You Don't Catch, You Don't Eat
by rockstaranon
Trip Type:
Paddling Canoe
Entry Date:
05/16/2011
Entry & Exit Point:
Mudro Lake (EP 23)
Number of Days:
6
Group Size:
5
Discuss Trip:
View Discussion Thread (14 messages)
Day 5 of 6
Day 5: Layover on Crooked Lake.
I awake to a branch snapping. I look at my watch and a very irritated 4am glares back at me. Still, I can hear something that sounds like clawing on a tree. I unzip the tent and look at the tree our food pack is hanging from. Sure enough, the bear is halfway up the tree, chewing on our bear rope. I quickly wake up the rest of camp. Now no one is left with any doubt, because there is definitely a bear in the tree. After snapping a couple pics, I start to yell at it and bang some pots, but it was resilient and stayed up there for a good 10 minutes before slowly backing down. As soon as it hit the ground I chase after it yelling and throwing rocks. Some of the guys (ahem, Kid) barely even stuck their head out of the tent to see the bear, and then promptly returned to sleep. I try and get some rest back in the tent but I’m far too nervous to sleep. I close my eyes and drift into a kind of weary rest, but again am pulled out of the haze by the sounds of shuffling and pots banging around. I look out our tent window towards the fire to see the biggest black bear EVER! Not even kidding, the thing had to be 350-400 lbs. This is definitely NOT the same bear that was in our tree 2 hours ago. “Papa, Webb, there is a giant bear 5 ft from your tent right now.” I look at my watch, its 6 am and there’s a significant amount of light, though it’s a bit overcast. I watch the bear for a sec and then look across the campsite to see Rob J taking a morning leak. As he’s standing there, back to the campsite and looking out across the lake, the big fella starts rumbling towards him and stops about 15 ft away and just stares at Rob J, sniffing the air. “Uh Rob, there’s a bear behind you,” I say in a loud enough whisper. Rob turns around to see the bear watching him and says to it, “Hey, a little privacy here please!” You just can’t make this stuff up. I wanna get this thing out of camp, the last thing we want is for it to feel comfortable here. So I dash out of camp, grab a some pots and start yelling and banging and the thing bounds up the hill behind camp and stops, sits down on its haunches and just stares at Rob and I. I take advantage in this quick, calm lapse and nab a video of the big fella, I was able to get about 10 ft from him. Rob snaps a couple more photos, everyone else is still in their tents. I start to creep closer to him and then he turns and starts to run away. I chase after him yelling. This time though I can see where I’m going and I must have chased him back at least half a mile into the woods before I give up pursuit. I return to camp and wake up Kid. I, he, and Rob J have plans to head up Crooked to see the pictographs. Webb and Papa sleep and after a quick breakfast of oatmeal and hot chocolate, we tell the guys that if they hear anything in camp, it won’t be us, then we set off up Crooked to see the pictographs. The water is glass and we glide up the lake. I’m keeping my eye open for any campsites that are free, but everything in the vicinity is taken. Pictographs were cool and we got some really good pictures of the bluff they were on. The rest of the day passes without incident. We get back to camp and Papa, Webb, and I head out for some afternoon walleye fishing. I find a really nice spot just to the left of the exiting falls. A little honey hole that we caught multiple eyes, a big fat pike, and a couple smallies. Papa caught a HUGE 20” smally that gave him a really good fight. We head in and fry up the fish for lunch. This is where the term, “You don’t catch, you don’t eat,” really comes into play. We’d lost close to 2 days worth of food to the bears and we were on EXTREMELY short rations, and it really came down to catching fish if we wanted a solid meal…and we still had 2 days left on the trail. After a fish lunch a couple of us head back to the tents for a late afternoon nap. At about 6pm, Webb, Papa, and I head back out for some more fishing. It must be about 8pm when Kid and Rob J come barreling out to me on the lake with a wild look in their eyes. “We gotta get out of camp like now!” says Rob J. So what happened was after we left for fishing, Rob J and Kid stayed behind, and who comes rumbling back into camp but our 400lb black furry friend. Rob J chased him away about 6 times, but finally the bear came back, reared up on 2 feet, snorted, and bluff charged him, skidding to a stop 5 ft from him. That was it for Rob and Kid, they are on the bears turf now and a bluff charge is scary enough. So we round up Webb and Papa who managed to nab a couple eyes and a decent eater smally, and we take the 12 rod back around the hook. As we’re coming around the island to our campsite, we look at the top bluff where Rob J’s tent is, and there is the bear standing on the bluff overlooking the lake with Rob’s tackle box in its mouth shaking it furiously. I’m angry, this damn bear has caused us enough trouble. I head toward the landing despite the adamant requests of my partners to not go into camp. I land the canoe, run up the rock hill and start straight for the bear yelling at him. He sees me and takes off to the back of the campsite, same place he sat before. I chase him WAAAAY back again and head back to camp to survey the damage. He tore open the screen door on Kid and I’s tent, put a couple holes in Kid’s nice, expensive, synthetic sleeping bag, destroyed Webb’s camelbak, and did significant damage to a couple tackle boxes. Well it’s about 830 and the sun is almost down, but there’s no chance we’re staying here another night to deal with hungry, pesky, and aggressive bears. We pack up camp in about 20 minutes and go hunting for another site. EVERYTHING is taken. So, without much choice, we camp on the island situated between the 2 falls, basically it’s the island that separates U.S. from Canada. Now this is the second year in a row I’ve had to camp at a non-designated. I’m not happy that we have to do this, I’m pretty insistent about following the Bdubs rules to a T, but we really don’t have any other options. We fry up the fish and manage to scrummage some mashed potatoes and gravy out of the pack for dinner at about 10pm, we’re literally cooking on the border marker. The 5 of us sit down at the edge of the lake and take in the ridiculous amount of stars in the sky, contemplating and reminiscing the adventures of the past 4 days. Despite all that’s happen, we still manage to laugh it off. We head to bed with plans to be up around sunrise for our trip back up the Horse River and to Tin Can Mike for our last couple days.
I awake to a branch snapping. I look at my watch and a very irritated 4am glares back at me. Still, I can hear something that sounds like clawing on a tree. I unzip the tent and look at the tree our food pack is hanging from. Sure enough, the bear is halfway up the tree, chewing on our bear rope. I quickly wake up the rest of camp. Now no one is left with any doubt, because there is definitely a bear in the tree. After snapping a couple pics, I start to yell at it and bang some pots, but it was resilient and stayed up there for a good 10 minutes before slowly backing down. As soon as it hit the ground I chase after it yelling and throwing rocks. Some of the guys (ahem, Kid) barely even stuck their head out of the tent to see the bear, and then promptly returned to sleep. I try and get some rest back in the tent but I’m far too nervous to sleep. I close my eyes and drift into a kind of weary rest, but again am pulled out of the haze by the sounds of shuffling and pots banging around. I look out our tent window towards the fire to see the biggest black bear EVER! Not even kidding, the thing had to be 350-400 lbs. This is definitely NOT the same bear that was in our tree 2 hours ago. “Papa, Webb, there is a giant bear 5 ft from your tent right now.” I look at my watch, its 6 am and there’s a significant amount of light, though it’s a bit overcast. I watch the bear for a sec and then look across the campsite to see Rob J taking a morning leak. As he’s standing there, back to the campsite and looking out across the lake, the big fella starts rumbling towards him and stops about 15 ft away and just stares at Rob J, sniffing the air. “Uh Rob, there’s a bear behind you,” I say in a loud enough whisper. Rob turns around to see the bear watching him and says to it, “Hey, a little privacy here please!” You just can’t make this stuff up. I wanna get this thing out of camp, the last thing we want is for it to feel comfortable here. So I dash out of camp, grab a some pots and start yelling and banging and the thing bounds up the hill behind camp and stops, sits down on its haunches and just stares at Rob and I. I take advantage in this quick, calm lapse and nab a video of the big fella, I was able to get about 10 ft from him. Rob snaps a couple more photos, everyone else is still in their tents. I start to creep closer to him and then he turns and starts to run away. I chase after him yelling. This time though I can see where I’m going and I must have chased him back at least half a mile into the woods before I give up pursuit. I return to camp and wake up Kid. I, he, and Rob J have plans to head up Crooked to see the pictographs. Webb and Papa sleep and after a quick breakfast of oatmeal and hot chocolate, we tell the guys that if they hear anything in camp, it won’t be us, then we set off up Crooked to see the pictographs. The water is glass and we glide up the lake. I’m keeping my eye open for any campsites that are free, but everything in the vicinity is taken. Pictographs were cool and we got some really good pictures of the bluff they were on. The rest of the day passes without incident. We get back to camp and Papa, Webb, and I head out for some afternoon walleye fishing. I find a really nice spot just to the left of the exiting falls. A little honey hole that we caught multiple eyes, a big fat pike, and a couple smallies. Papa caught a HUGE 20” smally that gave him a really good fight. We head in and fry up the fish for lunch. This is where the term, “You don’t catch, you don’t eat,” really comes into play. We’d lost close to 2 days worth of food to the bears and we were on EXTREMELY short rations, and it really came down to catching fish if we wanted a solid meal…and we still had 2 days left on the trail. After a fish lunch a couple of us head back to the tents for a late afternoon nap. At about 6pm, Webb, Papa, and I head back out for some more fishing. It must be about 8pm when Kid and Rob J come barreling out to me on the lake with a wild look in their eyes. “We gotta get out of camp like now!” says Rob J. So what happened was after we left for fishing, Rob J and Kid stayed behind, and who comes rumbling back into camp but our 400lb black furry friend. Rob J chased him away about 6 times, but finally the bear came back, reared up on 2 feet, snorted, and bluff charged him, skidding to a stop 5 ft from him. That was it for Rob and Kid, they are on the bears turf now and a bluff charge is scary enough. So we round up Webb and Papa who managed to nab a couple eyes and a decent eater smally, and we take the 12 rod back around the hook. As we’re coming around the island to our campsite, we look at the top bluff where Rob J’s tent is, and there is the bear standing on the bluff overlooking the lake with Rob’s tackle box in its mouth shaking it furiously. I’m angry, this damn bear has caused us enough trouble. I head toward the landing despite the adamant requests of my partners to not go into camp. I land the canoe, run up the rock hill and start straight for the bear yelling at him. He sees me and takes off to the back of the campsite, same place he sat before. I chase him WAAAAY back again and head back to camp to survey the damage. He tore open the screen door on Kid and I’s tent, put a couple holes in Kid’s nice, expensive, synthetic sleeping bag, destroyed Webb’s camelbak, and did significant damage to a couple tackle boxes. Well it’s about 830 and the sun is almost down, but there’s no chance we’re staying here another night to deal with hungry, pesky, and aggressive bears. We pack up camp in about 20 minutes and go hunting for another site. EVERYTHING is taken. So, without much choice, we camp on the island situated between the 2 falls, basically it’s the island that separates U.S. from Canada. Now this is the second year in a row I’ve had to camp at a non-designated. I’m not happy that we have to do this, I’m pretty insistent about following the Bdubs rules to a T, but we really don’t have any other options. We fry up the fish and manage to scrummage some mashed potatoes and gravy out of the pack for dinner at about 10pm, we’re literally cooking on the border marker. The 5 of us sit down at the edge of the lake and take in the ridiculous amount of stars in the sky, contemplating and reminiscing the adventures of the past 4 days. Despite all that’s happen, we still manage to laugh it off. We head to bed with plans to be up around sunrise for our trip back up the Horse River and to Tin Can Mike for our last couple days.
If you'd like to see me chasing a 400lb black bear through the woods, you watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq4ro0ebNZ8
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