My Favorite Staff
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://www.biggame.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/untamed.png[/author_image] [author_info]Larry Weishuhn is a widely known writer, speaker, raconteur and world hunter. He co-hosts “DSC’s Trailing the Hunter’s Moon” on Pursuit Channel, CarbonTV and the show’s YouTube Channel.[/author_info] [/author]
Black bear camp, northern Canada, late 1980’s. First afternoon in camp, I shot a 275-pound boar, so black he appeared almost blue. Hornady’s 180-grain soft point .30-06 ammo did an excellent job. That night, skinning my bear and taking care of the meat, my guide told of a local legendary, monstrous, boar the color of well-creamed coffee. I started hunting him the following noon.
According to my guide, the giant color-phase bear avoided baits but occasionally was seen feeding on green grass and skunk cabbage on the banks to a beaver pond two miles from camp. Sometimes he fed in the morning, sometimes in the evening, and had been seen during the middle of the day.
Hunting him meant leaving camp well before first light and not returning until after dark, 18 hour days. I left camp long before dawn. I spent my first day in the southern natural ground blind. We built two blinds, one on the south side of the beaver pond, the other on the northern side. Where I sat depended upon wind direction.
Each morning I packed breakfast, lunch, snacks, water, and a large thermos of coffee… plus a stack of hunting magazines.
The first day, I decided I needed a shooting staff/walking stick to use as a rest. Using my hunting knife, I cut an alder, 45-inches in length, and carved “L W” into the bark. I spotted a cast whitetail antler and decided to also carve that shape into my staff, then added a bear I hoped to take before hunt’s end.
After four days seeing nothing more than birds and beavers, I started questioning my decision of hunting one specific bear, and, hunting him each day from first to last light.
One day remained, and then we would be heading out the following morning for the airport.
Wish I could tell you in the waning moments of the last evening the coffee-colored bear appeared. But it did not happen.
The following morning my rifle and shooting staff packed under a pile of bags, we left camp. We had driven a quarter mile when a monstrous well-creamed coffee-colored bear stepped into two-track. He stared at us a few moments, then disappeared into the underbrush….
Regardless of what is going on in the world, there are always small things, of beauty and splendor, for us to enjoy, admire and appreciate!
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