Had a great day last Sunday, starting and ending the day with bears! I'd done a long bike-packing ride the prior weekend and decided to try stretching the knees out after giving them a few days rest. I grabbed my bike and set out for Goose Lake Road from Hwy 5A, a beautiful spring ride through rolling ranch land and then up into the timber before connecting to Lac Le Jeune road. About 2/3 of the way through Goose Lake Rd I came around around a sharp corner into a climb and startled a very large black bear that must have been feeding on the side of the road. Both of us caught off-guard, I was now closely chasing a huge blackie up the road on my bike before he veered off the road, clambered through the barbed wire fence and hustled off into the trees. What a way to start the day! The rest of the ride was uneventful, then we packed up the kids and took off to Merritt for a picnic with family for the afternoon.
That evening I got permission to head out for an evening cruise to an area that just looks like bear-adise. I had a plan to hike and setup on one ridge that I thought would provide a good overview of the area. I parked the quad, grabbed my pack and started hiking. The grasses and flowers have wasted no time since 2021 in re-establishing themselves, making for a vibrant landscape, albeit difficult to distinguish innumerable burnt stumps from bears. It's about 19C, clear and sunny with a slight breeze; and absolute beauty of an evening for hike. This is really why I enjoy spring hunting; the bears are an exciting secondary benefit.
As I'm slowly picking my way through the burn into the wind, I catch a glimpse of a bear making its way through a bit of a saddle before the steepest part of the hill, just over 100m away. There's too many burnt trees between me and the bear to get a good look, so I find a nearby stump to setup on and wait. I can barely see it through the bushes and trees, but after a few minutes it starts walking, then stops to feed again. A few more minutes go by and the bear begins moving. It's heading downhill, but then turns and starts walking in my direction. I don't have a good shot unless the bear comes through a bit of a shooting lane directly below me. The wind is perfect so I just sit and wait, and sure enough the bear wanders right into the opening 50m below me, broadside. I squeeze the trigger and it does a barrel roll onto the ground before expiring. It's 7pm and I need to be up early for work, so I snap a quick picture (I should have taken more) and get to work. By about 8:30 I've got the bear loaded into game bags in my pack and ready for the hike out, and I'm back at home with the meat on ice in the cooler shortly after 10pm. All-in-all a fine day.
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