Bear Bums – Bear Hunting

One of the most famous hunters in history was a man named Benjamin Vernon Lilly (December 31, 1856 – December 17, 1936), nicknamed Ol’Lilly. He was a notorious big game hunter and houndsman; a real mountain man. To this day, he remains famous for hunting down large numbers of grizzly, cougars and black bears.

Lilly was born on December 31, 1856, in Wilcox County, Alabama. His family soon moved to Mississippi, but by the age twelve he was living with an uncle in Louisiana. This is where he learned to track, trail, and kill bears and cougars.

His 180th black bear was killed in 1906 as he was living in the Big Thicket country of Texas. President Theodore Roosevelt hired Lilly as a hunt master but Lilly proved to be a poor guide as he was only content in guiding only for himself. Lilly moved to Mexico a couple of years later and this is where he killed his first grizzly bear in Chihuahua, Mexico.

The years between 1911 and 1916 proved very profitable for Lilly; he was hired at $75 a month as a forest guard/trapper for New Mexico’s Apache National Forest. Each year Lilly killed up to fifty bears and lions. In 1916, Lilly became a government lion hunter in the New Mexico-Arizona District, but he was a “mountain man” at heart and did not like having to obey the early game laws. He was ultimately terminated in 1920 for spending excessive amounts of time killing grizzlies and not enough time killing lions and wolves. Read the rest of this entry »

In the mid-nineties I spent 2 weeks in the spring hunting brown bear on the coast of Alaska.  My baby son, Jed was with me.  I think he was about 13.   We were told it rained approx. 350 inches a year in this area.  By the end of our hunt we didn’t believe it rained that little! We spent approximately 18 hours a day waiting on a frequently used brown bear path and glassing the hill sides.  Jed shot a respectable black bear (an amazing shot by the way) but we saw 1 small brown bear for 45 seconds.  We were wet the whole time, slept in small tents and ate dehydrated food.  It was a hard hunt, mentally.   I believe we were in an area called Icy Bay.

That fall, still wanting a brown bear, I rebooked, at a discounted rate, with the same guy.  I took a commercial airline to Yakutat (a fishing Indian town), then shuttled to Icy Bay via canvas covered light aircraft owned by the outfitter.  That day, on his news radio, we had an Alaskan tsunami warning with a time of arrival.  We didn’t know if the wave would hit us 100ft high or what.  We started hacking a trail through the overgrown forest, up the mountain with urgency.  The Alaskan coast is a jungle with alders, devil club and other inventions intended to keep humans out.  We figured we made the 100 foot elevation we desired and packed many supplies up there.   The owner took off in the canvas airplane to save it.  The tsunami arrived–approx 4-6 inches of ocean rise.

Icy Bay is fed by multiple glaciers with floating, hanging and calving glacier chunks.  There are seals, lots of birds and I assume gobs of fish.  It’s a beautiful place in a very rugged way. After the tsunami scare the owner and guides were busy cleaning up and replacing our mountain stash.  I, meanwhile, became more a Read the rest of this entry »

I try and always have a hunt booked in the future.  This keeps me excited and involved.  I can also gradually pay for the hunt without getting in as much domestic deep soup.
A disadvantage of advanced booking is the inability to be available for the unexpected good deal or an unexpected draw hunt.

Next on the agenda is a trip to Baldy Mountain Outfitters with a great friend, Harry Leuenberger.  This spring I’ll be hunting grizzly bear with him in his great area, and I’m pumped.  Harry, as a kid, helped his dad get this area going and when the time came he bought his dad out and has run the area for years.  I met him first about 15 years ago on a goat/deer hunt on a November deep snow hunt.  He hunts hard and seems to enjoy my success as much as i do.

British Columbia Goat

Over the years since, I’ve only missed a few years without a hunt to his area.  I’ve been fortunate enough to harvest lots of bears, a great goat, a Shiraz moose with a bow, been chased by bears and had dozens of wonderful hunting experiences.  Many hunts with Harry have involved my kids on thrilling hunts.  One fall my brothers and I hunted deer on a late November, cold hunt and had great success and a great time.

My daughter and I on a spring bear hunt in BC.

His area harbors healthy populations of wolves, grizzly bears, black bears, elk, white tail deer, mule deer, goats and big horn sheep.  His area is close to the continental divide just north of Glacier National Park.

Back to this spring hunt for grizzly bear.  Harry offers one grizzly hunt each spring and with the grizzly permit I will have 2 black bear tags.  We’ll spend our time glassing slide areas where the snow is just receding leaving tender shoots of grass the bears must like.  On other spring hunts there, I’ve seen the great grizzled beasts on the slide looking like they own the forest.  Grizzly bear hunting has been the object of much political debate in Canada and the U.S.A.  This seems very political, as the actual grizzly population is healthy a in most places….a little too healthy.

Micah’s black bear.  This is a great story for another time.

Other than the grand slam of sheep I place the grizzly bear on the very top of my trophy to have list.

If I can get Harry’s permission I’ll pass on the incident where he had a grizzly chew on him for a while.  He did show me the place, Alder Nob, where the episode happened.  I noticed for several years, after his to close of an in counter, he carried a shot gun with him.  Below are some photos of some friends and me in our various trips to Baldy Mountain Outfitters. intimate sensual e cards

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I just read this article about bear overpopulation in the Ontario, Canada area. Here are some of my thoughts.

Some of the reasons I love bear hunting….I’m not sure I can number them without leaving out the most important or make it not sound like a political statement.

1. Bears have individual unpredictable personalities
2. Bears have personalities

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3. There are bears pretty well all over the world (remember the bears of India—Major Jim Corbett; pandas, polar bears, grizzlies, browns, sun bears and the list goes on and on all over the world)
4. I can see them (if I keep my eyes open I see bears when I’m driving places, fall hunting, spring hunting etc.) lights brite glo colchicine percentage diarrhea
5. Bears, for the most part, are over-numerous.
6. Bears are quiet, loud, sneaky, shy, and aggressive and many times all at once.
7. With a little planning I can hunt them almost every year and have a great time doing it.

Articles like this one about Ontario, Canada bug me! I realize as hunters we’re stuck in a political mess and in many ways our neighbors to the north are worse off, like with gun laws and federal level laws.

I’ve been nervous as I’ve watched how our federal government handles issues like the wild horses and burros. Instead of making money on cowboys enjoying roping these wild animals we spend million of dollars on federal programs that do not work on capturing (with helicopters) and selling the horses to tree huggers.

We’ve (federally) acted similarly with the wolves, tree owls and even with our oil reserves. STOP ME! Anyhow, Canada in ways has a more difficult deal with national government than the USA has, but as hunters and bearbums we’re buddies. The Provinces of Canada have a huge resource with their bear population. Some of the lower States and Alaska have the same resource. I hope we can help out by sharing our excitement about bears and even our incomes as we travel and hunt in these locations. The loss of spring bear hunting in a Province like Ontario hurts us all.

Sorry about the politics. Take some time and read an old time story about hunting. See what we’ve given up and what we still have! Campfires In The Canadian Rockies or Man-Eaters of Kumaon by Major Jim Corbett.

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