A White Oak Bear Hunt'n Story

One particular memory I have about growing up hunting as a boy with the Community Hunting Club   is on rare occasion we would get to go bear hunting. The black bear is the only native bear to North Carolina. Their numbers vary according to what part of the state you live in. In the 1980's and 90's there was no shortage of them in Bladen County. To date the black bear is still thriving in that part of the state as it is in most parts of eastern and western NC.

The environment  of the typical "Carolina Bay" is the perfect habitat for these furry critters, which is why there seems to be so many in that area. A quick search will clue you into the type of terrain a "Bay" includes. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolina_bay ), The land we hunted was covered with bays. Black bears are omnivores but stick mostly to plants, grubs, bugs, honey, small mammals and occasionally carrion. Unlike bears in colder climates, black bears in North Carolina do not hibernate.  Is bear meat good to eat you might ask? Absolutely, it is red meat that is a bit greasy like pork, but stringy like beef. That is the best way I know to describe it. If butchered and prepared right, it can be very good. One of the best meals I have ever cooked on the grill was a back strap, wrapped in bacon, from a bear I harvested not far from where this story takes place.

 I have occasionally been asked about the general disposition of local bears and my answer comes from somewhat frequent observation as well as what has been handed down to me by experienced local hunters and farmers. The black bear found in the part of the world I grew up generally shied away from humans. They tend to stick to thick cover where there is abundant food, water and places to hide. We would see bear sign quite frequently while deer hunting. The bears we came into contact with would usually move along and leave the area once they were aware of your presence. The one thing that I was always cautioned about by the older/wiser hunters was to never get caught in the situation where you were near or between a female (sow) bear and her cubs. This was a sure way to get attacked by a 500 lb+ very ticked off Mama.The results of this encounter would not likely end in my favor. This type of warning got my attention. I was also told that dominant male (boar) bears would be somewhat aggressive during the bear's mating season (hunting season as it turns out.) I never have been scared of bears, but let's just say I have a healthy amount of respect for them.

 One evening as a teenager I watched a very large sow and two cubs play and feed about 30 yards away from the safety of my tree stand. I was careful to stay still and be quiet as I had no plan on making this ol' gal mad, because everyone knows black bears can climb trees with ease and quickly. I was deer hunting and the "three bears" (no pun intended) decided that the corn my Dad and I had put out for deer would make a fine meal. I sat and watched them until about sunset. I didn't want to be in the woods with Mama Bear in the dark where she could most likely see me and I couldn't see her, so I finally had to let them know I was there by speaking to them. I gathered my courage and said, "are you and your cubs going to let me get down from here sometime tonight?" The sow quickly got between me and her cubs allowing them time to run off into the thick and then slowly followed them. As she walked away she kept looking back at me. After a few minutes it was almost completely dark and after hearing no movement,  then and only then did I come down out of the tree stand. My Dad was waiting at the truck for me and asked what took me so long to come out. I told him the story, he laughed and said he didn't blame me and he would have done the same thing.

We didn't hunt bears that often for a few reasons. First of all bear season is relatively short. It was illegal to hunt bears over bait and a portion of our land lease was part of the Sugg's Mill Pond Bear Sanctuary. One other thing we had to consider is if we found sign of a bear that we wanted to pursue,  it had to be a single set of tracks as it is illegal and unethical to pursue a sow bear with cubs.  If we found a large bear track that indicated the bear was traveling alone and not near the sanctuary, we would mark it and make a decision if we were going to call in the bear hunters, or if we would disregard it and continue to hunt deer.
Once the decision was made to call the bear hunters those of us that wanted to hunt bear would gather in a meeting place and wait for what happened next. There was a local bear hunting club in near by Sampson County that we had close ties with. When we had a potential hunt, we would call them, and they would bring bear dogs, folks to handle the hounds and a few of their folks to help line up the hunt. The first hunter would arrive and be shown the track and he would make the decision if they would pursue the critter. He would call the "old man" on the CB radio and get his approval and the rest of the crew would come to our location.

 As a young boy I was both curious and amazed when the bear hunters would arrive. They would be driving big 4 wheel drive pickups with double-decker dog boxes on the back packed to the brim with hounds and the cab of the truck would be loaded down with people and gear. They would have enough gear to handle most situations they may encounter. I learned that while bear hunting you may have to travel pretty far away from home and may even be out over night. They would have things like food, extra warm, dry clothing and spare guns and ammunition.  To the untrained eye the dogs didn't look much different than our deer and coon hounds, but they were different. Some of the dogs were plot hounds (the official NC State dog) or airedales bred for bear hunting. Some were a mix of hound and pit bull and some were just walker hounds. Most of the bear hunters carried large caliber, relatively short range rifles. The lever action 30-30 with open sights seemed to be a favorite among them from what I remember. This was also the first time I had ever seen radio tracking collars used on hounds. These folks seemed to be prepared for anything.

The bear hunter that I remember the most was an older gentleman named Irvin Peterson. He was pretty much the ring leader of the bear hunters. Everyone just called him Irvin. I have no idea how old Mr. Peterson was back in the 1980's but to a wide eyed young boy he looked older than the Cape Fear River and as weathered as an old cypress tree down in the swamp. It wasn't so much his years lived that made him look that way to me, but the hard work he had done. I think he made his living as a farmer.  He was not a large man at all, but I remember seeing him and thinking to myself, "That's one tough old man." I liked Mr. Peterson a right good bit, and looked forward to the days when Mr. Peterson would come around because he loved telling bear hunting stories about his best hounds he had owned over the years. My favorite stories he would tell were about close calls with the biggest and meanest bears in North Carolina. Mr Peterson was smart and quick witted and could tell a story in such a way that you could see the story take place in your mind and hear the dogs he spoke of.  He told of a hound/pit bull mixed dog that he loved. He simply called him "Bulldog." This hound he would only turn out on a sure thing. The dog was such an aggressive hunter Mr. Peterson would say, "De only way to get dat Bulldog to stop, was to kill de bear. You don't kill dat bear, he'd never stop!" Mr. Peterson carried an old Winchester lever action rifle that looked like it had seen action in the civil war or helped to tame the old west. The bluing had long since worn off and the receiver and barrel were just grey steel. The wooden stock and forearm were warn down  and faded with many years of use. There was no rust on the rifle mind you, it was in perfect working condition. I guess that rifle was a lot like it's owner. "Awww heck boy, dat rifle just get'n broke in good," he told me when I asked about it.

Recent Bear Tracks (coming and going)  in White Oak NC 

One particular cold December Saturday morning our group was scouting the area for tracks hoping to find where a Big Buck had walked that morning and one of the guys found a bear track going into a bay that was known for being easy to surround. There was a road completely around the bay and we could not find anywhere the bear had left the area. The call was made and when the bear hunters arrived like a band of hunting gypsies. We all surrounded the area making sure everyone knew where the next hunter was and safe shooting areas were established. One dog was put on the bear track. I learned that this is called the "strike dog."  This dog would trail the bear and when he barked the handler would turn out a few more dogs. These dogs would help the strike dog sort out the trail and most likely get the bear moving. As is the case with deer hounds or coon hounds, when the dog reached the place where the bear had been laying or would get close enough to the bear to have a good scent, they where said to have "jumped."

What happened next was an amazing sound to my ears. When the dogs "jumped" the gates to those double dog boxes were opened and as many as 20 or so hounds were turned out to help the other dogs run the bear. If deer or coon hounds in the swamps could be referred to as music, a bear chase would be considered to be nothing short of a high volume, fast paced Rock concert cranked up to 10. I have never heard anything like it before or since and it echos through my memories. If the pack of hounds was anywhere near your location, you couldn't really tell the direction of travel because of the shear volume.  I assure you of one thing, whatever was in that head of woods, was coming out.

When a bear is persuaded by that many high volume, high speed hounds he is going to do one of three things. The bear is going to climb a tree, run very fast to relocate to another part of the country or turn around and fight the dogs. Run, Tree, Bay'ed up... respectively, or to put in the words of Mr. Peterson, "Him gonna climb or him gonna fight!"  If treed or bay'ed a select group to include the dog handler would make their way through the thick brush to the bear to make the kill. On this particular hunt the lone boar decided to try to relocate to another part of the Cape Fear River Basin. When he crossed the narrow white sandy road he was met by my Dad's brother Don. Uncle Don had no idea he would be bear hunting that day and the only rifle he had with him was his deer rifle, a Remington pump action .30-06 with a Redfield scope mounted to it. Uncle Don was a skilled hunter and pretty much a dead shot with a rifle, but he knew that finding a running bear in a scope crossing a narrow road would be a challenge to say the least. The bear being pursued would be moving at a pretty good clip. Even large bears can run up to 35 mph for a short distance!! You had to be ready. Uncle Don decided to use his shotgun. He carried a Remington 1100 auto-loader and as always his Smith and Wesson Model 29 44 magnum handgun. As the bear crossed, my uncle put five #1 Buck, 12 gauge loads into the running bear. The bear continued across the road but fell dead within 100 yards. I remember one of the hunters joking saying, "Heck Crawdad (Uncle Don's CB handle), you never even made a killin' shot, the bear died of exhaustion from carrying all of that buckshot around!"

That was a day to remember for me, because it was a pretty lucky day for our family. I was able to go on a bear hunt with my Dad and Uncle. I got to hear Mr. Peterson tell a story or two. Uncle Don was able to harvest a bear, and later that day, my dad killed the biggest buck of his life.... but that is another story.