You can never predict what you will see in the wild. I never thought I would see a bear for instance, especially on Youth Day, but I was wrong.
It all started, that freezing cold morning on October 22, 2005. We (I was with my dad and my brother) were heading into the woods to get to our hunting spot. I was kind of nervous; my stomach felt like it was in knots and my arms and legs were shaking. The only thought racing through my mind was of a deer walking out onto the trail, and me taking the deer down in one shot, but I kind of figured that wouldn’t happen.
Once we got to our spot we sat and waited. My feet were so cold they felt like they were going to fall off. But the anticipation was growing and all I could do was still and not make a sound.
From time to time I would hear convincing sounds, but that all changed later on. After about two hours I heard three consecutive thumps. On the third one I happened to be looking in the same direction as the noise. I saw a large black object fall from a nearby tree; at the moment I didn’t think too much about it. And then just moments after, I heard “kathud, kathud.” My dad, brother and I spun around. We heard the beating of the animal’s feet and it seemed to match my heart rate. Then my brother said, “That’s a buck!” The adrenaline rush was overwhelming, the deer was right behind us and we still had a chance of getting it. Right as I stood up the noise started. It was an eerie, incessant grunt that the animal seemed to make every time it moved, and by that we knew it was a bear! I was pretty freaked out by this because the bear was 50 feet behind me. Fifty feet! My brother was pretty eager to go after the bear, but I just wanted to stay put.
We ended up following the bear, but we soon turned around knowing that the bear was probably far away. Soon after we decided to call it a day, and an exciting day it was!
After I thought about it more, that large black object that fell from the tree, I think it might have been a bear cub. Since there wasn’t any wind that day, the mother or father bear walked up not knowing we were there so it could get to its cub, or cubs. So, when it was about 50 feet away, it smelled us and ran.
I will never forget this day, because it was my first time deer hunting, and my exciting encounter with the bear.
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