few mosquitoes, but not too bad.  There was absolutely no wind which was both good and bad:  good since it made the evening serene, bad since every movement felt like I was banging a gong advertising my presence for miles around.

The somewhat uncomfortable stand also made the long stretch more difficult.  I spent too much time pondering the impact of the fall on my rifle, whether I should switch to my back-up TC shotgun.  I wondered why I wasn't seeing all the bears from the previous evening.  Time passed slowly.  I had to remind myself how incredible it is that I get to do these things.  I recently saw an article discussing Type 1 Fun (fun in the moment) versus Type 2 Fun (not fun in the moment, but fun - usually really fun - in retrospect).  Hunting can sometimes be both Type 1 and Type 2 at the same time.

As the evening started to approach some longer shadows, another bear came in.  My heart raced since I was hoping that the less amount of bears compared to the previous evening might mean something big was nearby.  But it was a small bear.  I watched it for a while before it left.  

I had another bear circling me a short time later.  I caught only a few glimpses of it behind me.  I was not sure how big it was, but it was obviously very wary.

As the darkness grew bigger, another bear came from the opposite side of the barrel.  I was sure this was going to be a big bear.  I had already brought my gun up on my Bog Pod with the previous bear.  In the dimming light, I saw the bear turn broadside, brought my gun up and shot.  The bear hunched and took off.  I knew it was hit, but I didn't hear it moan.  I also didn't hear it crashing away.  After waiting not enough time, I climbed out of the stand and nervously approached the barrel.  Just beyond the bait was my bear.  It wasn't the monster that I thought it was, but it was a beautiful Manitoba black bear.

The situation was much like my 2011 bear hunt - where I assumed I should see a big bear, even if part of my brain knew the bear I was looking at through my scope wasn't huge.

Once back in the stand, I pondered the last decade.  If in 2011 I was a bit disappointed with a smaller bear, in 2021 I saw a beautiful animal after two incredible days on the stand - with five days to still spend fishing with great people.  Midlife may be painful, but perspective is everything.  There are Big Questions nearly every day, but these small, beautiful moments can't be traded for anything.  Even if I had visions of huge Canadian bears as I spent 20 hours driving to get here, once the bullet left the barrel, I am happy with the result.  Quite frankly, I am the luckiest SOB on earth (with apologies to Sam Malone).

Max had heard me shoot from the boat quite a ways out since it was such a quiet evening.  He came in early.  When I heard the boat I cautiously walked past the barrel and met him at the shore.  "Did you shoot?"

"I did."

"Did you get it, do you know where it is?"

"It is right by the barrel.  You can't miss it.  I'll got get my stuff from the stand."

"Right on man!"

I got my stuff while Max loaded my bear in the sled.  We took a few pictures and got the bear loaded into the boat.  Then we headed down to pick up Matt.  Like me, he had seen a few bears, but nowhere near as many as the previous day.  One bear in the area when Max went in circled the stand - huffing and puffing in a menacing manner.  No doubt these bears are aggressive this year, likely due to a mix of not as much food and little hunting pressure for almost two years.

Back at camp a total of four bears were taken (Mike, Justin, Ron and mine).  We all ate dinner while the guides started skinning and quartering the bear meat.  My shot had been right through the boiler room so the impact of the gun falling was negligible.  Only a small amount of one shoulder was bloodshot.  It was a late night for me, but even later for the guides as I went to bed once my bear was cleaned.

Delta Bear Hunt Day 3 - Bears All Night

After the stress of getting across the border was removed, I slept surprisingly well.  I woke up in time to poke around online and have a bit too much coffee before hitting the road for the final leg of my journey.

It was raining heavily as I got packed up, and I knew it was going to slow me down, so I had no problem leaving a little early.  I got out of Fort Frances and worked my way north and west.  This part of the drive is quite remote and I would have enjoyed it if it hadn't been so dark and dreary, but I was also getting excited.

I stopped in Kenora just as Walmart was opening and bought some seltzer water and a few bags of M&Ms.  I have no idea what made me buy the candy.

Just outside of Kenora I had a deer run out in front of me, reminding me I need to keep my eyes open.  Thankfully the rain had stopped by this point.  Another deer ran towards me just outside of West Lake; it seemed determined to end it all by my front bumper, but I was able to avoid her.  

Once into Manitoba, I saw another deer run across the road with a wolf on her heels - definitely a first for me.

After stopping to get gas in Lac du Bonnet, I made my way to camp.  I saw Vance as I was pulling in and he pointed me to a cabin behind the skinning shed.  It wasn't ready yet so I chucked a lure into the water for a while, getting one bite by the dock.  Once the cabin was ready, I putzed around a bit waiting for everyone else to arrive.  Their border crossing was not so smooth.  One person had an antigen test instead of a PCR test and was turned away.  Everyone else was selected for another PCR test by Canada, so it took a couple of hours for everyone else.  Eventually they made it into camp, with just enough time to head out to hunt.

Carter took Matt, Tyler and me down river.  I was dropped off second.  Bear hunting had started.  As is usually the case, it took a bit of time to settle down.  This was made harder by the stand leaning uncomfortably forward.  Around 5:30 I was squirming around thinking to myself it was going to be a long sit when a bear immediately to my left startled me.  It walked around a bit before coming out into the bait.  It was a smaller bear, but fun to watch.  I will never tire of how cool it is being so close to these animals.  That first bear started what ended up being one of the most active days of bear hunting I have ever had.  For the rest of the night, there were bears in front of and around me.  It was awesome.

It was hard to think about how fortunate I am to have these adventures.

There were several times where there were two bears on the bait at the same time.  Any time this happened, they tolerated each other - but only barely.  They would moan and growl menacingly at each other.  A few times, this reach the level where they started fighting.  It was quite intimidating being less than 50 yards from bears which were snarling and fighting.

I'm not sure how many different bears in total I saw, but it was between five and ten.  

As the night went on, the bears got incrementally bigger.  Late in the evening, I had to struggle to decide if a bear was big enough to take.  None of them were jaw-droppers, but the last bear I saw in daylight was a really nice bear (picture below is actually the second-to-last bear I saw).

Ultimately my gun stayed silent.  As it got dark I could hear another bear come in and in the murky shadows it looked much bigger.  I could hear two of them growling on the bait as Carter came and got me.  One bear took off, but the other absolutely refused to leave.  I had to get out of the stand with that pissed-off bear making sure I knew that I was an invasion.  It was both exciting and a bit scary.

Matt had had a similar night to mine, with bears nearly continuously past about 5:30.  Tyler had seen one, which had walked right under him.

Back in camp, everyone except Jon (waiting on new COVID test) was there.  Everyone who had hunted had seen bears which was pretty incredible.  There was one shot, but it wasn't found yet in the dark.  Looking would resume in daylight.

Dinner was late but good.  I went to bed happy to be in camp, lucky to have seen so many bears, and rethinking my decision not to shoot.

Delta Bear Hunt Day 2 - Crossing the Border

Not surprisingly, I was up really early.  I putzed around the hotel room a bit before deciding I might as well leave.  After packing up, I was on the road before 5:00 local time.  Traffic was non-existent while the lights on the wind turbines winked at me.  Being nearly the only car on the road, I slowed only slightly for a construction zone, only to see the car that came up behind me was a cop car.  I'm glad he had better things to do.

I continued north, crossing the Wisconsin border in time to see the sunrise.  The sunrise didn't last long since there was very heavy rain just to the west.  I kept an eye on the radar, happy that the rain largely dissipated before it got to me.  Because it was still early, I was into and out of the Madison area without even realizing it - that does not happen at a state capitol very often.

Traffic did thin somewhat as I continued north.  

I was listening to Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.  I had read a glowing review of the book about how it explores what it means to be human.  The book started out OK, but it got worse and worse through the day.  I'm not sure what book the reviewer was reading, but the book does not explore humanity.  It only tangentially explores screwed up 1950's society, but then devolves into a storyline of the creation of a messed-up sex cult.  The only blessing of the sex cult is that it breaks up the long periods of the book where absolutely nothing happens besides some arrogant and verbose doctor/lawyer pontificating ad nauseam - I can only surmise that this was a vehicle for Heinlein to share his own rambling thoughts.  I will finish the book, but only because there is enough time invested in it that I feel stupidly compelled to do so.  And once finished, I hope I never hear the word "grok" again.

I got in US53 and continued north.  The stretch of highway between Eau Claire and Duluth had much more traffic than I recall from previous trips, but north of Duluth, it thinned very quickly.  Duluth was a bit of a mess with a poorly signed US53 detour.  This was made worse by extremely heavy fog which seemed confined to just the Duluth area.  Garmin to the rescue.

I had about an hour of heavy rain in Northern Minnesota, with it stopping just as I was getting into International Falls.  The rain only slightly detracted from the awesome "Northiness" of the scenery.  Birch trees.  Boggy spots.  Granite outcroppings.  Magical...

As I got near the Canadian border, I started to feel a bit of apprehension:  Was all my paperwork in order?  The initial contact with the border guard was typically terse as he looked over everything.  I don't envy the guards since they need to interpret an infinite number of formats for the COVID PCR test reports.  Mine must have been acceptable so he sent me inside to complete the gun paperwork.  Inside the guard asked what I was bringing in.  "A rifle and a shotgun."

"The shotgun is a Thompson?" he asked looking at my form.

"It's a slug gun."

"What are you doing with it?"

"Bear hunting."

"What do you do with the bear?"

"Eat it, maybe put it on the wall..."

I said that bear tastes a lot like beef.  He just shook his head.  I wasn't going to argue with him, his arms were about as big around as my legs are.  I paid the fee and was on my way into a foreign country.

My hotel was only a couple miles away.  I texted the other hunters that I was in Canada.  Mark called and we talked about the border crossing a bit.  

It was still pretty early so I took a walk by the bay - there was a really nice walkway and park which I was surprised was nearly empty.  The walk felt good after driving all day.

I realized that the other side of the river was the US.  So close, yet so far away.  I guess boats have to (mostly) stick to their own side.

There are train tracks across the river, which means someone could walk across if they chose to.  This was a stupid realization since there are hundreds of miles of the US/Canada border that someone could walk across if they wanted to (hello North Dakota and Montana).  It was also really stupid to take this picture since there are probably 289 cameras watching this spot in the border.  When a cop pulled into the park as I was leaving, I couldn't help but think that getting deported for farting around on the train tracks would be a new level of stupidity even for me.

When I was looking at my route to Manitoba, I saw something called the Fort Frances Tower, which is a 100 foot tower (I'm in Canada, shouldn't that be 30.5 meters?) that overlooks much of the area.  This looked really cool, so I walked down to it only to see that it was clearly marked Closed.  I might have made a fool of myself and asked anyway, but I didn't have a mask to go into the Marina.  Still, the second walk for the afternoon was just as enjoyable as the first, if also a little disappointing.

Back at the hotel, Dinner was another Annie Chun's noodle bowl and Zingers.

Thank you Canada for letting me in.  I am ready for the Adventure to really begin.

Delta Bear Hunt Day 1 - COVID(s) Negative

Some background context is in order here.  In 2018, I went bear hunting.  There was a group in camp that week from the Missouri/Kansa area.  They were a good group and I was in the fishing boat with them various times through the week.  Shortly after getting home, Mark asked me if I wanted to join them in 2020 - with enough people, they could take over camp and were looking for another person or two.  Just when I'm sure that I'm one of the biggest jack-wads in the world, I get a nudge that maybe I'm not the worst?  I won't let it got to my head.

But I had already scheduled another bear hunt for 2019.  The intangible pull north is impossible to neglect - toward wild places and good people.  And bear hunting for three years in a row seemed excessive; regretfully I had to turn Mark's offer down.

2020 came and ... well ... Mark's bear hunt did not happen.

July 19, 2021 Canada announced the border would open to "non-essential" travel on August 9.  Of course bear-hunting was quite essential all along.  I emailed Vance - Any chance bear hunting can still happen this year?  No.  Too many people in the queue.  I understood and was almost relieved since the border crossing would not be trivial.  But within a few days I got an email from Mark - one of their crew had dropped out since he didn't want to be vaccinated.  Did I want to join them?  I did!  They were to be the fist group in camp after 18 months without any bear hunting.  I really did!  I was shocked he still remembered me after three years.

The Canadian Border Guards threatened to strike.  Clearly this was a moment where labor had a full house to the government's pair of 3's.  On the weekend before the border was to open, the border guards began "work to rule" - essentially following the letter of the law at whatever pace they wanted.  Lines at the border grew to miles and wait times were over 12 hours in some places.  A labor agreement was quickly reached.  The border opened August 9.  Wait times on that first day were long, as United States residents seemed eager to head north, but this was short lived and after that first day, border delays became minimal.

As the time to leave approached, I didn't let myself get excited.  While not unreasonable, the extra steps to get into Canada were not insignificant.  With Delta variant spreading and vaccination rates stubbornly low in the US, I wasn't sure the border wasn't going to close again.  The most difficult step was getting a PCR COVID test within 72 hours of crossing the border.  I got one a few days before as a disaster check, then another on Thursday.  I wasn't sure when I would get those results, so Thursday afternoon I got yet another PCR test (getting results of my first one around that same time).  All results were negative, so I didn't end up in a sticky situation.  The clock was ticking on my 72 hours, but it was finally time to get excited.

I took Friday off from work and after a ritual morning dog walk, I packed and then finished mowing a yard which was still very soggy from Thursday's torrential rain.  A little after 1:00, I was on the road headed west.  I stayed on 2-lane roads all the way to Indianapolis since there was a really slow construction zone on I-74.  I don't know that this was faster, but it was less frustrating.  Getting around Indy was...  Then it was a slog west to El Paso (not Texas).  The text messages from the other hunters were going like crazy; it was hard not to look at them a few times.  The hotel was OK, a little grungy, but tolerable.  Dinner was an Annie Chun's noodle bowl and a couple zebra cakes.

There was a lot of loose ends to tie up over the last few days, but it is starting to get real now.