” But about 1/2 hr later, there was a very loud crash in the woods below us at about 40 yards. A rather large hardwood had fallen! From experience, I knew that was “our bear” letting us know this was round one!” – that’s a quote from the last paragraph from P1.
Round 2 was about to begin!
One of the prime signs that let’s us know we’re dealing with a dominant black bear is the crash of dead hardwood trees in the immediate vicinity. And they are not trees that fall of their own volition or in a gale force storm that knocks them over – that too can happen. But those are not soft wood pine, spruce or fir, but mostly hard maple and a few others that have naturally died of old age, stripped of their bark and most branches. Big bears lean against them standing and with powerful shoulder muscles began to push until they begin to rock. Then in harmony with that rocking effect, they give a “big push” and down she comes with a mighty crash that reverberates throughout the surrounding area for a half-mile or more.
Why do they do that? Perhaps it’s fun, but mostly to announce their pressence to all creatures that hear and feel it – including humans! Their psychology goes something like this: Since they are the only creature that can purposefully do it, don’t mess with them! A bull moose might do it accidentally with a smaller, weakened tree, but not specifically to intimidate anything other than a competing bull. Bears are smart and can calculate cause and effect! Usually a bull or cow moose will move away from humans unless it’s the rut or she has a calf to protect.
But a dominant male bear has established “the rules” of the area he wants to control.
< 5 gal bait buckets that bears carry off full or empty.
Round 2 started with the powerful hit of one of the empty white 5 gal. bait buckets that was carried off somewhere into the surroundings. I think that is for fun and games, after all who wouldn’t like to hit one of those with a baseball bat to hear the audible “whop!” and see it sail off into the trees, but, again the bear has an additional motive, the same as pushing over a big hardwood!
This is a 15 inch thick hardwood that fell across my access trail to last year’s bait setup where the huge dominant bruin was attending! It happened near the end of the 2024 spring hunt. I’d sold my chain saw, and a hand saw would have taken hours of muscle power to take out a piece a yard wide! Did “my bear” do that? In all likelihood, yes! Since I wasn’t there when it happened, I can’t be 100% sure, but knowing what bears can do, and do, I’m at least 2 out of 3 guesses that it was “my bear”! That’s 67% sure that a big bear did it!
After all, there were no wind storms in mid June! If nature was taking it’s course, it would have come down in March with its stormy winds. And why across the only direct trail to the bait site another 50 yds beyond? And the only way around either end was through impossible thick bush! At first it was like a sign that I wasn’t to hunt that big bear. Then I decided to hunt it anyway, so I’d put the bucket of bear grub over first, then sit on the log, keeping the rifle under control, swing my right leg over next, followed by the second while still sitting on the log – it worked perfectly!
When my friend, Ken, my sometimes partner, shot his big 400 pounder on private land, it was preceeded by a loud crash of a tree in the forest before the bruin appeared at a pond for a drink. He shot it there (65 yds) and it still ran up a hill and dived into a thick thorn bush. It bawled eleven times (recorded on video) in darkness enabling me to find it. A single shot was all he could get. The big bear never went down but swapped ends, ran up the hill, dove into the thorn bush, bawled eleven times before it was found. It lived at least 6 – 7 minutes with a 3″ hole through its lungs from a Federal Premium 150gr Nosler Partition in .270 caliber. That was a kill shot but not a stopper! In a close encounter, I’d want more muscle!
< Ken’s rug from the 400 pounder.
And we have Internet “cowboys” who say black bears are easy to kill! Of course, they never qualify anything!
The one that pushed over the tree and slapped the empty white 5 gal bucket, wasn’t done yet!
Round 3 was the grand finale!
Darkness was quickly falling. One thing for certain: You don’t want to be caught in the woods, in pitch darkness, with a mega bruin on the prowl that pushes over trees and beats up 5 gal buckets after the sun has gone to sleep 1/2 hr earlier!
This is 1/2 hr after sunset at a different location several years later. I was just getting ready to leave my stand. That leaf in the middle blocks the bait barrel at 115 yds. A young bear had been feeding at it with momma bear keeping watch in thick bush to the right. Once in a while she’d stick her head out. After I’d taken this pic, I descended the ladder to go to my van 200 yds away. The leaves were illuminated by the flash on my camera.
We were caught in such a scenario! As I unleashed myself from attachments to the tree stand and made ready the rifle and self to descend the ladder, another loud crash happened at less than 20 yards to my rear, about where George, my partner was stashed! “Hey, George, you OK?”, I hollered. . . By then I’m on the ground with rifle ready for anything I can’t yet see! Out of the darkness, like a ghost, George appears shaking in his boots! Not much above a whisper he blurts olut: “That tree nearly fell on me and I just about messed my pants”. I believed him and quickly added: “We must leave NOW!
We never saw that bear during the hunt or after – maybe it was all just our imaginations gone wild! Some Internet cowboys would strongly suggest that! Some have even said they’er easier to kill than whitetails!
Yeah, try telling that to George!
That was my first DOMINANT BRUIN that was totally unseen!
Till the next: P3 – Several years later, my first seen Dominant Black Bear
Shalom
BOB MITCHELL
Lovin' The Big Bang 