My flight from Minneapolis to Missoula was a bit rough, but I made with all of my gear intact. The Delta ticketing agent gave me a bit of grief because my bag was a few pounds overweight and because she didn’t know their rules for transporting ammunition. Having a copy of the airlines regulations on firearm and ammunition transportation with you is always a good idea, as ticketing agents are often not familiar with their own regulations.
It was cold, windy and rainy in Missoula. Dark clouds hung over the mountains. It felt a lot more like fall moving into winter than late spring. I had arranged to stay in a bed and breakfast in Corvalis, a few miles from Hamilton, which is where I’d be flying out of the next day. I talked to my pilot that night, and he said to meet him at his hanger at 9:00 and we’d play it by ear – nobody every really knows what the weather will do in 12 hours…
It was still windy but clearing up some when I got to the hanger. They radioed camp, and camp confirmed that the weather there was fine. It seemed as though if we got past the initial pass, we might able to make it. With that, we loaded up the plane with camp supplies, hay cubes, and my gear and were off.
The Selway is unique in that it’s the only Wilderness Area in the United States with a landing strip. All Wilderness areas have prohibitions against engines and wheeled devices, but the ranger station at Moose Creek had been grandfathered in when the area was designated Wilderness. It’s nice because it saves a 20-30 mile ride in on horse.
Camp was located at the junction of Moose Creek and the Selway River in a stand of firs and pines. This comfortable camp consisted of several large wall tents, shelters for the dogs, a shower, corral, and outhouse. The only permanent structures were the corral fence and the outhouse, as everything else needs to be taken down and taken out at least once a year to comply with forest service regulations. When we landed, my guide Michael Richie (Mike’s son) was waiting for us on the runway with Rin, the bear-treeing border collie.
After getting everything stowed away, I joined Michael in the cook tent where I had a ton of questions. Richie Outfitters is unique in that they offer three distinct hunting methods out of the same camp: hound hunts, baited hunts and spot and stalk. In addition, each hunter can take two bears and the tags for them are only $31.50 a piece. For my hound hunt, he explained to me in short order how things should work. He had three active baits out in the field. In the mornings, we’d walk or ride to the baits with the dogs and see if the dogs could strike a bear off of them. If the dogs didn’t smell anything they liked at the baits, we could just continue down the main trail following Moose Creek and hope to strike one that way. We would start first thing in the morning, and try not to release the dogs on a chase any later than 2:30 in the afternoon. When you start at 6:00 in the morning, letting the dogs go late can lead to a very long day, as I was to find out later.
As we were sitting there waiting for the plane to make its return trip with our cook and Michael’s hounds, the radio crackled. On the flight in, there was an issue with the hounds and they had to turn back. We wouldn’t be getting the hounds until the next day, which meant that we wouldn’t be able to hunt with them until the third day of the trip. Michael immediately apologized and said that if I needed some extra days to fill my tags, I could hunt free of charge until I did so. It was only the first day, and I already had a good feeling about this trip!
That afternoon, Michael asked me if I wanted to hunt over bait since we didn’t have the hounds. I told him that while I don’t have an issue hunting over bait, I’d prefer to wait to hunt with the dogs. He said that he needed to go and re-bait each location and asked if I wanted to come with, and that we could either ride or walk, depending on what I wanted to do. I asked him how far it was and he said about seven miles round trip. Seven miles sounded like a good warm up, so I suggested that we walk it instead of riding so I could stretch my legs a little bit. I said this not realizing that each bait was at the top of a ridge. This wasn’t just a leisurely seven mile hike, this would involve climbing some steep ridges.
The three of us (Michael, Rin and myself) left camp and headed to the first bait (“the Camp Bait”). The climb up didn’t look that steep, but within a few minutes my calves were burning and I was breathing a lot harder than normal. By the time we reached the top I was winded. As I stopped to catch my breath, Rin took off and within a few seconds was barking up a storm. A yearling bear had been at the bait when we got there and Rin had him treed. I didn’t know that collies would tree bears, and thought that the ease in which we treed this one was a good sign. “Extra days to hunt? This is going to be a piece of cake. I’ll have my tags filled in two days…,” I thought to myself. Boy was I wrong, especially in thinking that it would be a piece of cake! After getting a few pictures, Michael leashed Rin and we backed off. The young bear scurried down the tree and took off up the ridge behind bait.
Since there was still plenty of oats in the steel bait drum, we didn’t need to add bait. What Michael did do was a burn. Gathering up some small twigs and sticks, we made a small fire. Once it was burning, Michael poured some used restaurant grease on to it and let it get going. Before the grease completely burned, he smothered the fire with some fir boughs. This created huge amounts of smoke which smelled distinctly like french fries. This smoke was carried to the top of the ridge system by the up-slope daytime wind pattern. Since bears tend to travel at the tops of the ridges looking for food, this is a great way to get multiple bears working one bait.
From the Camp Bait, we headed to Trout Creek, where Michael had a bait in the saddle between two ridges. If I thought the climb to the first ridge was bad, I hadn’t seen anything yet. “Why does he have to put them a thousand feet above the !@$%$ trail?” I thought to myself as we hiked up the steep slope. When we finally reached the bait, I learned a new word – re-prod. I think re-prod is short for “reproducing forest.” After a burn the pines and firs spread their seeds in a thick carpet. The young trees come up thicker than spring dandelions. While that sounds innocuous enough, it’s not. Re-prod is pine trees from seedling size up to about ten feet high packed in so tightly that you can barely walk through them. If that’s not bad enough, they’re all growing in and on snagged-up deadfall (which you can’t see because it’s so thick) and near vertical slopes. Re-prod is, to be perfectly frank, really nasty shit. But bears love re-prod.
This bait had been hit pretty hard. It was obvious from looking at the scats that there were multiple bears coming in. It was a great spot. To the south was the top of a low ridge with Moose Creek below. To the east (where the trail came in) there was several hundred yards of fairly open, level terrain with good grass. To the north was a much higher (1400 feet or so) ridge. And to the west….to the west was a near vertical drop of 1000 feet covered in re-prod. We did another grease burn and headed back to camp for some dinner.
In our tent, I noticed that Michael had a scoped rifle. Since we wouldn’t be able to run the hounds the next day, I asked if I could borrow his rifle and we could do some spot and stalk hunting. He said that sounded like a great idea and that he also had a new predator call he wanted to try out. The next morning, I was sore when I woke up. Despite everything I did to try and get into shape for the trip, my ankles and calves just weren’t ready for the shock of side-hilling. After breakfast we headed south, up the Selway River about three miles and set up on top of a high ridge that overlooked fairly open forest on three sides. By the time we got there, my legs were feeling better. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we started picking apart the hillsides with our binoculars.
After glassing for about an hour, Micheal fired up his predator call using a fawn in distress sound. After about a half an hour of on and off calling, Michael pointed across the valley in front of us to the opposite ridge. I couldn’t see anything with my bare eyes, but knew exactly where to look with my binoculars to see what he was pointing at. On the opposite ridge about 800 yards away was a bear. Bears are hard to judge when you’re close. At 800 yards, it’s very difficult. But, from what we could tell, he was roughly shaped like a big bear. We tried to coax him closer for about 20 minutes. He stood there looking in our direction, then finally took off over the ridge in the opposite direction. He didn’t smell us, and he definitely couldn’t see us, so I’m not sure what spooked him. He must have heard something he didn’t like. We stayed and glassed into the afternoon, but didn’t see anything else besides a couple of deer.
When we got back to camp that afternoon, we were greeted by three barking hounds; Jake, Booie, and Buster. With the dogs finally in camp, I had high hopes for the next morning.
We left early the next morning with Buster and Booie. The first place we checked out was the Camp Bait. The dogs milled around casting for scent, but didn’t find anything they liked. As we were headed up the main trail towards Trout Creek, Booie let loose with a bawl and took off towards the river. Buster soon joined him and within a minute, the howls of the hounds were echoing through the valley. Michael has GPS collars on his dogs, which not only show where they are or how fast they’re going, but can also tell you if the dog is treed given the position of its head. They’re pretty amazing. We waited for a minute or two, then took off down the trail to hopefully cut them off. They made it across the trail before we got there and we could hear them heading up a ridge.
Here’s where it gets difficult. These ridges are steep and the soil is loose. Except for a few game trails, you pretty much have to bushwhack your way through the tangles and blow-downs. Up the ridge we went, and within a couple of minutes my calves and lungs were burning and the sweat was pouring into my eyes. Michael made it to the top a lot faster than I did. When I finally made up, he was looking down the backside of the ridge with his hat behind his ear trying to get a feel for where the dogs were.
“Did they catch him?” I asked as dropped my pack. “Nope. They’re on their way back.” he replied.
A lot of people think that hunting with hounds is a sure thing. That’s not even remotely the case. A bear can flat out-run a hound, and in the mountains they can out-climb them and go through rough country that dogs can’t get through. We were to experience this repeatedly over the next few days. But I’m getting ahead of myself…
It was about 10:00 when we got the dogs back and got back on the trail to Trout Creek. After climbing two ridges already, my legs were feeling it. After another couple of miles of walking, we got to Trout Creek and stopped for a quick drink before doing the long climb up the ridge to the bait. There’s a well-maintained, switch-backed trail that goes up the Trout Creek drainage. Compared to what we had been on so far that morning, it was relatively easy walking; we weren’t taking a step forward, then sliding one back, climbing over deadfalls, etc. But it’s still a steep climb of 1000 feet of elevation. When we finally made it to the bait, the dogs immediately struck a track and took off. They took off to the north, through a patch of re-prod and then up the highest ridge, another 1400 feet above the bait.
After waiting a few minutes, we started following the dogs. As we came through the re-prod at the bottom of the high ridge, Michael checked his GPS. “They’re treed,” he said. “How far?” I asked. “About 500 yards.” Normally, it wouldn’t take more than a few minutes to cover 500 yards…except when the first 200 yards forward includes climbing 466. We were about halfway up when Michael checked the GPS and then told me that the dogs were on the move again. The bear must have jumped the tree.
“Which way are they heading now?” I asked. “East, towards the creek.”
“OK, so does that mean we don’t have to keep going up this !$%*# hill?”
“Right. We can just follow this contour around the other side of the ridge.”
With that, I got to give my quads and calves a rest from climbing and start torturing my ankles with side-hilling!
We followed the contour another mile or so up into the Trout Creek drainage and then stopped for lunch. From looking at the GPS, we could see that the dogs had chased the bear quite a ways up the drainage, but from the way they were moving now, it seemed as though they’d lost the trail. We were hoping that while we were eating, they’d eventually come back and find us.
That didn’t really work out, so Michael suggested that I stay put and give my legs a rest while he rounded up the dogs. He showed up about an hour later with two very footsore and tired hounds. With the dogs gathered up, we started the five mile trek back to camp.
It was about 4:00 when we were walking past the trail leading to the Camp Bait. “I want to check and see if anything has hit it since this morning,” Michael said. With that, he leashed the hounds (Rin was still loose) and we headed up the trail. Earlier, Michael had told me that he really doesn’t like to let the dogs on a track much after 2:30. These chases can take hours, followed by more hours of trying to find the dogs. If you let the dogs go in the afternoon, it can make for a really long day.
As we were approaching the bait site, Rin took off like a bullet right past the bait. Both hounds were suddenly whining and straining at their leads in the same direction. Within a minute, Rin was barking furiously. “He may have him up a tree. He only barks when he can see the bear,” Michael said. “Let them go!” I said, suddenly re-energized. With that, he turned the two hounds loose and they took off like a shot.
It was soon apparent that Rin didn’t have the bear treed. We could hear the hounds barking as they chased it down into a creek drainage, then up the drainage, then finally up to the top of the ridge behind us. As I stood there looking up at the top of the ridge, I suddenly realized how tired I was and how shot my legs were. But, you don’t kill bears by not following the dogs. We started up the ridge, which alternated between patches of deadfall and steep patches of loose dirt and gravel. “Go on ahead. I find you when I get to the top,” I told Michael. I was moving, but not very fast. As I got to a particularly steep slope, I dug my feet in and took a breather. As I laid there, I could faintly here one of the hounds. But not on the ridge above me, on the next ridge over.
“Michael, I can hear one of the dogs,” I said into the radio. “Yeah, that must be Buster. I have Booie up here with me.”
“It sounds like he’s on the opposite ridge.”
“Roger. We’re probably not going to catch this one. You can head back to the trail. If you see Buster, grab him.”
Hearing that, I relaxed and just slid down the side of the mountain a piece.
I was just above the bait when I spotted movement. It wasn’t a bear, it was Buster. He was about a 100 feet above me standing in a deadfall.
“Come on boy!” I called to him. “Buster, come!” No response. “Come on Buster, don’t make me come up there. Good boy!” Still no response. Then, he actually looked like he might go the other way.
“God $%#^$, get your $&$!*! down here you stupid #$&#! dog before I *!$%!% shoot you!”
That didn’t work either. I’ve always said, if you start to think you’re an important person, try telling someone else’s dog what to do. With that, I started climbing back up the hill, swearing like a sailor the whole way.
I made it back to camp with Buster about a half an hour later. We’d been on our feet for about 14 hours. A cold beer never tasted so good!
