A Canadian Encounter with Fangs and Fur



A Canadian Encounter with Fangs and Fur B.May pic & state map

By Brady May, SGW Cherokee County w/ Cherokee Co.

In September 2009, my Uncle Doyle Clark (62) and myself (46) were invited to go on a guided Canadian archery bear hunt. We would be riding up and hunting with my Game Warden friends Brek Henry of Claremore and Monte Reid from Locust Grove. Both Brek and Monte had been to Pleasant Point Lodge at Willard Lake, Ontario before and had both harvested bears. Other Game Wardens and friends I knew who’d been on this trip before (in previous years) sang nothing but praises for the trip. The success rate was high, and the prices were right. As an extra bonus, the fishing for smallmouth bass and northern pike on area lakes was excellent. I had been asking to go for several years when an opening came up and now was my time.

We arrived at the fishing lodge just prior to Labor Day weekend and settled in to our modest cabin which had some modern conveniences but showed more underlying signs of an old fishing camp that dated back to the fifties. Our guide Randy Montgomery from Guthrie, Oklahoma had been maintaining fifty bait stations daily just off the four-wheeler trails all around the lake. A five gallon bucket tied to a tree would be filled with a bear-sized morsel of oats and molasses; just enough to know whether a particular string of baits were being ‘hit’ or not. Upon checking in, he reported that a bear had been killed nearby on a transcontinental pipeline clearing the week before and had promises of another bear in the area. That would be our first string of baits to hunt.

Both Doyle and I were anxious to hunt and we immediately set our stands over bait buckets in that area and hunted long and hard for the next few days. Monte and Brek, both veterans to the program, were a little more confident and relaxed as they planned to catch some fish and set some of their own baits around the upper region of the lake. Hunting both morning and evening, Doyle and I saw nothing but ground squirrels except for me on the third morning. Just shortly after sunrise, I caught a glimpse of a dog or coyote loping down the trail that we came in on. As it trotted into range, I saw another shadowy figure crest the hill and follow in behind the first. My mind told me that it was too big to be a coyote but too long legged and different to be a dog. As they came to within 60 yards of my stand and stopped, I knew that standing right there before me was my first sighting of not one, but two Canadian wolves. However, my mind kept telling me that no one would believe me. And, as a certifiable wildlife professional, I did not want to fall into the trap of convincing myself that I saw something without some kind of verification. After all, how many years had I been telling people back in Oklahoma that they didn’t see a non-existent black mountain lion or geographically extinct wolf crossing the road? Gazing intently at the duo, my senses came back just before they cut off into the thick conifer forest. My eyes and mind agreed that what I saw was indeed a true wilderness experience. Whether or not anyone believed me, no one could take away that sighting that was now vivid in my mind, and as permanently implanted there as a photographic memory. I knew I could pack up and go home today empty handed and still be satisfied that I had witnessed a rare event. Experiencing wolves in the northern Canadian wilderness was a treasured sighting that others could only dream of in the wolf-less States back home.

(Pic 1)

Sure enough, when I reported in back at camp no one was really as excited as me about the sighting or that interested in listening to me repeatedly tell the story over and over again. I even surmised that one or two of my comrades didn’t believe me and thought I might have turned a coyote into a wolf (in my mind) after spending hours on the stand trying to turn ground squirrels into black bears. That was until our guide Randy came in that evening to check in with us. He listened to my story intently and then shaking his head with belief began to tell of his own encounter with a wolf and her half grown pups. A couple of years ago as he was returning to his four wheeler after filling a bear bait, he came face to face with an adult wolf crouched down, ears laid back, growling and snarling her fangs at him in the trail. With only an empty molasses bottle in his hand, he stood his ground. He slowly reached for his pocket knife while using his other hand to slowly move the molasses bottle into position to cover his vital neck area. While doing that, he observed several half-grown pups trailing behind her down the trail. As the last pup cleared out escaping the threat (Randy), he threw the bottle at her just as she turned to follow her pack of pups. After hearing his “Outdoor Life-This happened to me” story, I regained confidence in my experience prompting me to tell the story two or three more times before lights out.

Well, we were nearing the end of our hunt and no one had even seen a bear. However, it was easy to blame the weather on our misfortune. You see, normally in early September the Canada bear season is just about over. As the cold closes in the bears would take advantage of any available food source and move ever closer to their dens preparing for hibernation. The Canadian winter can see temperatures drop to minus 50 degrees below zero, drop five feet of snow, and lakes harden to ice four feet thick, but weather had taken a turn for the better. The week of our hunt advancing winter had taken a step back and this was turning out to be the warmest week the region had seen all summer long. Temperatures were in the seventies and the locals were taking advantage of the holiday weekend by swimming, water skiing, and running jet skis around the lake. The mosquitoes and hard-biting, black-buffalo gnats could have been mistaken for upland game birds! They were so eager for a last meal they seem to take the 40% DEET in my Repel Sportsmen Max formula as nothing more than a marinade. Needless to say the bears were not moving.

However, our guide had been saving one hot spot across the lake as a last resort. He had a string of eight baits over a one mile stretch that had all been cleaned out every day for the last week. Just a long, four mile ride (at 4mph) across the lake in a twelve foot, V-bottom boat powered by a 4-horse Evinrude was all it took and our spirits had been renewed. On the trail we immediately saw a humongous scat pile of berries, molasses, and oats that resembled a malfunction from a granola bar factory. It made me pause to ponder the question of whether my Matthews Switchback bow was the right tool for the job. Also, right off this same trail was a wolf-hunters marked, trapping pole. This is a sapling cut and marked by winter snowmobile trappers and used for the purpose of anchoring their traps. The poles were also marked with identifying metal tags as required by the Ministry of Natural Resources. This was also the same location where our Oklahoma guide experienced his hair-raising encounter with the wolf pack. All in all, these signs gave me an eerie sense of “fangs and fur” that I’d never felt before in the deer woods back home in eastern Oklahoma.

Pressing on, Monte took a stand at the end of the mile-long bait string and while walking in spotted the bruin that was probably responsible for cleaning out all the baits. Now, even Monte, who is a highly experienced and competitive archery hunter, and possessing plenty of bear experience, seemed a little rattled when he reported the size of this bear. Monte reported his sighting with the same kind of excitement that I exhibited with my wolf sighting… except we all believed him! We knew he’d taken a huge Boone and Crockett bear in Saskatchewan with his bow and had that trophy behind him for comparison. He said as the big bear spooked, it waddled away and the fat on it literally dragged the ground! Monte’s acute observations indicated that the bear we were after was far bigger than his Saskatchewan trophy.

Now the hunt was on, but time and weather was not on our side. Also, it became evident from uneventful evening hunts, the need to refill bait-buckets every morning, that big bears get big by raiding the baits at night and not by day. However, on the evening of the last day of our hunt, the weather was overcast and that sometimes encourages the game to move earlier. As I took my last evenings stand, I pondered the thought of anticipation. Would the big bear move early enough to show himself or give someone in our group a shot opportunity?

(Pic 2)

I was hunting just off the trail in a small rock outcropping with dense woods on one side of the trail and a deep, rocky gorge on the other side. The dense toothpick pines surrounding my stand left only a few shooting lanes open in route to the bait. Scanning my zones intently during the last thirty minutes before sunset I was completely caught off guard and startled when I heard a sharp growling noise just thirty yards behind me. As I turned to look, I saw two wolves that had just hit the trail. They had just left their daytime lair and were engaged in a ferocious fight. As quickly as it began, it was over, and the two immediately took off towards the lake for their evening hunt. The winner got to take the lead and was followed by his subordinate. Walking on a bed of spongy lichens and moss overlaid with dead pine needles they slipped off out of sight without even a crinkle of leaf under foot. Had it not been for their brief dispute, they would have slipped by me completely unnoticed.

At that moment, realizing my Canadian bear hunt was over I lifted my bow and hands high towards the sky and gave praise to the Lord for his wonderful creation and for allowing me the opportunity to share in another true wilderness experience. I was also thankful for the opportunity I would have to convince my hunting comrades that I had now seen four wolves and not just some fabricated aberration in my mind like those rampant mountain lion stories back home. I began to think about the twenty-two hour road trip ahead of us, and how reliving my wolf encounters would be sure to provide entertainment for my friends who I knew would enjoy hearing about them over and over again.

Then, as I was just about to climb down out of my stand with the last few rays of light refracting through the canopy, I heard a noise. This time I was not startled but knew exactly what was walking my way and about to make an appearance on the trail. I had hunted before and harvested bear with bow in Colorado and had similar experiences of seeing the underbrush slowly move as though nothing was there. Then the animal would only be sighted after an opening was encountered. The forest and underbrush on the other side of the trail was so thick it looked as if someone was poking their head out between two curtains just before an elementary play began. At first, a giant black head with a brown muzzle stuck out and gazed directly toward the bait bucket. Then it began to survey its surroundings. Stepping out from behind the dense, green curtain, the big bruin made his appearance onto the trail just twenty yards away. He was facing me head-on and was just outside my nearest shooting lane. With time and light waning in his favor, he suddenly sat down on his haunches right in the middle of the trail. If it wasn’t for the distraction of my heart beating so hard and me trying to keep myself from hyperventilating, I think I would have laughed. This old bear had rolls of fat layered all the way down to the ground just as Monte had described.

I regained my composure and prepared for a shot, but instead of walking towards the bait and my shooting lanes, the wise, old bear got up and began to walk down the trail in another direction to check the wind. From past bear hunting experiences, I knew it was all over now as he walked straight downwind of me and then abruptly stopped. He then turned around ever so carefully and slowly eased back into the woods. It would be the final ‘curtain call’ of my hunt. I’m sure he wasn’t far away and was probably just sitting there waiting for me and my companions to leave the trailhead so he could return to lick all the bait stations clean for another night.

Now, I knew when I told my uncle and friends that I’d had two encounters in one evening and on the last day at that, they were going to think I’d lost it. They’d think it was from the loss of blood from mosquito bites or suffering hallucinations from Malaria. Another tale about a new encounter with “fangs and fur” might seem too overbearing for my disheartened companions. So, I decided I would not be as zealous in this reenactment as I had been after my first wolf-sighting. This especially was a concern since we were all coming home empty-handed and I was the only one to have seen anything while in the stand all week.

By mid morning the next day we were all packed and ready to hit the road. We were ready to find a fast food meal back in civilization somewhere. We were all seasoned hunters and each knew all too well that not every hunt ends with a harvest. Still yet, the mood was rather somber as we traveled along enjoying our last bits of wilderness scenery. We were just on the outskirts of the first nearest town when suddenly I looked out and said, “Look there, a wolf”! Everyone was surprised but me to see an adult wolf crossing the highway right in front of us. It was headed down a dirt side-road and into the big Canadian wilderness.

Pausing for a moment, I broke the silence by saying, “Did I mention to anyone that I have now seen five wolves”? Needless to say, it was a long trip back home, especially for my uncle and two friends.

(Pic 3)

Dedication:

“I would like to dedicate this article to my Uncle Doyle Clark of Haskell, OK. When I was a child he was the only person that took the time to introduce me to the outdoors and that ultimately influenced my pursuit of a career as an Oklahoma Game Warden. From a Daisy Red Ryder B-B gun, to dove, quail, and rabbits with a shotgun, and finally big game hunts abroad, we have hunted together now for forty years. I am truly appreciative that he took the time to pass on the heritage and sporting tradition that has become such an integral part of my life”, Brady May.

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