11/11/2025
Deer Camp part 2
Another hunting story about my Hunter-Gather life.
Remember my Deer story from a few weeks back? Well, this one is about a bear harvest at deer camp (note: pictures of harvested animals in picture section)***
Eyebrows raised, I asked Manny, “You think you can pull that bear up this hill?”
I had my doubts as I looked up the slope. It was short—maybe 15 feet—but steep. A little too steep, I thought.
Manny was 17 and had developed considerable strength. Maybe he could do it.
No. This bear was big and heavy-dead weight. No way he could manage it. I had enough experience to know what an animal weighs after harvest.
But Manny insisted he could—after all, it was only 15 feet to the top.
We had shot the bear in a clearcut, close to the road. It died about 70 feet away, but IN A GULLY at the base of a large fallen Fir tree. When I looked over at where it lay, I thought, this is going to be a bitch to get out. The classic hunter line came to mind: “The easy part is pulling the trigger. The hard part is packing it out”
Still, I had my son—adolescent strength—rope, a quad back at camp, and, if it came down to it, my husband hunting somewhere nearby who could lend extra muscle to get it out in one piece. It wasn’t just whether my son and I could get the bear out; it was whether we could get it out intact. Manny wanted the hide to tan into a rug or maybe a cloak. The bear’s coat was beautiful: thick, full, and black. At this time of year the black can be tinged brown or red from summer sun, but this one was dark and pure black. It would have been an honor to tan it and make something from it. If we could, we tried to use every fur from every harvest; but time, freezer space, and money didn’t always allow it. I didn’t feel guilty returning hides to the woods though as they fed many small creatures over winter—mice, weasels, voles—who nibbled at them beneath the snow until only fur remained by spring.
“Manny, you can try to haul this bear up the hill. If you can, it will save us a lot of time. But I’m doubtful,” I said.
I looked over at the bear again. It was a sow. A big sow. A big sow with no cubs. What were the chances of finding such a large sow alone? Only the year before, we had seen two sows with three cubs each.
Was it strange? I learned later that this bear was an answer to a prayer. But more on that later.
At the time I didn’t know it, but this bear was ten pounds heavier than my spring trophy bear from 2019. My 2019 bear was a boar and spring bears are expectedly leaner after winter, but that one had been heavy to move. My friend Sherry had a bear cart and it still took strength, finesse, patience, and determination to haul it out—not to mention her husband’s help loading it into the truck.
I could tell my spring boar was a trophy: a “pumpkin head,” large paws, and no ground shrink when you walked up to it. Ground shrink is what hunters call the illusion that makes a bear seem smaller up close than it did at a distance. Over time you learn what a big bear really looks like; it’s a skill that comes with observation and experience.
When I saw Manny’s bear, it lacked a pumpkin head and large paws. It seemed to suffer ground shrink, but we weren’t targeting trophies—we just wanted legal game. We weren’t being picky this year. I wanted meat and fat; I was grateful for whatever we got.
I didn’t mind doing predator control either. When I first hunted this area with my dad twenty years ago, you might see one bear in three days because of the fields and grasslands; many seasons you saw none. Then the 2017 forest fire changed everything and the bear population exploded. Last year alone we counted ten bears in a 13 km radius. Out of those 10 bears, there were two sows, each with three cubs each. In 2023 a sow with two cubs charged the truck…what if we were hiking at that time? We do a lot of walking and hiking at deer camp—better have eyes in the back of your head. The fire altered the landscape and made the food opportunities for the area quite abundant for bears.
When we went to deer camp this year, I made sure we had bear tags so we could legally harvest black bear, and Manny was fortunate enough to get one. Not just any bear—a large one.
I hate to say it, but at first glance I didn’t think his harvest was that big. My past experiences had shaped my expectations. However, after moving limbs and the body to get it ready to gut, I quickly changed my mind. Had I become that weak since my spring boar, or was the bear larger than I first thought? No matter—Manny would get this bear out.
To give us structure, we placed a young poplar pole between the bear’s back legs and tied rope to them, much like I did in the deer-hunt story I wrote earlier. We each took a side and started hauling.
We only moved it a few inches before we had to stop and find our footing to reposition.
“Ok — go!” I said. We put our full weight into the rope. I stumbled; Manny grunted.
“Ok — again!” I said. He stumbled; I grunted.
After several attempts, we made it two feet. I bent over, hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath.
“Let me do this, Mom,” Manny said. He put the rope around himself and pulled. When that failed, he grabbed the pole itself and pulled. He gained a few more inches. He did that until he ran out of breath and only another foot was gained. Hills are a hunters enemy!
“Manny, it’s great you tried, but she’s too heavy for a hill this steep. Let’s cut her in half and take one side up at a time.”
“No,” Manny said firmly.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s pull her to the other side of the gully where it’s less steep. Once we get to flat ground, it will be doable.” Manny stood there considering it. We had already missed the morning deer hunt, and the bear had been harvested more than an hour earlier. We were thankful to be in the shade of the fire-killed trees.
I could see him thinking through the route to the truck. We could barely budge the bear two feet up the hill. Even if we turned her around, we would have to cut the fallen fir out of the way, climb a lesser hill, and then haul sixty to seventy feet to the truck. Doable, but still a very daunting prospect. Much easier if the bear were cut in half.
His silence was long as gears turned in his head.
“Manny,” I said, “camp is 10 km away. Let’s go get the quad and use the winch. Maybe your dad will be back and we can recruit him.”
Manny gave it one last effort up the hill. No luck. Lesson learned: steep hills and dead weight are no joke.
We decided to get the quad, and I marked the bear’s exact location on my Garmin.
Back at the truck, we had only just started driving when my husband and daughter came around the corner. We explained what had happened and that we needed the quad. Guy said he would go back with Addy to fetch it. In the meantime, he wanted Manny and me to put up a hunting blind in a certain spot for the next day. While Guy and Addy went for the quad, Manny and I went to set the blind.
As Manny and I walked to the blind site, we heard a gunshot not far away. I looked at Manny and said, “I think Addy just shot a deer.” We smiled and kept going.
Sure enough, when Guy returned with the quad, he told us Addy had taken her first buck!
It turned into a family affair. When she got her buck, my dad pulled up beside them in his truck and asked how the day was going. Guy explained how Manny and I were dealing with the bear and that Addy had just shot her buck and now needed it gutted. Guy came up with a quick solution: he loaded Addy’s buck into the bed of my dad’s truck and asked my dad to teach her to gut it, hang it, and skin it while Guy went to help us with the bear. It was settled. Addy got to have a moment with her grandpa—my dad was thrilled to teach her the motions after a harvest. What a precious memory they would share.
When Guy returned with the quad, we were surprised to find we still had challenges. In the past, three of us could lift a bear onto the quad’s front rack and use the winch to secure it. Relatively easy, right?
Not this time. Even with three of us we could not lift this bear onto the front rack. We tried several times, several ways. Okay, Guy and I are older, but Manny is a young man and he’s strong. There should have been no reason we couldn’t do this.
I suggested we simply pull the bear to the truck with the quad. That would be the easiest option, but it might compromise the beautiful hide. Guy wanted to respect Manny’s wish to get the bear to the truck as intact and unscathed as possible. He looked around at the trees, hoping to throw the winch over a sturdy branch and hoist the bear up, then lower it onto the front rack. The branches around us were either puny or dead—no suitable anchor.
So now what? I shook my head and resigned myself to the idea that we would have to drag the bear to the truck. That would mean going over logs, branches, and rose bushes, but we needed to get her out of the bush, hung, and skinned before we had bone sour. Time was ticking.
As I shrugged and said that was our only option, Guy took the electric chainsaw from the back of the quad and told us to look for trees of a certain size and length. Puzzled, we did as he asked. They were easy to find; there were many dead trees of the right size from the fire. He began placing them on the quad’s front rack. It soon became clear: he was making a ramp. Once the poles were in place, he winched the cable out from the quad, looped it around the bear, and winched her up the ramp. It worked like a charm. What a brilliant idea! We had the bear on the front rack in no time and got her to the truck soon after. I tucked that method away for future use; Manny and I were impressed. It seems obvious now, but we had never seen it done that way before. Usually people used plywood on trucks or trailers; this time it was pe**er poles on a quad rack. Now you know too.
We got the bear back to camp and Manny and Guy skinned it while Addy and I made supper. That evening we heard sandhill cranes in a nearby field, coyotes in the distance, and an owl hooting close by. Manny’s bear and Addy’s first deer—what a great day. A day for the books and the memory bank. The next day brought more: my deer, Guy’s deer, and Manny’s deer all in one weekend. Crazy—we were ready to go home after two days of hunting. My dad had already gotten his buck; what a blessed harvest. Will we ever see anything like that again?
At home, our harvests were hung in the garage, and the next day we turned around and left for moose camp. Addy had a moose LEH draw. If we got a moose, it would mean more meat—and more to share with friends and family. We didn’t get a moose on that trip, but Addy did get a bear: another large dry sow. Not quite as large as Manny’s, but not far behind. When we returned home, we had six animals to process. I asked myself again: will we ever see a year like this? Some people ask, isn’t that too much? Four deer and two bears still yield less meat than a single moose (or a cow) can provide.
When we started processing the animals for meat, bones, and fat, I remembered being surprised that Manny’s bear was a dry sow—and then Addy’s was too. What are the chances of that? Manny’s bear yielded about 60 pounds of meat and 50 pounds of fat; Addy’s gave around 55 pounds of meat and 40 pounds of fat. That’s 90 pounds of fat—bear grease, as we call it. Ninety pounds! In springtime I’m fortunate to get 5 pounds of fat off a bear; my heaviest fall harvest before was 22 pounds. So 40 and 50 pounds of fat are huge for me. Last year Guy got a smaller boar at deer camp with minimal fat, and we ground it all up. During a drought year a few seasons back, Addy got a fall boar and we only got 5 pounds of fat—that bear would have starved in its den over winter. So I’m in awe of this years harvest!
Getting 90 pounds of grease mattered to me because I had prayed about harvesting fall bears this year to meet my bear-grease goal. In previous years I wanted bears for meat and grease, but I was picky. I would pass up smaller ones, thinking they weren’t worth the time or effort. This year I decided I would be grateful for any legal bear. I humbled myself and accepted that smaller bears—if that’s what came—were fine, if it meant getting some fat. Past years I didn’t get any bears because I was too picky (or simply didn’t see any). This year I put all that aside and stopped focusing only on big bears. Thank you God, I will use this harvest down to every last drop!
Not only did we get meat and the grease I wanted, but I also got to share experiences with my son, my husband, my daughter, and my dad.
Why do hunters get so caught up in size and trophies? We have open season for a reason. If you’re obsessed with only the big ones, take your child hunting, let them shoot a two-point buck or a smaller bear, then write about it like I am doing now—then see if size still matters. I am so enjoying recalling those hunts!
I have to laugh, though. The day we got Manny’s bear and were finally driving back to camp, I spotted another bear. It was sitting 40 feet into the bush, practically on a silver platter—an easy shot. My sights were on it and my finger was on the trigger, but I couldn’t pull it. I was just too tired. I wanted to do predator control and everything, but I was just too spent to add another animal on that day’s chore list. It had been a long day, and all the planning, packing, and everyday life leading up to deer camp and the harvest of the black bear, had pushed down on me. I was quite exhausted and a weariness filled my being. With my finger on the trigger, my mind said to just “let go Jen, tomorrow is another day”. I still couldn’t convince myself to put the rifle down. Despite my weariness, my instinct is to hunt and gather. Something drives me. Then that old hunting saying came to mind again, “The easy part is pulling the trigger; the hard part is what comes afterward”. ‘Oh, but it is so close and it’s just sitting there!’ I kept thinking to myself, ‘it would be an easy pack out if I just drop it there. Do I? Don’t I? Do I don’t I? Ugh! ‘
It was the bear that made the choice for me. He got up and walked away, melting back in the bush line. I watched it walk away in my scope. Once I couldn’t see it anymore, I sighed with relief.
Walking back to the truck, Manny asked with great animation, “Why didn’t you shoot it!? It was right there!?” I replied with a grin, “it walked away, nothing I could do”. He rolled his eyes and shrugged and we headed for camp. No regrets.
