My son and I had been baiting bears for a few weeks. We took the whole family up for more of a camping trip type of hunt with my wife and three other kids, besides my son who was hunting. We had to go up to rebait our stations for the upcoming week so we could sit and hunt. We got to camp with a little bit more daylight left than anticipated, so I convinced my son to go with me to check out what had been going on down at the bait barrel.
We sat there and watched and waited to see if something would come in. Since we had not planned on hunting that night, we started to lose interest early, being unprepared for the chilly evening weather and mosquitoes galore. I wanted to sit it out and wait until legal shooting hours were over, but I had read an article about taking kids hunting and not pushing them but making sure they enjoy the entire experience and learn there is more to it than just harvesting an animal. My son, Caden, wanted to go back to camp early, but after telling him no and that we were waiting for a bear or waiting for it to be dark, I started to realize this hunt was for him, not me. I had already shot my bear, and now it was his turn. If he wanted to go back to camp, that’s what we would do. We gathered what gear we had and started walking back to our ATV that was parked at the road.
When we got within 100 yards or so of the ATV, a group of cattle had gathered around and been brushing against the rear end of it. They were also licking the molasses we had used to bait our barrels, which had spilled a little bit. Thinking our hunt was over, I loudly told Caden to look at the cows. We laughed and were distracted by them, and I was hoping they wouldn’t scratch the ATV.
Looking to the right, I spotted a very nice bear coming through the sagebrush, sidehilling only about 70 yards from us. It didn’t dawn on us that it was even a bear. We were so concentrated on the cows that it took a minute and probably five more steps and a double take to realize we were about to cross paths with a black bear. I stopped and told my son that there was a bear right there. My 11-year-old son stopped and took a free-hand shot. He was shaky and said he had hit the bear. I watched the bear run off and go down the hill into the creek bottom in some trees.
After waiting a few minutes, we decided to look for blood. We found a good amount and followed it until we heard trees snapping and breaking. We knew the bear was still alive. We stepped back and went back up the side of the hill. Unknowingly, we had pushed the bear out the other side of the trees and onto some rocks. Caden had his chance to put the bear down. With one more shot, the bear went another couple hundred yards and we waited until dark. We decided it would be best for us and the bear if we waited until morning to go looking for it. In the morning, we loaded up the rest of the family and went and retrieved our game.
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