Not long ago, I wrote an article for this column titled “Being Selective”. It emphasized the beauty of bear baiting and the ability it affords the hunter to be selective with the bear he or she chooses to hunt. Last year, I completed a spring bear season in Idaho in which I did not notch my bear tag. Heath, my baiting partner and cameraman, and I saw seven or eight different bears on the bait but could not get “the one” we were targeting to come in. This article is different. It’s about notching my tag and not just on any bear, but on the wise, old bruin we have years of history with. The elusive bear we’ve been calling Fatty---the one we’ve been dreaming of, the one I was being selective about last season.  

My move to Utah last year put a little bit of a time constraint on my Idaho baiting season compared to when I lived close to Heath. This year, I drove up from Utah to spend a week of spot and stalk bear hunting in Montana, followed by a week of baiting in Idaho with Heath in our annual spots. I packed my 28 Nosler rifle and my brand new .30-30 BFR revolver from Magnum Research. 

The week before my arrival, Heath packed in the first of the bait to our favorite established spot and set up multiple trail cameras. We will often have the same bears hit our sites, and we recognize familiar faces on the cameras from previous years. We had a cinnamon sow we named Scarlett that we saw multiple years in a row. The sow had a very distinctive color and was the object of a few bears’ affections on trail cameras. The jet black bears can be challenging to distinguish unless they have definitive markings, such as a chest patch, blond muzzle, scar, or other noticeable features. It’s always fun to have bears show up that we have a history with. The names they are given typically have to do with their behavior or distinctive markings. Frosting, Fatty, and Marlboro are a few worth mentioning. Marlboro, the jet black bear, didn’t smoke but he did have a yellow-colored patch of fur around his mouth in classic chain-smoker fashion.  

The morning after I arrived in Montana with my bear hunting friends Paul and Dee Servey, we ran over to Idaho with Heath to refresh one site and start a second. The long, steep hike into the site proved rewarding after we checked the trail cameras. A familiar old bear we affectionately called Fatty was back! Fatty was just that, a big old boar with a belly that barely  cleared the ground.  

“Is that him?” I asked Heath in an excited tone.  

“Looks like him. Tough to tell in the nighttime pics,” Heath exclaimed as he flipped through the pics on the card reader. “Ouuu!” he paused, then said, “He’s here in the daylight! 7:11 p.m. to be exact.” Suddenly Fatty got a new nickname, Apu. If you’re a Simpsons fan then you’ll understand the reference (Apu worked at the 7/11 store). As excited as we all were to see him again and in the daylight, Heath and I also understood Apu’s modus operandi. He would appear on camera typically early in the season, sometimes in the daylight. But once we started to actually sit in the tree stand, he would only come to the bait at night.  

Two years ago, my husband John and I were sitting in that exact bait site and we saw him. He was making his way down the ridge to the bait, but he stopped in his tracks about 50 yards from the barrel. He put his front legs on a big log, took one look in our direction, then slowly turned and walked away. That is the only time any of us have ever seen him in person. While we couldn’t be 100% certain it was Fatty, now nicknamed Apu, we were pretty sure this beautiful, giant, jet black bruin is the one we’ve all been dreaming about for years. 

We drove back to Montana that late morning, not only excited to start hunting my favorite spots from the previous 15 years with Paul and Dee, but with an extra pep in my step knowing the big boy was back in Idaho. It’s often tough to leave a bait site sit for a few days, but I think it can be beneficial. The bears get more comfortable coming into the bait, especially without any human scent nearby. You can definitely run the risk of your target bears wandering off to another site, but if there’s plenty of food and they get reinforced at every visit, then I think it’s a good idea to let them get comfortable. 

The week in Montana was one for the record books, but not in a good way. During the five days we spent combing the mountains, we did not turn up one single bear. In areas where we typically see over a dozen bears within a week, we came up with a big goose egg. We even took the Bakcou e-bikes into one of my best areas deep into the canyons, where it’s not uncommon to spot four or five bears in one day. It was actually shocking to say the least. I recall one year when Paul and I hunted the exact same spots and counted 16 bears before he shot his beautiful black boar. The weather was definitely a factor because the cold, rain, and snow put a damper on our Montana hunt. To spend five days without spotting even one bear felt bewildering. 

My first sit on our Idaho site was less than exciting as well. Heath and I sat out in hopes of seeing Apu, but he was a no-show. In fact, Apu and the three other smaller bears that were on the trail cams were all MIA as we sat a mere 25 yards away from a pile of Boarmasters goodies. Chipmunks stealing the nuts from our bait were the only critters Heath filmed all evening. 

Two days later, we returned to freshen the bait with buckets of trail mix, pretzels, and frosting. Boarmaster’s “Carnivore Candy” was sprayed profusely so it would be carried across the ridge with every breeze. Frosting was smeared all over the base of the bait tree using rubber gloves and a touch of artistic flair. All kidding aside, the bears go crazy over the frosting and they’ll use their claws to try and get every last ounce from the deep cracks in the tree bark. With the woods smelling like Willie Wonka’s chocolate factory, we were hopeful for an exciting sit.  

Heath and I got situated in our treestands for a long 4-hour sit. After an hour or so, I suddenly caught movement to my left. One of the smaller bears we had on camera cautiously made his way towards the bait. Younger bears are often the first ones into the bait during the evening sit as they’re desperately wanting to eat without getting chased off by more dominant bears; they’re constantly looking around and stopping to listen intently for other bears approaching. I love watching these younger ones and always consider it a great evening if at least one bear hangs around for us to watch and film. 

The little bear indulged on some bait and frosting until he had his fill, then walked off over the ridge. Hours slowly ticked by without any action, and I was feeling the pressure of the evening coming to an end. Heath continued to spray Boarmasters every 30 minutes or so from high in the tree stand to not only help entice any bears, but to also cover our human scent. Storms were brewing overhead and the forecast was calling for a winter storm advisory the next afternoon. Knowing my next few days of hunting were most likely going to be a bust made the minutes of daylight seem to fade way too quickly. 

Suddenly I felt a tug on my jacket. “It’s Apu!” Heath whispered with excitement. My eyes combed the forest floor for movement as I saw his black mass slowly moving through the trees above the bait. His movements were precise and slow, taking one step at a time with extreme caution. Apu paused about 10 yards behind the bait, looking around and raising his nose to the sky in an attempt to distinguish who all was in his presence. My pistol was already locked and loaded on the tripod in order to minimize any movement from our position. I was afraid the giant bear could hear my heart pounding in my chest, and we watched him slowly move around the bait for 18 minutes without commitment.  

Finally, with the last of daylight quickly diminishing, he approached the bait and turned, giving us a beautiful broadside shot. I steadied my hand as well as my breathing and slowly squeezed the trigger. The boom rang out as the bear lunged forward, actually running into the tree before scrambling to make his way up the hill in the direction he came. My hands shook with excitement as the adrenaline surged through my veins, shaking the tree as I turned to Heath with a huge smile. To have your target bear come in during daylight and make you wait for nearly 20 minutes before presenting a shot is about as exciting as it gets! The shot felt good but I wasn’t positive it was perfect, so we decided to give the bruin some time, hike back to the truck, and check the footage on Heath’s laptop. 

After reviewing the shot, we determined Apu was very slightly quartering to us as opposed to a perfect broadside angle. While I was convinced it was a deadly shot, it was hard to tell exactly where the bullet passed through. After giving him an hour, we climbed the steep ridge to start our search. A blood trail was found right past the bait but the steep, brushy terrain made it nearly impossible to see more than a few feet with our headlamps. More droplets of blood were found, giving us a direction in the thick, dense undergrowth until the trail simply dried up. And on top of that, rain was beginning to fall, which would wash away any hopes of finding blood in the morning. All we could do was go home and return in the morning to start grid-searching the steep, jungle-like ridge. 

After a sleep-deprived night, Heath and I met up and drove back to Idaho early in the morning to begin our grid search. We started at last blood and circled up the mountain. It was so thick that a giant bear could be laying a mere 10 feet away from your position and you could easily walk right past him. Gripping on to the shrubs and trees, we climbed up the ridge searching for Apu. The rain was misting and you could feel a big storm was approaching within hours. We had no luck searching higher than last blood, so we circled back around and started to walk more perpendicular to the road below. I wanted to start heading down but Heath felt it was best to continue on our horizontal line.  

“Let’s go just a little further in this direction. There’s a clearing up ahead with an avalanche shoot we can actually see a little better,” Heath explained. Leading the way, he took two steps before turning around with his arms wide open as if to give me a celebratory hug; he pointed straight ahead where Apu was lying perfectly in one little opening in the trees. In classic Jana fashion, I started to cry with gratitude. Minutes before, I was feeling discouraged and wondering how in the world we were going to find him in this thick Idaho  jungle. 

As we approached the big, beautiful boar I was overwhelmed with emotions. He had zero ground shrinkage and the size of his head was even bigger than I imagined. His body was  nearly impossible to move, but luckily he died in a perfect position on the steep, rocky slope. Putting my hands on the one was truly one of my favorite bear hunting moments from the past 15 years. And to have a business partner who shared in my excitement as if he pulled the trigger is a special thing. The passion I’ve developed for bear hunting only grows stronger with every season, but notching a tag on this caliber of Idaho bear will be hard to top.