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 »

The subject of proper rifle storage has different meanings for different people. Some will say the most important aspect is safety; where others will argue it is ensuring the rifle is safe from damage like fire or corrosion.  Most of us including me want all of the above with the least effort.

No matter which example is your idea of proper rifle storage, here are some suggestions for you to get your rifle out from under the bed or stuffed in the garage in a corner and into an improved environment.

I’m a gun safe fan but a good cabinet is the same.  Even a big box or small shed is better than the random corner of the room or under the bed stuff.  We all should consider our rifles prized possessions and treat them as if our grandkids will inherit them and use them.  That said a cabinet or safe seems a better investment or gift.

Likely my most imprinted memory of the night before opening day of the duck or deer or elk hunt, as a kid, was the smell of Hoppe’s Gun Solvent as we cleaned our gun in preparation for the hunt.

The post season cleanup of a gun doesn’t hold the excited memory but is pretty important in keeping a rifle functional for me and my grandkids.

The first rule in storing rifles is to keep them away from moisture/humidity and keep them stored at a stable temperature. Many gun cabinets/safes are equipped with the ability to add warming units. Some rifle owners use a simple low-energy “curly fry” fluorescent bulb and find that these will run continuously for about 10,000 hours with very low power consumption. 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 »

If we spend enough time hunting most of us will develop strong feelings for certain game species.  The grizzly bear demands many of these deep feelings.  Envy for his strength and freedom.  Respect for his cunning, aggression and independence.  Fear toward his short temper and his random unpredictable personality.  Awe in his isolation, and choice of habitat and beauty of the same.