Just One of Those Days

By Louis Urquides

AZOD Hunting Section Leader / Field Editor

I had in my hand an archery spring bear tag for unit 22.  I had done my scouting and talked to a few friends about enhancing my chances at filling a bear tag. It actually looked like my hunt could be successful.  One of my good buddies, Joe Butler, had found a nice cinnamon colored bear not too far from where I would be hunting. I decided to go ahead and give it a try on opening day.

Opening day Travis and I were up at the crack of 6:00 AM (stupid alarm).  We gulped down a bowl of Cocoa Pebbles and up the mountain we went.  About 2/3 of the way up the mountain it became dangerously steep.  The terrain was nothing but shale.  The back tires of my quad lost traction and just about rolled off the side of 30-foot cliff!  Travis had to assist me by holding the front end of the quad down before we were able to get it back on the trail. We headed up the mountain to the first glassing point and I was thinking what else was going to go wrong.  I shouldn’t have asked myself that question.

When we got to the top I grabbed the pack and bow.  Travis got his stuff, the spotting scope, and tri-pod.  I had just got to a good spot when I turned around to see Travis step onto a rock and have it roll out from underneath him.  Of course he fell on his butt and used his hands to try and break his fall.  He broke his fall all right, right into a Spanish Dagger.  His hand was bleeding through his glove and he didn’t look too good.  I pulled him up out of the cactus and asked if he was all right.  Travis replied, “Man that hurts and I think I am going to pass out.”  So I laid him down and took his glove off to find out that he had been skewered.  When Travis saw it his face really turned white and he began to sweat.  I took out my Leatherman tool and Game Tracker knife and told him to sit still.  I had to cut the exit end open to grab the point and pull out the cactus point.  Poor Travis just laid there in a pool of sweat for a long while before he started to get up.  Once he looked around at the ground and saw all the blood from the wound all he could do was laugh.

Now if it isn’t one thing, it’s another.  We set up trying to glass and for some reason the air seemed to have a lot of particulates in the atmosphere.  The air was so thick that you couldn’t glass further than a few hundred yards.  That sure put a damper on things. It was time to switch to plan “B”.

Further up the mountain we went.  We took the trail until it ended and then started on foot towards the top.  After getting to the top we glassed a large basin before deciding to work our way around the peak to find where the bears were coming out of the canyon to feed.  Moving around the top of the ridge we found our first good bear sign.  There was a big Juniper tree with about a 10 square yard area that looked like it was tore up with a roto-tiller.  This looked to be a few days old so we kept moving around the mountain to try and find some sign that was a little more recent.  The closer we got to the bottom the fresher the sign looked.

Moving slowly we tried to get a peek at a bear that might be scrounging for food.  I told Travis to keep his ears open because he should be able to hear the mountain being tore apart if the bear was near by.  Just a few days prior to our hunt one of our local television stations took some good footage of a big bear that was tearing down a hillside looking for food.  I was hoping we could come across something like that.  As it turns out there was no bear to be found that day.

Darkness fell and Travis and I had a long haul to get back to camp, so we tied down all our equipment on the quad and headed back.  We made it all the way back by about 8:30 that night and I started to unload the quad. I asked Travis where he had put my bow.  Travis said he hadn’t touched my bow.  GREAT! I had now lost my bow somewhere on the trail!  I knew that when we had left the rough trails and got on the “good” road everything was fine.  So I jumped into my truck and headed up the mountain to find my bow.  As I approached the top where we had come off the trail on to the “good” road I saw a Jeep up ahead of me and prayed that it wouldn’t run over my bow.  Well guess what?  It did!  Good thing it is a Matthews.  The only thing wrong is that my new quiver is broken.

Back at camp I was good and frustrated with the day so I told Travis to relax, we were leaving in the morning.  Besides I had to get to town to get a new quiver.

So the next morning we packed up camp and headed back home.  I will be going back up and hunt if the quota of sows doesn’t get met.

Wish me luck.  I will NEED it!  - END -