Ricky Elkins
RICHMOND — As a child exploring my family’s Eastern Kentucky farm, I often daydreamed of bear hunting as I listened to my grandfather’s tales of the wild animals roaming the land.
Armed with a BB gun, my case pocket knife and a trusty side arm (my sling shot) I would slay the savage beast only to become the envy of the likes of Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett.
Until recently this remained nothing more than a long-forgotten dream, however it soon became a reality.
While on a recent work assignment in California, my birthday presented an opportunity to reward myself with the perfect present — a hunting trip. Not knowing the area, a hunting guide would be a necessity.
So off I went searching the Internet and then visiting local hunting shops for a somewhat-reasonable hunting service.
Some guides wanted a fee that was nothing less than your average mortgage payment, while others appeared to want help financing the federal bailout.
I did, however, manage to find the solution — Snowline Outfitters.
Based in the mountains of Northern California some six hours north of San Jose, Dan and Kendal (his wife) Frasier’s start-up company was pleasantly less than a third of the cost of those so called fancy hunting lodges.
Although new to the guide service, their experience, knowledge of the land was extensive.
As a native to the area Dan and Kendall’s family had hunted the National Forest in Zenica for years so he knew where the black bears lived and feed. The three-day hunt would be a chance of a lifetime that was a well-deserved break from the big city lights.
The drive up to Zenica provided plenty of green scenery and the area reminded me of the Daniel Boone Forest with one exception — this forest was surround by gigantic redwood trees. Many of the trees were wider than my car and were hundreds of years old.
My first day of hunting proved uneventful and also unfruitful. While non-resident licenses and bear tags were not cheap, a mix-up led to an expected delay.
The clerk was not very experienced and by accident had given me an application, not a bear tag, so off to the city Dan went to hopefully straighten things with the department of Fish and Wildlife and hopefully obtain a tag.
In the mean while I got to see the operation in full swing.
Kendall, the official guide of Snowline Outfitters, knew how to hunt better than most men. She quickly explained the basic strategy to hunting the black bear.
For the most part I compared it to my days of raccoon hunting. A hunter’s most important item was a set of highly trained dogs that could smell, track and chase down a 200-300 pound animal with a heart to hunt.
These 50-pound marathon runners would run up, down and between the brush piles, doing almost anything to find a bear while you basically sat back at the truck waiting for results.
The first part of the chase begins with what is known in bear hunting terms as boxing. Most bear hunters have a specially designed box or platform with railings attached to the back a four-wheel drive truck, which allows the dogs to carefully ride on top.
Riding high on the truck, this is where they track the animals with their keen sense of smell. Driving along one of the multiple back roads (or should I say logging trails) with his four-wheel drive truck the hunter simply takes a drive into the country until the dogs go crazy.
A good dog will know the difference between a bear and deer, but even a dog can make a mistake.
When alerted by man’s best friend, the hunter simply pulls over only to find fresh bear tracks crossing the road. The dogs are then released and the chase is on.
Now if you’re wondering how they find the dogs, this sometimes can prove to be another challenge. Each pet is attached with a special collar that houses an electronic homing signal. So even if your dog manages to run into the next county and you are unable to hear their barks, the tracking signal is received by a simple directional finding (DF) radio.
In fact in this day of electronic wonders, they also have GPS-enabled units for the geeky hunter, but California state law forbids their use.
“Each dog has its own personality” Dan Frasier said. “Usually when you hear the long drawn-out barks they are in the chase, its when they start getting really excited that’s when you know you have a bear treed.”
Dan and Kendall coordinate with a group of local hunters who enjoy the art of hunting just as much anyone.
Armed with two-way radios and an army of seven or eight dogs each, they lumber around the logging trails of the national forest until one of the units detects a bear. The radio is quickly filled with background sounds of joyful dogs having caught the whiff of something, while they carefully making a plan of attack.
Like a well coordinated air strike, one hunter releases the dogs and tries to keep up with the chase on foot, while the other one stays back with the truck — which is usually repositioned high on the mountain top.
With the dogs hot on a trail, the rest of the pack, which is strategically placed on various other points of the mountain, is released later in a coordinated effort to surround the bear. The animal, being chased by as many as 15-20 dogs by this time, will basically feel cornered and hopefully retreat to the safety of a tall pine tree.
This is where the chase sometimes become both exciting and dangerous. A cornered 200-plus pound bear doesn’t always go down without a fight — this is a wild beast, not the cuddly stuffed animal you buy the kids for Christmas.
In fact some of the bigger 400 and 500-pound veteran bears get tired of running and sit down and fight.
“We lost two of our best dogs to a bear attacks last year,” Dan Frasier said. “He was a 500-pounder. Instead of the dogs doing the chasing he simply chased the dogs, killing and wounding several dogs before we could catch up.”
On the first day of the chase the dogs were right on target as they managed to find a small black bear on the first try.
But, it was a small — estimated at around 90 pounds. The legal limit in California is anything over 50 pounds, however the true hunter practices catch-and-release, enabling the small bears to grow.
Hours later, the blue tick mixed hounds treed their second catch of the day — a small bobcat.
Although in season no one had a bobcat tag, so the dogs were gathered up and everyone headed home as daylight started to fade.
Dinner featured, well no surprise — BBQ bear ribs. After a good dinner and great conversation it was off to bed for another early morning.
The second day was unsuccessful, despite driving throughout what seemed the entire forest,. No bears, bobcats, deer in fact nothing was stirring — not even a mouse.
Giving up on a bear we even tried calling out coyotes with Dan’s rabbit call with no luck. Only a small heard of deer poking out of the trees to see what was going on.
Deer season was over three weeks prior to my trip.
With my final day of hunting upon us I was beginning to think I would go home empty handed.
Dinner began with a regular strategy meeting with plans to explore a new area in the morning. Farther away from the normal hunting area, it would require getting up even earlier.
Normally 5:30 a.m. was bad enough, but now my clock was set for 4 a.m. and boy did it come early.
Drowsy, but excited to have a black bear in the sites of my Remington .308 rifle, I got up and put my hunting gear on for one final day. Only the dogs were awake enough up to jump into the truck like they had slept the night away.
Me on the other hand, I was so sleepy I nearly forgot my gun.
The weather was perfect and luck was with me. As we entered the logging trails, (which are barely wide enough for a small truck) the dogs went wild and with bear tracks everywhere Dan radioed the rest of the teams and the chase was on.
With the dogs yelling like they had won the lottery I finally managed to wake up.
Within minutes the dog’s bark began getting excited and the radio crackled with traffic. Dan told me to get my gun and make sure to bring my bullets.
I guess he wondered if I was still awake.
After a short trip down a long valley, I finally gazed upon my reward. A huge black bear resting on the ledge of a big pine.
Two shots later the 227-pound bear was on the ground.
Now the fun began.
Going down the mountain was easy, packing out a 200-pound plus bear, well that’s not exactly something you want tell the grandchildren. An hour later we had packed out the bear and headed to the house.
After tagging the bear and taking some routine pics, Dan and his family went to work cutting, slicing and fixing up what would be a gourmet meal for any hunter.
Two coolers and a bag of ice later and I was headed back to home.
The six-hour drive was a long one, but filled with memories of childhood fantasy becoming reality.
