It was an average Wednesday in March. My mom, Sheena, called me upstairs to eat dinner, and as I got up there, my mom was holding her phone and videoing. My dad, brother, and sister were sitting at our dining table. My dad had a piece of paper and a pen in front of him, and he began drawing a hangman game. My mom said to start guessing letters. As the time passed, my siblings and I guessed some letters and there were about five lines left. I could not guess what the sentence was. When I had almost had enough of this game, I looked at it one more time and knew exactly what it was. It said, “Camryn drew a bear tag.” I was shocked. I had no idea that my dad had been buying me points and put me in. I drew out on a black bear tag on the La Sal unit with only 2 points. The hunt started on March 30th and went until May 31st.
Fast forward a few months later. We were driving to our campsite on May 9th. When we got to our campsite at around 8:30 that night, it had started to rain. We hurried as fast as we could and unloaded all the dogs and leashed them up, set up the tent, and unloaded the four-wheelers. We settled in our sleeping bags at 10:30. I was super excited for tomorrow but also very nervous.
The next day, we woke up at 3:45 and I was very tired. The road driving up was very bumpy and very steep. My dad’s buddies, Nick and Bryan, both had a truck, so we threw a couple of dogs on top of the dog box to see if they could rig anything. After about 10 minutes of rigging, the dogs smelled something and began to bark. We unleashed the dogs and they took off. About 25 minutes later, my dad’s GPS was showing that the dogs had stopped and they were coming up as question marks. My dad, my mom, my brother, Bryan, and I all decided to hike to it and see if this bear was good enough to harvest.
We had to walk across a huge boulder field to get to it. When we got to where the dogs were, they were running in and out of boulders, barking like crazy. My dad looked in the pile of boulders where the bear was, but we could not see it. We knew that it was a tiny bear because the hole was very tiny and there was no way a big, decent bear could fit down there. We called the dogs off and hiked back to the trucks.
When we got back, my dad and I hopped on a four-wheeler and drove up a road with my dad’s buddies, Zeb and Trevor. All of a sudden, Zeb slammed on his brakes and jumped out of his Razor. Right in front of me was a huge bear track that was fresh. It measured 6 1/2" wide. We called the rest of my dad’s buddies to get up here ASAP. When they arrived, we dumped all of the dogs. They chased it while we drove on the bumpiest road ever. The bear was confusing the dogs like crazy. He would go over his tracks and go in circles. We would try to cut the bear and the dogs off so they wouldn’t go into another canyon.
After what seemed like an eternity, the handheld finally showed that the bear had stopped and the dogs had him.
However, there were question marks on some of the dogs, meaning the bear was in a cave. Zeb decided to have my dad and me hop in his Rzr. When we got to the bear, we began to hike. I was ready to shoot this bear. The dogs were everywhere, barking and running in and out of the entrance of the cave. It was pure chaos. My dad and his buddies ran over to the cave and began pulling dogs out and leashing them up and tying them to trees. My dad looked in the cave and yelled, “It’s here!”
All of the guys were deciding if I should shoot it with a pistol or my 6.5 Creedmoor. My dad called me over, and I was very nervous. I didn’t want this bear to come out and eat me. They decided to have me shoot my rifle, so I handed my dad the gun and he got it all set up for me.I crawled in and laid down. The cave was pretty dark.
My dad said, “Camryn, the bear is right there.” “Where?” I asked.
“Right there,” he said.
“I don’t see it,” I replied.
“Camryn! It’s right there!” He said again.
All of a sudden I saw something with a nose and eyes and realized it was the bear. As soon as I saw it, I went into total panic mood. “Oh my gosh! I can’t do this!” I said, repeating it over and over again.
My dad told me to get down and get all situated. He told me to aim and shoot at the neck so the skull wouldn’t get ruined. Bryan came over and sat over me. He was holding on to my belt loop. He and my dad both explained to me that right when I shot I needed to drop the gun and Bryan would pull me out. I was struggling to find the bear in my scope and to put the stock on my shoulder at the same time. Every time I would move to get comfortable, I would lose the bear. I finally looked down the scope and got all situated. I was getting ready to shoot until someone yelled, “Stop! Your mom’s coming.” I waited for her while still looking at the bear, getting ready to pull the trigger.
It was finally time to kill this bear. I aimed the gun at his neck, told everyone I was shooting, took a deep breath, breathed out slowly, and squeezed the trigger. Bang! Before I could say “Please don’t eat me!” my dad and I were out of the hole. As I was standing around trying to come back to earth, my dad grabbed the flashlight and shined it into the cave. He saw nothing but a trail of blood. We didn’t know if it was dead or alive. My dad said we would have to wait 10 minutes and then he would go in and see if it was alive or not.
“Just send my dog, Halo, in,” Bryan said.
We unleashed Halo and put her down the hole. We heard her bark and then she booked it out of the hole. We knew it was still alive, but how were we going to go down there and shoot it again? As we were thinking of what to do, we heard a little puppy bark on the other side of the cave. All of the guys except my dad ran over there and saw that the bear had his paws and nose digging at this little hole, trying to escape. While the guys were on the other side, my dad was at the entrance of the hole just in case the bear decided to come out on his side. Zeb yelled at me to come over there to shoot it again. I sat down three feet away from the bear and cycled a bullet in. I aimed the gun at his neck and squeezed the trigger. Bang! We knew that this was the shot that ended the bear’s life once and for all.
I was so happy and so lucky to have killed this bear on the first day we hunted. The paws were ginormous, and the fur on it was very soft and blonde. This was the funniest, craziest, most self-confident hunt I have ever been on, and I would not change a single thing about it because it was so perfect and so amazing in its own way. I am the luckiest 14-year-old girl.
I could not have killed such an amazing, beautiful bear without my parents and my dad’s friends and their dogs. I am so very grateful for them taking the time out of their busy lives to come help me. I am also so very grateful for my amazing mom and dad who put me in for the hunt and who always believe in me and what I can do.
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