BEAR WITH IT

Every winter I go with a couple of my grandsons, Caleb and Jesse, to run their trap lines.  They trap marten, mink, beaver, and wolf to supplement their summer income.  I guess I better say something right now.  If you don’t approve of trapping stop reading, lest you be offended by my story.
Okay, so we made some beaver sets in an area of heavy beaver signs.  The beavers had built several dams causing flooding of the forest and road that led into the area.  Our traps are the type that kills instantly, not the leg hold type.  The boys had found a place back east that would tan and shear them at a good price.  They want to make hats and mittens from the pelts.
The boy’s made three sets along paths the beaver had traveled. They use unbaited sets called blind sets.  The animal simply blunders into the trap.  We were in dense alder thickets with large spruce and cottonwood trees.  The beaver had felled half a dozen cottonwoods for food and the dams were an engineering marvel.
We waited a couple of days then went to check the traps.  It was early December.  This time of year the days are short.  Once into the forest visibility wasn’t the greatest, but we are used to that.  I carried my .375 H&H rifle, just to be on the safe side, you know like wearing a life jacket in a boat.  Grandson Jesse had a .44 magnum revolver and Caleb was unarmed.  By December the bears have normally hibernated so we weren’t concerned.
The first set was empty so we moved on to the next one.  It was fairly hard to get to so Caleb and I waited while Jesse waded the stream to check the set. We couldn’t see him or the set so were surprised to hear him yell, “Hey, we got a wolf.”  We took off for the set.  This was really good news.  Wolf pelts are worth a lot of money.  Suddenly, at the same time, Jesse started yelling and a bear started bawling.  “It’s a bear, we got a bear in the trap.”  What, no way we could catch a bear in a beaver set.
Jesse rejoined us very excited.  We were all talking at once.  I went on high alert.  Caleb kept saying, “I’m never coming into the woods again without a gun.”  We carefully approached the set.  Sure enough, there was a brown bear with its right front leg in the trap.  The trap was too small to hurt the bear, but he couldn’t get it off.  The trap was chained to an alder tree that acted as a fishing pole.  From the looks of things, the bear hadn’t been in the trap very long.  The bear was young enough that the mother could possibly still be around.  We were in a very dangerous situation.  My head was like a swivel looking in all directions at once.
After a short conference, we decided to go back to the car and call the Fish and Game Dept.  It took over an hour for them to decide what to do.  The final word came down, “If you think it is safe enough would you go back in and dispatch the bear.”  We didn’t want the bear to suffer all night or have a brown bear running around with a trap on its arm so we agreed to “dispatch” the bear.  That’s Fish and Game parlance for “kill it.”
On the trip back in we decided to make plenty of noise in case the mother was still around.  We had found out that the day before, in this area, a bear had chased a couple that just barely got back to their car ahead of it.  Anyway, we sneaked up on the bear, it had stopped bawling and just sat looking at us.  With a heavy heart we “dispatched” the bear.  The boys skinned it and are holding it for Fish and Game to pick up.
The story continues.  Several miles away we also had a wolf set.  Upon checking it we found that a brown bear had destroyed the set, stole all the bait and had a picnic.  The ground was all torn up where he had buried what he couldn’t eat for a later time.
I remind you this all happened in early December.  They’re supposed to be sound asleep by then.
Marshall Kimbrough-Warren