Almost Heaven

[Gut Shot]

I try to get out west once a year for a week away from everything. It didn't work out this year as Wyoming didn't see fit to give me a pronghorn tag that has always been an automatic draw in the past. I thought about an elk hunt with an OTC tag (too expensive) or a bird/varmint hunt. In the end I called a friend who had relatives in West Virginia, relatives who run hounds after bear. The invite (a long standing one) was extended and I went east.

Some interesting facts about hunting West Virginia. Guiding isn't allowed, period. Tags and licenses are cheap, the whole trip cost about $500. Hunting on Sundays isn't allowed.

I got to WV Sunday night and was up around 5:00 Monday getting gear ready. The dogs knew what was up the instant the lights came on. Barking in the back yard, time to go kill bears. We loaded everything into a beat up old Dodge truck, put collars on dogs and threw them in the box and headed "up on the mountain".

I didn't know what to expect at all, I'd never hunted behind hounds. In the dark we pulled off a gravel and rock road and waited. It wasn't long before two other trucks pulled up. I didn't know it at the time but hound hunting in Appalachia is more than just a hunt it is a social event. Both trucks had dog boxes and one was followed by an ATV with a dog box on the back. A young lady with three children was in one truck, her husband was on the ATV. I would learn later that she kind of ran "command and control" for most of the hunts. The kids were around 7years, 5years, and 9 months.

As the sky started lightening up we put the "strike dogs" or "rig dogs" on top of the box and headed up switch backs. It wasn't long before a dog hit. I was new to this and was quite confused by the CB chatter. I knew we were on a bear (turns out we had two bears on the run) but that was about it. We were out of the chase because the other guys were closer and had turned loose on the track already. Since I was the only shooter in the group we got to high ground between the two bears and waited.

The dogs wear GPS and telemetry collars. Some have called this unfair, which is complete BS, it keeps the dogs safe and ensures recovery of lost dogs. It also enforces skills in hunters like using maps, compasses, GPS,a nd telemetry equipment.

The call came over the CB that someone had arrived at one of the treed bears. "How big you think it is?"

"I don't know, around 120lbs."

The other bear was also treed, I decided to skip the 120lb bear and see what the other looked like. So down the mountain and through the hollow we go.

The hunt took place on leased land and could have moved onto National Forest land if the bears decided to head that way. A group of guys will get together, form a hunt club and lease up thousands of acres to hunt bears on. It sounds expensive, but remember there are no outfitters to drive lease prices up to ridiculous amounts. This bear decided he didn't want to stay on the lease and headed for private land. Getting permission to go after him was no problem.

After a quarter mile uphill hike this is what we found.







The dogs were going nuts, first day of the week and all. We looked him over pretty good, decided he was about 130lbs and decided to pass. The dogs were pulled off and I was told to go uphill and stand behind a tree to get a good pic of him running off.



Little suckers are fast. And a quarter mile hike up a steep grade is as easy as it gets for this type of hunt.

 

[Gut Shot]

That was it for the first day, September is just too hot to run the dogs all day. December is the time to go, but work won't let me escape in December. That's OK, I had a great day and there is always tomorrow.

The next day was like the first, up on the mountain first thing in the morning. We had a couple more trucks with a couple of guests from Pennsylvania with tags. We hunted a little different part of the mountain that day but the bears were still there. It took a little longer to cut scent the second day but we had a bear on the run in short order.

There was only one, or maybe two, dogs on this bear and it is important to get more dogs on the trail ASAP. A bear usually won't tree with only a couple of dogs on it and it can get bumpy for the dogs. You haven't lived until you've been sliding and bouncing down a shitty mountain switchback in a rusty old Dodge, balls bouncing from seat to ceiling at 45mph trying to cut off a bear. A quick glance back at the dog box showed two dogs, spread eagle, holding on for dear life, on top. Slam on the breaks as a dog jumps into the road in front of the rig. Jump out and, literally, throw fresh dogs on the trail. A while later the dogs show treed near the top of the mountain. This might be bad because it is Rhododendron and Laurel thickets up near the top. I would end up fighting through a couple of thickets by the end of the week and it wasn't fun. You can't see very far in the thickets, you can't move in the thickets and a bear can run around all day and never tree.

Luckily this one was just below the thickets, unluckily we came down from above through the thickets. After a wild ride on the dog rack on the back of an ATV we arrived at a spot above the bear and hiked about a quarter mile down to the bear.



About the same size as the last one. Again I decided to let it go. The guys pulled the dogs down hill a ways and I waited behind a tree for the bear to come down. I was rolling film this time as the bear flew down the tree, turned uphill and charged past me. I mean right next to me. I could have reached down and smacked him on the head. I remember thinking "crap, don't step on my foot."


We hiked a mile or so out and picked up a couple of lost dogs on the way. One guy lost a dog and the GPS collar stopped working, we looked for most of the rest of the day. The telemetry collar was giving a week erratic signal, turns out some other hunters had a telemetry collar with a close frequency to ours. They found the dog that evening, turns out some meth-head picked it up and, in the course of three hours, fell in love with it.

While we're on the subject, drugs are pretty rampant in the area. Meth, heroine, and pills. The decent people are fed up with it. One of the children on the hunt found a needle at a campsite we pulled into, luckily we got him before he messed with it. "Fine, let them come up here and shoot up where there is no cell service and the cops can't get narcan into them in time." is the attitude on the mountain.

Everyone wants to be the dog on top of the box. Meet Daisy, Fred, and Duke.



Like all dogs they each have a different attitude and bring something different to the hunt. Daisy is the bitch who kind of keeps the pack in check, she is very determined when on a track and just won't quit. Fred's just mellow, when a bear is treed and the other dogs are going nuts he just kinda hangs out like he put the bear in the tree, his job is over, time for the boss to show up and shoot it. Duke is a bit of a jerk, but he has a good nose.

This is Shack. Shack is getting old and is crippled in the back end. He can't run the bears anymore but he had an excellent nose and still wants to go, so his place is as a strike dog on top of the box.

 

[Gut Shot]

Day three started earlier, we went to a lease that was on a different mountain about an hour away. We started with an early morning chase and I was put in an ATV and the chase was on. Problem was we didn't have a GPS so couldn't determine an exact location on the dogs. Turns out we were dropped off a couple of ridges away and had to follow the noise the dogs were making. It ended up being a few mile hike through logging slash on the hills and trails on top of the ridges. When we arrived (I wasn't the shooter) a small bear was treed and shot.



The path out was much shorter and downhill. It was on the way out I injured my left knee. Going uphill was fine, downhill hurt like hell. I broke off a limb to use as a walking stick.

At the bottom of the hill was a stream where I washed the sweat off and headed back to a place where the CB's worked. When we got there the call came over that another bear was treed. Back on the chase.

I wasn't the shooter on this one either. It was a decent bear in a bad location. It was high in an oak laying on a branch. If it were to die at the shot it probably wouldn't fall. No matter how we yelled at it and beat on the tree it wouldn't move. I thought it might go to sleep up there. Finally it was decided the guy shooting would shoot the tree under the bear. That worked. The bear got off of the branch and scooted around the tree at which point he hit it with the 45-70. It came half way down the tree where it stopped and was shot again. Then it was on the ground running. Someone on the ground took a couple of shots with a 44 but missed. It didn't matter the bear piled up within 20 yards.


We got an ATV within a hundred yards of the bear and drug her out. Turned out to be a 200lb sow.

One other bear was treed in the afternoon but it was very small animal.


The Forth day the dogs were on the trail of a bear that just wouldn't tree. The GPS showed that the dogs ran just short of ten miles before they were caught and taken off the chase. It became hot and we went in early. The dogs had been running for four days and were starting to show some wear. It was nice to have an easy day to let my knee heal a little.

The dogs thought so too.

 

[Muley_Stalker]

LOL..I always chuckle seeing dogs passed out from a hard day.

 

[MT_elk]

Sounds like an incredible time!

 

[Gut Shot]

The last day we were back on the same mountain as day 2. We were on a bear early and it ended up in a less than ideal situation.

We got to a place on a switch back below where the dogs were showing treed. The GPS said the dogs were 125 yards away. The GPS didn't say that they were also 250 yards up. The bear was bayed up in the rocks. This is bad because a bear will back into a crack or hole in the rock and beat on the dogs as the come at his face. Also you can't get a good look at the gear to see how big it is or get a shot at it. And yes bullets ricochet off of rocks.

I got to the base of the cliff the bear was bayed on and three guys were looking for him. There were dogs above and below the cliff. Somehow we had to get on top. I went to my left and found a crack I could climb up and went to the top. That's where all of the Rhododendron and briars were growing. I fought to the base of a large tree and could hear guys and dogs less than ten yards in front of me but I couldn't see them.

Then, gunshots! I didn't know who was shooting or what direction they were shooting so I got down behind the tree and waited. After a few minutes I got up and collected a dog near me, the three guys below me met up with me and we went back to the crack I climbed up and started climbing down. Someone called for a gun, apparently the bear wasn't dead. I ran towards the call with my rifle and found the bear backed against a tree with its head up. I put it out of its misery with dad's old Marlin 35Rem.

We chased another bear but he got away, the dogs followed the back-trail or young dogs screwed up the experienced dogs. Whatever, the hunt was over. It was hot and the dogs were done in.

That night there was a feast of bear liver and heart at my host's house. I made it an early night, the week had taken its toll on me just like it had the dogs. Early the next morning I was on my way home. I didn't tag a bear on this trip and that's OK, some of the best hunts I've been on ended up with an empty cooler and an un-punched tag. The older I get the less important killing something is to me. And, I think I could do this hunt every year for the rest of my life, never kill a bear and be perfectly happy with that.

I've had people tell me that it doesn't seem fair to the bear to chase it down with hounds then shoot it out of a tree. They don't understand what this hunt is about. I had read tales of hound hunting from modern authors to guys like Faulkner and I never understood the hunt until I actually did it. Oh, I thought I had a good idea of what it was about, but I was wrong. It isn't something you can comprehend from a second hand account, there is no explanation that words can convey. You simply have to do it and immerse yourself amongst these people for a few days to understand that this is more than a hunt. It's about the people and the hounds and the place. It's a social event, actually a precursor to a social event that occurs during the December hunt. It's about men who have brought about a sea change in the bear population in West Virginia and the next generation of houndsmen coming into the sport. It's stories of ancient bears that some of the hunters have known for decades and watched their cubs grow into old bears.* And of course great dogs, dogs who's names are remembered forever, some killed on hunts, others just got too old to do it anymore.

So I've come home with an empty cooler but a great appreciation for this type of hunting. And the belief that there is nothing on this earth with as much single-minded purpose as a good bear hound on the trail of a bear.


*I will post more about the guys who do this hunt in the next couple of days.

 

[NoWiser]

Great story! It sounds like a great experience, thanks for taking us along!

 

[LCH]

I coon hunted a lot as a kid. Your bear hunt sounds a lot like some of my experiences growing up. I really enjoyed reading about it.

 

[brownbear932008]

Those hunts in the mountains sure can be a rodeo sometimes. My family has a long tradition of bear hunting with dogs. They love to run this dogs and chase bear.

 

[1_pointer]

Thanks a ton for sharing that! A bear hunt over hounds is very near the top of my bucket list!

 

[Elkhunter24]

congrats!

 

[Gut Shot]

The guy I hunted with, "D", has been running hounds since the early 1980's. He has helped the DNR for many years in their effort to re-establish West Virginia's bear population. Like many such efforts in North America calling it a great success is an understatement (if you don't believe me look at historic harvest statistics, last year set a record). When D started hunting bears if you treed one or two in a week you were doing OK.

His friend "Ed", in the second picture, is a couple of years older. The two met when Ed was the WV DNR's bear specialist, a title he held until retirement. Ed is pushing 70 and smokes pretty heavily and still runs up and down mountains after bears.

Telemetry collars were the big conservation tool when these two were working on bears. In the winter they would locate the bears, dig them out of their dens and check their health and adjust the collars. They tagged other animals too, everything from snakes and fish to turkeys and grouse, often in conjunction with a student studying wildlife biology. But bears were the main focus and still are.

Long before "Family Guy" debuted there was a sow in Appalachia named "Quagmire". She had been tracked since she was a cub. One year they got a trail cam pic of her, still going in old age even though she was emaciated. Late in the fall of that year the collar showed mortality so they went looking. They found the collar but no bear, she had become so thin that the collar slipped off of her head. They never did find Quagmire but when they found the collar she was two months shy of her 30th birthday!

Then there is Patty, she still roams the mountains at 20 years old. She never got very big but puts out a pair of cubs every couple of years like clockwork. They still tree her from time to time. Of course there were others, bears that beat up hounds, bears that would tree as soon as they heard the hounds, bears that wouldn't tree at all.

Mac and his wife and children are the next generation carrying on the tradition. Five years ago they fell in love with running bears and dove in head first. Their kids have been watching treed bears since birth and will hopefully come to love the sport. They have great mentors in D and Ed. For others it's just a past time, a hobby some will leave after several years. They love it but life gets in the way, kids' sports, a job, a mortgage, a new hobby, it will pull them away from something that they aren't absolutely in love with.

 

[5Speedjim]

I love the hound hunting stories. I ran some in Maine years ago until I got a real job