The Prep, The Challenge, and The Lessons of My First Bear Hunt

The Prep

From Peterborough, Ontario to Sussex, New Jersey. For someone who has black bears doing quality control on her own bird feeders, why the heck would I travel a full day south to hunt them? Well, because I was invited!

This would be my first ever attempt at hunting these ghosts of the forest, and what I didn’t know, was how emotionally unprepared I was going to be. But we’ll get into that shortly…

First the prep.

As a non resident I had some research to do. Rules and regulations to look up. Licenses to acquire, and online training to update. All to be a legal hunter in New Jersey. It’s sounds like a lot, but honestly it’s no different than getting accredited in my home province of Ontario.

The next decision was; should I use my compound bow or the crossbow? Rifle wasn’t an option during the short bear season in New Jersey.

As confident as I am with my compound bow on a block target, I also know the physical, mental and emotional rollercoaster a hunt can be. Having a living, breathing animal in your crosshairs. Waiting for that right moment. The knowledge you’re about to take a life, to feed your own. It’s a big moment to exist in. So trying to control the shakes and strain of that specific moment, all while trying to maintain control of my compound bow, was not something I was ready to take on confidently.

My other option was my crossbow. Heavy, yes, but scoped and accurate. Something I can hold steady, breath through, and be more in the decision making than the physical check list of my posture, tilt of the bow, and position of my pins that my compound bow creates.

My biggest fear, as a hunter, is leaving an animal to suffer through a bad shot. So crossbow it was going to be.

After that, it was gas up the car, pack enough layers to stay warm during the long sits, and upload a new audio book for the long drive ahead.

Chapter 2

The set up

I went into this hunt never having really sat in a tree stand. I tried to prep for it by shooting at my block target from the top of a little hill. I was happy with my shot placement, my form, and the ease I practiced getting into position.

Mentally, I was good with being up in a tree and having bears far below me. What I wasn’t prepared for, was a slight deviation in plans and finding out I was going to be in a ground blind, at eye level, with a bear/or bears.

Now I love being in the woods. I grew up running into the trees. Spent my early days catching critters and building forts from sticks. Identifying birds and bugs. Weaving my way through the trunks of trees like I’m back in the playground at school. Only returning to civilization when hunger hit.

But never in my years of frolicking like a Disney Princess in the forest, had I ever put a moment of thought into bears actually being a presence in the trees with me.

Some hunters are hard core. Waking up in the middle of the night just to get to their favorite spot, their meticulously set ‘stage’, well before sun-up. And then staying out until the sun sets. The type of dark where you can’t see your hand in front of your face let alone what critters are inhabiting the space behind that next tree.

Other hunters have put in their time. Having already spent years loosing sleep, spending countless hours in the woods or fields tracking and hunting their quarry. So they relax, and sleep in. Going out only in the afternoons. Coming home to a warm meal and zero compulsion to set that alarm for 3 o’clock in the morning.

I’m kind of in between. I will hustle and grind when I need to. Taking advantage of good wind, good weather, moon phases, or in this instance a short bear season a whole country away from my own.

I had confidence that I would get my bear early, and then get to sleep-in and play tourist for a few days. But I was mentally prepared to put in the time and grind for that bear.

Chapter 3

The Hunt

‘Don’t pass up something on your first day that you'd be glad to have on your last day.’

That’s the mantra I was telling myself going into this hunt. Did I want a massive tank of a black bear? Hell yes! Go big or go home! But would I be just as happy with a mature bear? A million times yes. So imagine my surprise, shock, and fear at seeing a 400 pound bear, 10 yards away from me, on the first morning. Never in my life have I ever wanted to run away and call it quits than I did in that moment.

Here I was, feeling excited, confident, and optimistic. Being led into some New Jersey forested public land by a small flashlight. Getting placed in a ground blind while my friend Rob, and guide, put himself out of reach in the tree above me.

I was in my blind, getting myself set-up. My chair open and placed just so. My crossbow loaded and set in the right hand corner, the shooting stick placed in the left. My thermos full of hot caffeinated goodness being placed well within reach next to my feet. I even took a moment to make sure the sight windows were adjusted perfectly. All to then have my eyes adjust on the biggest black ‘blob’ I’d ever tried to focus on….

The blob moved…it was a bear. A bear had come in, 10 yards away, while I was messing around with coffee and accessories. Not giving a crap about the human making enough noise to make a red-squirrel proud. There was still thirty minutes before legal shooting time. But it took me all of 3 seconds to grab my phone and tell my companion that there was a bear beside me. I stopped short demanding my escape though. My inner hamster wheel went haywire; Did my pants just get wet? Why am I sweating? Did I just forget how to breath? How did I not think about the claws, the weight, the strength, the SIZE?! How do I scare it away? How do I defend myself?

Yup, Tara was seriously freaking out.

This big tank of a bear, that made no noise making its entrance, made just as much noise exiting. One moment it was there, and a blink later, it was gone. It moved behind a tree and vanished.

I was on edge, back straight, eyes bugging out of my head, ears picking up noise that probably didn’t exist. And then 30 minutes later, I get a text; ‘Bear on the right’.

Here we go again…but now I was ready for it.

At this point it’s gotten light out. As I was looking to my right, I catch a glimpse of black, and there’s my bear. A 2 year old with a big head, wide ears, a blond muzzle and white accented chest.

Cue the internal mosh pit of emotions while I get my crossbow into position and I start to observe the situation.

Is there another bear near by? How far away is it? What’s my shot window? What state of awareness is the bear? Does it sense me? Smell me?

After mentally checking these all off, I’m left analyzing my physical state. Calming myself. Visualizing the shot. The anatomy of the bear. The best placement, at this distance, with the options I have. Do I still have a good shot? Yes.

The bear, after siting behind a tree for what felt like 20 minutes, decides to step away into frame.

Shot taken.

Bear reacts.

Over the next few seconds, my brain analyzes my shot placement while tracking the direction the bear heads.

I ‘deer shot’ the bear. I shot right behind the shoulder, as you would deer. In that reactive moment, I reverted to my experience with deer and targeted to forward for a bear. In that moment I know I’ve ‘double lunged’ but missed the heart. In that moment my worst fear, as a hunter, starts to creep in.

I see the bear run 80 yards up and disappear. Then I see a bear head to the left and do a full half circle around us before ghosting. My self-doubt plants its seed and starts to grow. Did I really hit where I thought? My first bear, first morning sitting, did I pull the shot? I’m ready to quit hunting then and there. That seed is growing and has taken root.

The only thing left to do is wait it out a bit and then regroup with Rob and decide what to do next.

Chapter 4

The recovery

Wait it out, that’s what you’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to give the animal time to expire in place. You don’t want to rush out after it because you could push it further and never recover it. Patience, you’re supposed to have patience and give it time, right……

With doubt in the forefront and concern over a suffering animal seated right beside it, I waited. I waited maybe 15 minutes.

That’s all it took before the need to check for the start of a blood trail over rode everything.

And initially, we were excited! We found the bolt from my crossbow and it looked very promising indeed!

You know what killed that though? Lack of any other blood to trail. 4 drops, that’s all we found. How did an arrow, looking like that, leave no blood evidence to follow? Rob made a suggestion to back away from the spot in case we needed to call in dogs. We didn’t want to ‘muddy’ our smell in with it.

So we did a 180 and trudged over to where I saw the bear arc around to our left. Surely there will be something there, blood, trampled undergrowth, the bear itself? Crossbow locked and loaded, we optimistically scoped it out. And what do you know, nothing….

Queue the tears, yes, tears.

I was so devastated, so distraught over the thought of a suffering animal at my hands.

Rob was amazing though, he was already on the phone with a dog handler making plans to come back in the afternoon to run the dogs. While we waited, he took me for a New York bagel.

Chatting over my carb loaded awesomeness, it was decided we would head back ourselves and walk the trajectory of the bear, just once, in the hopes of finding anything to point the dogs to.

Starting where we saw the last red drop, we headed forward. Crossbow in had of corse.

At first there was nothing, no signs. Just a whole lot of poor visibility, in the swamp, and not a lot of anything else. Rob decided to check in the other direction we saw the bear run, leaving me to hold our ground in place. Now I’m by myself, where I know Yogi’s cousins live, alone, wondering why I thought bear hunting with a BOW was a good idea.

I see black…in a 4D canvas of green, orange, grey, and beige…there’s black.

My eye sight has developed super strength in the last few seconds, and I’ve focused on a fuzzy ear…did it move?

HOLY SH!T

I’m alone in a swamp with an injured bear…awesomesauce. Thank god I have a cell signal, because Robs number is already queued on my phone and at my ear before I register him answering with ‘Did you find it?’

‘YesIfounditandit’sstillalive! Get over here! I’m behind a tree and I’m not moving until I get backup!’

‘Ha Ha Ha are you sure it moved?’

He laughed at me! I did not laugh back. I just gently urged him to return to my last known location post haste.

After Rob reminded me to breath through my nose and out my mouth, like a million times, he calmly assessed the bears state.

Now that back-up has arrived, my priorities have changed. I’m now more concerned with doing right by the bear. It’s been almost 4 hours at this point.

We made some quiet adjustments to our location(because the bear couldn’t hear me yelling into my phone) and I let loose a second bolt, this time no question as to where it pierced. The bear reacted, went 5 yards and moaned it’s final breath.

The tears before? Eclipsed by the tears now. The emotional rollercoaster of what had transpired hit like Thors hammer to the chest.

But we still had work to do. We had a downed bear, hundreds of yards from the truck, we had to, literally, call off the dogs, and we had to get to the weigh-in station.

Chapter 5

The Lesson

New Jersey has mandatory weigh-in stations for hunters to bring their bears after tagging them. The team of state biologists weigh and document certain measurements of your bear. They remove a small tooth for aging and a piece of the tongue for genetics. Then you get a cool patch, a hand shake, and you’re on your way to process the bear for the freezer.

My bear weighed in just shy of 125 pounds. It was a sow and she was considered a mature bear that would’ve bred this fall or definitely the next. Now, I will admit she was a smaller bear. And any future tags will be filled by larger kin. But I feel good knowing she was mature and I was able to recover her properly. Had the afternoon gone any different, I would be sharing a very different story with you right now.

What can I take away from this experience? So much!

The biggest is, knowing your animal. I had done some research on the best shot placement for a bear. I even had a quick conversation with Rob about it the day before. Anatomy varies slightly between species. The organs are pretty much all in the same spots, but they’re different sizes and sitting within varying sized chest cavities. So understanding the differences is key!

Try telling that to yourself when your heart rate has skyrocketed and you’re trying every mental trick in the book to prevent the shakes from kicking in for just another few seconds longer…

And that was my biggest mistake.

In my rush to compile all my thoughts and physical presence, I over analyzed, and rushed my shot. In doing so I targeted the spot my eye was already trained to focus on. The dubbed ‘deer shot’.

And the bear we saw circling to our left after I shot? Not my bear. My bear, while running directly away from us, dropped at 80 yards and stayed there. But while doing so, she spooked a second bear. Yes, not only did we have an injured bear with us in the woods, we had a second one lingering around somewhere. Fun.

While staying in the US, I had the privilege and opportunity to have my bear dissected by Brian Johnson (@theanatomyhunter). He was able to figure out why there was a lack of blood trail and exactly what trajectory by bolt took with the initial shot. I encourage you to check out his Instagram page to follow along with the findings he made. He’ll have a full YouTube video up in the near future.

Will I hunt bear again? Yes.

In New Jersey? I’m told my invitations already in the mail.

Will I be more prepared? Yes.

Will I still have to fight the shakes? Every.Damn.Time.

‼️ Spoiler Alert ‼️

I truly did double lung the bear, and even damaged the vertebrae. But somehow, my broad head twisted in such a fashion that it pierced the casing holding the main artery, but missed it all together. How does that happen…?

 

Written by Tara Laidlaw