In this issue of our series entitled “Becoming A Bear Hunter,” we are going to discuss tracking a wounded bear. Now you may ask yourself, “Why not just call it tracking wounded game? Isn’t it all the same?” A great question, but the answer is no, it is not the same. There are important differences between tracking an ungulate and a bear. So, let’s get into it. 

First off, I want to stress the importance of shot placement (see the March/April 2023 issue). We all want to drop an animal in its tracks when we send a shot to avoid unnecessary suffering, and so we don’t run the risk of losing the animal. But if you hunt long enough, you will find that you will miss the animal or may place a shot that is less than perfect for one reason or another. You seasoned hunters know just what I am talking about: an animal can turn or jump right at the last second, an unforeseen twig could have misdirected your arrow slightly, wind could have pushed the projectile off course, and, heck, even your scope could have been bumped, causing it not to be zeroed. The point is, if you hunt long enough things will go wrong, one way or another.  

With bears, sometimes you can have a great shot through the vitals and the creature who is tougher than woodpecker lips still takes off. Sometimes due to terrain and brush, we don’t know if it went 10 yards or 100, but hopefully it just piled up. But when it's wounded and takes off, you must bring out your inner Chuck Norris and go in after it. After all, a wounded predator is nothing to take lightly. Where I am from in the Pacific Northwest, that means I will likely have to crawl through some of the nastiest plants we have to offer. These include thorny blackberries that stand anywhere from ankle high to well over my six foot frame. And let’s not forget devil’s club (which is aptly named) with its broad, thorny leaves and tall, stalked, and even more thorny branches. Each region has their own similar challenges without question.  

This brings us to the first point I want to make; be prepared to search hard for your animal. For me, that means I am bringing leather work gloves along so I can go into this brush without any issues to my hands. A nice thick pair of leather gloves allows me to grab devil’s club without caring at all about getting poked. Included in my pack while hunting bears is a small pair of garden clippers; these can be really handy when you are on your hands and knees like a “tunnel rat” during the Vietnam war working your way through the brush. Using the clippers to trim back troublesome branches is not only helpful for travel but marks your path a bit as you progress down the blood trail. This gives you a clear route if you need to circle back to find the trail again or look for a blood direction. 

Why are bears different from tracking ungulates? Well, I am not saying they are completely different but there are variances. For example, deer and elk will often just make a beeline for the nearest way out: down a gully, up a ridge, etc. (with the exception of whitetail, who seem to head to cover real quick). However bears, once hit, seem to head for the steepest, nastiest cover they can find in the immediate vicinity. That means you have to go after the wounded predator in very close proximity. That can be a serious gut check for lots of people, especially a solo bear hunter or a hunter with limited experience. My advice is that anytime you can have a partner while looking for a bear, you should do it for safety reasons. Make sure you are not stumbling over one another messing up the blood trail and, of course, always know where each other are located to ensure you don’t mistake each other for an animal.  

Not only do bears head for the deepest cover when hit, their hide and fat (as previously discussed last issue) will often plug the entry or exit wound with far greater effectiveness than a deer or elk. This can make following a blood trail a challenge. It is not uncommon to lose blood or not find much blood once you are outside of the original impact area, even on fatal shots. This is very important and something I always try to imprint on new bear hunters, which is that if you are not finding a lot of blood or even any blood, it does not mean you should give up looking. It is imperative that you make sure you are looking for other signs of the bear's traveling direction other than blood. This includes hair, busted branches, turned up dirt or leaves, prints in the dirt or mud, torn up grass, skid marks on rocks, loosened moss off rocks, claw marks on logs, and so on. I will always pause after a shot, if the bear disappears, and just listen to see if I can hear the direction it is traveling or if I can hear a “crash” and then silence, indicating it might have piled up. This can give you at least a general direction on where to start. 

A good example of this was my 2009 spring bear. This was my first spring bear season (it was a special draw) and what a good time it was! After several days of hunting—and an attempted break-in to my truck by some junkies on motorcycles—I worked my way into an area that was covered in bear scat and fresh green grass, bordered by trees that had been recently peeled by bears. Finding my way through the marshy opening, I spotted a boar probably 50 yards out grazing aggressively on the grass. I watched him for a bit as I hid behind an ancient cedar stump. The partly sunny sky glistened off his glorious black hide as he fed. When I was confident it was a bear I wanted to take (a male with no cubs and decently sized), I pulled up and fired my .300 WSM Tikka. The bear spun and bit, then bolted straight for cover. The “cover” being a set of dark, tangled woods choked with blackberries and salmon berries, which were chest high in some places.  

After the shot, I went over and found a little bit of blood and searched for some time. I ended up backing out as it was getting late and I wanted my brother to come help me look in the morning. He and I searched high and low for hours the next day, having lost blood in the marshy area. We were looking for any clues and found little. I felt the bear died for sure and was likely just out of view someplace. Near the early afternoon, after searching since sunup, I decided to cut through the woods to a logging road I knew was there and just follow it in the hopes of finding some sort of sign. I made my way to the old cut and began slowly walking the road, checking for any blood, any sign. I went about 300 yards down the road, which was probably about 450 yards from where I shot, and noticed a bear print in the mud coming off the hillside to my right. I was guessing it was a day old or less and appeared to have crossed the road, at least given the direction it was heading. On the left side of the road, I observed another print that went down into the ditch and past a culvert into another wooded area that was swampy. About 50 yards into the tree line as I followed the general direction of the print, I spotted the bear piled up, surrounded by lush green grass, frogs croaking in the distance, and scarred trees from all the bears peeling their bark.  

A sigh of both relief and sadness came over me. I was ecstatic I found the bear, despite it being almost blind luck, but was sad that the bear went that far. I knew in my heart that he likely died within a few short minutes as he traveled along the wooded hillside and into the marsh, but it still made me want to do better as a hunter. I hit the bear a little further back than what I like, hence why he was able to get so far. But the point is that I had lost blood several hundred yards prior to finding the bear and the only clue that led me to recovering the animal was a day-old footprint in the mud. Be very observant as you track. We recovered the bear, all the meat was still good, and he now sits as a full mount in my man cave, all because of a little luck and perseverance. 

Years back, my little brother shot a bear right at dusk. The bear was eating huckleberries off an old cedar stump when he shot. He saw the bullet hit and the bear fall, but it was already in a tall clear cut surrounded by cover. When it got on all fours, it had completely disappeared down the steep and treacherous draw. He found blood that evening, but it was getting very dark, so he pulled out and called me up. We ended up going back to the spot the following morning at the crack of dawn, trudging up the hillside in the already warm August morning. He had to work that day, but I volunteered to search for his bear for him—we weren’t going to let it go to waste. He gave me general directions where he hit it and while doing so we heard some brush crashing not far from there. Now we didn’t know if the bear was dead or wounded and pissed off waiting for a hapless moron like me to go in after it. Well, like they say, if you’re going to be dumb you better be tough, so off I went down into the ravine as my brother headed to work. I was able to find blood on the stump where it was initially hit and then worked my way into 12-feet-tall alders and blackberries, painstakingly cutting my way through the tangle. As the heat rose, so did the mosquitos who relentlessly ate at my back and neck as I hunched my way along in shaded misery. 

After a good few hours of tracking (but only going about 150 yards from the impact), I could make out a bear next to a log only yards in front of me in the thick brush. I raised up my rifle and held tight, not knowing if the bear was still alive. Moments seemed like hours and there was no movement from the bear. I worked my way closer and discovered it had died. A key point here is this: in thick brush, a bear could easily hide and be waiting to ambush you. If that bear had not been dead, I have no doubt he would have known I was there long before I saw him. I continued dressing out the bear in the 90 degree heat and was able to get the first load of meat out to the road above me just as my brother returned from work. It was a miserable, yet fun experience. 

The nice thing about ungulates is that you have an antler rack to look for when tracking. But bears tend to ball up and hide under a log, rocky outcropping, depression in the ground, and so on when hurt and will often die in that position, making it more difficult to recover them. I like to compare a wounded bear to a tick; it will ball up and hide in the most inconvenient places, so be sure to check every nook and cranny that you can.  

By the time you read this, many of you will be in bear camp for a spring hunt. I wanted to wish you all the best of luck. May your shots ring true! I hope you find success even if you don’t notch your tag. I hope your love and tradition of bear hunting is passed along to someone who can help carry the torch. Happy hunting, my friends.