Shed Antler: Hunt Report

To the wilderness . . .

Unsurprisingly, I woke up a bit late Saturday morning and didn't make it to the trailhead until an hour after first light. Nothing is more defeating to me than arriving late to a hunt, particularly a morning hunt for bear when the best time to be in the woods in the first two hours or so. The hike from the trailhead to Tunis pond takes me about 1 hour and 15 minutes to complete and I figured it would take another 30 minutes to setup once I got there. So in all, I was 2 hours and 45 minutes late. Not the best start to the bear season. To make matters worse, I was feeling the aches and pains that come with only getting four hours sleep. Feeling a bit defeated, I decided to make it a day hunt and quickly went through my pack for things to leave at the truck. At the mile mark, I could tell my pack was way too heavy, particularly for a day hunt. The smart thing to do would have been to stash some of my items along the trail, but somehow that thought never entered my mind.

By the time I got to Tunis Pond, I was ready to shed the pack. Having barely scouted Tunis on the last trip, I took the blown hunting opportunity to thoroughly scout the area. Shedding the pack, I began to scout around. I was hoping to find that smoking gun of fresh sign--steaming piles of scat, a well worn trail, a rubbing tree, etc--that would tell me inconclusively where to place my stand and give me great confidence going forward. There would be none of that. Aside from a few piles of old scat, I found next to nothing. There are some trails, but I'm unsure if they are being used by bear. I did set a trail camera on one of these trails, but it was mostly because I was tired of hauling the weight around and I don't expect to see much come next week when I pull the camera.

With little if any sign, I decided to head further down the trail and follow the Beaverkill river once it splits from the trail. The hike from Tunis to the Big Indian Wilderness boundary (where the trail and river split) is spectacularly beautiful. I didn't find much sign along the Beaverkill, but I didn't go very far either. The habitat is intriguing. It feels bearish. As a last resort, I did one calling set, mimicking the sound of a distressed rabbit for the better part of forty minutes. I haven't practiced this type of calling before, and my inexperience was very noticeable, at least to the human ear. At one point, two bluejays joined in the chorus, which left me wondering why two bluejays were so interested in my call, and then I realized that the cadence of my calling sequence and the pitch of the call sound disturbingly close to the sound of an alarmed blue jay. Needless to say, I wasn't swarmed by bears.

A few faint tracks in the sand did catch my attention. At the time, I thought they were bobcat tracks, but after reviewing it further I believe it is indeed a bear track. If so, there are bear in the general area (this is the second set of track in the area), just not a lot of them and for any length of time. If I was hunting every day, I might be tempted to sit over a trail in hopes of catching one of these bears as the travel through the area, but I'm only hunting one or two days a week and I'm guessing the bears make a pass through the area about once a week. It's obvious to me then that the chances of me and the bear being at the exact same spot at the same time are quite slim. So I have hatched a new strategy, which is basically cover a much ground as possible, doing calling sets every half mile or so. So I have a week to improve my calling. We'll see.