Fred Bear and a couple of bear hunting tales

[bentpole]

Great stuff guys! Amazing.

[Gary Norris]

Thanks guys for all of the comments.  I appreciate them.
Now that you have figured out that my friend is Charlie Lamb and we were lucky enough to get to hunt with Fred Bear , I'll go on with the story.

When we were camped that night and Gordie, owner of the camp, (I think that was his name) told us that Fred Bear was coming in to hunt, we really didn't believe him.  Not until the next morning when a chopper landed by the truck and out stepped - - Fred Bear.

Why was Fred there ?  If you can remember back that far it was the time when the compound bow was just coming in.  Fred was there to try out the new Bear Compound and kill a bear with it to get pics of Fred and the bear killed with the new compound. There were media guys and advertising people everywhere.

Fred , Charlie , and I shot a lot together and the compound really didn't fit the style of shooter that Fred was.  If you have ever seen him shoot, you know what I mean.
He didn't hold the anchor point at all.  When he hit anchor the arrow was gone.

 You could tell it was really bugging Fred that they wanted to show him with the compound.  We wondered what he would do.  Finally he just put the bow down.  Told the ad people to destroy all of the pics of him with the compound.

He said "I have never shot a bow like this and I'm not going to.  Find someone else to promo it"  That was that.  I thought it was neat as hell.
 

We need to get back to the first morning.  Sometimes my writing style jumps around a little.

There we were getting our gear into the camp the first day and there  seemed to be something going on pretty exciting.
One of the hunters from the hunt that was finishing up was coming in with a huge black bear.

He had stayed out all night with a can of sterno and a can of honey on it to pull in this bear.  It was his last night and he didn't waste it.

The picture of the bear is with Charlie's dad.  He went with us and did the cooking and kept the beer cold.  He was a great guy and I'll always have great memories of him, Charlie and the hunt.

Well Lamb that's it so far - your turn to add to the story, Remember how dark it was in that timber.    
 
   

   

[Missouri CK]

Vance,

Well they haven't started telling stories about pictures like this yet so I'll let them keep going.  



Chris

[Kingwouldbe]

Thanks for the blast from the past.

I wish a lot more of you OLD TIMERS would post up, it is the best stuff.

[Jim Jackson]

Great thread!  The only thing that makes it better is to hear them in person.  Looking forward to tackling some turkeys this spring with you both.

[SouthMDShooter]

Great Thread!

[The Whittler]

Thanks for the pics and story.

[Charlie Lamb]

Do I remember how dark the timber was? You gotta be kiddin!!    

I'd hunted with this camp several years previous and after my first week hunting bears in Northern Ontario I swore I'd never bear hunt again.

The camp was Gordy Bentley's "Bear Paw Landing". Gordy would set up his stands within a few feet of the bait and they were seldom more than head high... I could usually lay my bow on the platform standing flat footed below it.

As if that weren't enough, the set up was always in the middle of a clearing that a compact car wouldn't have fit in.

I'd sit in my stand hardly daring to breath waiting for the bears (which I was sure were behind every tree and all with a taste for human flesh).

As the witching hour would approached I'd get more keyed up. Each minute that ticked away was one minute closer to a bear showing up and of course one minute closer to darkness.

By the time it got too dark to shoot I was sure a bear was waiting below for my departure. The first step backwards down the ladder took all the courage I could muster... being sure I was lowering myself into the jaws of death and all.

Somehow I got through that week without messing my pants or having a heart attack and without so much as seeing a bear.
One evening I'd caught a flash of movement off in the brush and shortly had a big shiny black raven walk into the clearing.

That was so weird I about hurled with...er...excitement.

I'd vowed after that first hunt to never hunt bears again.

But as time went by my memories leaned more toward the camp times, and fishing from the boat dock and the awesome Canadian sunsets and the aurora borealis.
The spooky nights walking out through brush that closed in on you like a coffin and waiting by the road to be picked up in pitch darkness had faded from my memory.

By the time Gary and I planned our hunt and were on our way I was one excited puppy... bring em on!!
 

[Missouri CK]

I helped Gary load these pictures up on Photobucket so I'll throw this one out since it seems appropriate.

Charlie, I don't understand why you were so afraid of some bears at eye level?

Does this picture answer that question.....

 

I assume those are bear claw marks on that telephone pole.  

Chris

[IB]

What year was this again!!

[Terry Green]

I LOVE it!!!!!!!!!

 

[Brian Krebs]

It is interesting that you look at the pictures and Fred is not smiling. If you knew Fred; he was a person that did not waste the opprotunity to smile. The compound bow element of the story seems to have had an effect on Fred.
I know one time he saw my Bear take down; and walked over to me - pointed at my bow and said "now that's the kind of bow ~I~ hunt with!!".
I asked him about the pictures of him with a compound; and he said " I am sorry I ever picked one of those ##$(*^& things up!".
He laughed really hard when my bow shot 216 fps with an aluminum arrow; and people were mad that their compounds didn't shoot that fast    He paid to have me shoot through the crono one more time; just because of the reaction it brought from the crowd.
I never hunted with him - except in my heart  

[Budog56]

[Missouri CK]

I'm just going to throw out some pictures for Gary so he can tell some more of the story in the morning.  I'm just the technical assistant on this story.  Sorry about the quality of the pictures as I tried scanning these and they didn't turn out so well. So then I had the idea of taking a picture with my digital camera.  Taking a picture of another photo is more difficult than it sounds.  

Looking forward to reading about these pictures.

   

   

 

[BowHuntingFool]

Pretty cool story and even cooler pictures! Thanks for sharing!

[Charlie Lamb]

Chris... in the pick of the telephone pole I think those were a combination of bite and claw marks. Don't remember exactly.

That is from a different hunt years later in Minnesota. Every few miles you'd find a telephone pole marked like that and there'd be a trail beside it.
Walk the trail into the brush until you hit a cross trail and put down a bait. Two days later... active bait station.

[Charlie Lamb]

Looking at the last picture of shooting Fred's personal bow I just noticed the knife I was wearing.

Sure wish I could remember the maker's name... but I can't.

That knife now lives on the back side of Black Mountain in the Wind River range of the Rocky Mountains in western Wyoming.

Stopped for a sandwich with my old huntin bud Russ and it must have slipped off the belt of my fanny pack. I walked away never noticing it was gone.
We must have walked 15 miles that day.

I never got back up that way and probably couldn't have found the lunch spot if I did. Chalked it off as a gift to the mountain.
 

[Charlie Lamb]

Anyway, back to Canada.

Like Gary said, we arrived to much excitement. Fred Bear going to be in camp and all, plus Bob Kirshner or Pa. had brought in that huge old boar on is last night.

My dad was truly impressed and I think the looks of that monster tempered his desire to bear hunt for the rest of the trip...that was the first up close and personal bear dad had ever seen.

Bob had come over to us and asked if we'd get a picture for him. In his excitement he'd laid his camera on the ground near his vehicle and promptly ran right over the top of it.

Somewhere I've still got a copy of the picture I took of Bob.

[Charlie Lamb]

So being quite excited about bear hunting again, we went about the business of settling into camp. Like Gary said, we shot quite a bit with Fred and that was very cool stuff.

The first night on stand found me cussing the black flies and mosquitoes. Actually those of us who don't live in black fly country only THINK that mosquitoes are bothersome.

They are NOTHING compared to a black fly. Where mosquitoes probe and poke and hurt in a most irritating way, black flies have meat grinder jaws that draw blood and would make a preacher cuss with the intensity of the pain.

Other than that things were going well... I wasn't seeing any bears, and Gordy sure hadn't changed his baiting style. My eyes watered from the proximity of rotting chicken.

As the sun moved toward setting and the forest became still, I remembered why it had been so long since I'd hunted bears... CRAP!!!

I sat in silence praying for a bear to come to the bait and with each darkening second began to hope it wouldn't.
Once again I leaned over the edge of the stand platform and leaned my bow against the bowl of one of the trees that formed it's base.

Once again I swallowed hard and stepped backward down the ladder, searching for the next step tentatively expecting to be dragged down into frothing jaws.

Once again I crept from the darkened forest into the open and felt releif with each step away from the tree line.

I'd eventually overcome this feeling, this primal dread as it were. Not this night or the next, but by the end of the hunt I had begun to revel in the excitement of it all.

[stykshooter]

Cool pics thanks for sharing