A Bear Story
Question:
Great story, Rob. Oh, now tell how you got it to camp. — Jim carry on Visit the rec.hunting and rec.hunting.dogs FAQ Home Page at: http://sportsmansweb.com/hunting/
Response:
A lot of you guys helped me last spring and summer when I was in the process of choosing a rifle for a moose hunt in British Columbia. I want to once again tell all of you how much I appreciate the good information, advice, and ideas. I thought some of you might enjoy reading what I wrote about the hunt in my weekly newspaper column: EYE OF THE STORM. By Rob Storm "SHOOT!" You couldn’t miss the word — not when it’s whispered with an intensity that hits your ears like the buzz of an angry rattlesnake. My cardiac and adrenal systems began to work together as a team. The heart pounded into high gear to force blood to every corner of my body; the adrenal glands pumped hormones through my system so that every part of my being — every muscle fiber and every nerve ending — stood at attention, posed for action, ready to fight or run. Each available brain cell focused itself on one single point. I could smell it, wild and musky in the darkness. I could hear it, woofing and growling in the gloom. But I could barely see it in the thick shadows of the northern twilight — that was my first problem. There it was — a big black indistinct circle of fur some 20 feet distant. The second problem was that when you’re talking about wild bears, 20 feet is scarcely any distance at all and that the big dark circle didn’t move left or right — it just got bigger and bigger. The rogue bear was on the move; he was coming my way. This particular bruin had already made himself quite a reputation. He had been on the prod for at least a week. In the last few days he had destroyed two line camps, the nearest just a few miles south of our headquarters. Yesterday we saw his huge tracks in the muddy snow near the airstrip, not more than half a mile from my cabin. A few seconds ago he frightened the wits out of Lloyd, the youngest of the hunting guides. I couldn’t see the sights on my rifle. I couldn’t make out which end was what on the bear. But here he was, in my face. And getting closer. I didn’t come here to northern British Columbia to hunt bear. That wasn’t the idea at all. This was supposed to be a moose hunt. In fact it had been almost 12 years since I had hunted anything at all — more than a decade since I had held a rifle or shotgun in my hands and felt the touch of trigger on my finger. I’m not sure why I quit hunting — it simply happened. One day I just looked up and noticed that quite a few years had gone by without my putting any venison into the larder or quail in the frying pan. But I do know why I decided to hunt again. I have more than one friend who doesn’t eat meat and I respect those who are vegetarians, whether the reasons are ethical or health-related. But whether I consume meat or not, the simple fact is that every time I eat anything at all — every time I take a bite of baked potato or a chunk of chuck roast — something else has to die. Something has to die so that I can live and the reason I decided to hunt again is pretty simple. Just as wheat doesn’t magically transform itself into bread — millions of individual living seeds have to give up their lives as they are ground into flour so that we can then turn raw grain into biscuits, pancakes, or loaves of light bread — sirloin steak doesn’t naturally come packaged in Saran Wrap from the meat counter. It comes wrapped up in cowhide and you find it grazing on four legs. That’s why I made the decision to hunt again. I find that when I’m closely involved with the harvest on some primitive, elemental level, I have more respect for my food, and by extension, life itself. Just how close, how elemental, I hadn’t guessed. I never thought it would come to such an immediate question: which one of us –the bear or me — would live to walk away. It takes a few minutes to read these words on paper, but there, standing on the frozen muskeg, it took less than a second. Every point of my very being focused on this one thing — this dark shadow against a dark background. My mind emptied itself into perfect serenity and some basic, primitive part of me pushed aside conscious intellect and, with the greatest of confidence, assumed command. In one fluid motion, that thing that was me, and not really me, raised the gun to my shoulder, aimed, squeezed the trigger, felt the stock jump, and heard the rifle go off. I didn’t bother to chamber another round. I knew it was over. We didn’t begin the search until the safety of daylight. And there it was, dead in the snow, a few feet from where it stood the night before — a 500-pound black bear. Maybe I’ll hunt moose tomorrow. Visit the rec.hunting and rec.hunting.dogs FAQ Home Page at: http://sportsmansweb.com/hunting/
