Published: March 27, 2008 12:12 pm            

The Outdoors: Want to hunt bears in the spring? Just don’t head north

Originally published in the March 21, 2008, print edition.

As students in the class I teach at Minnesota State University handed in their midterms and headed out the door for spring break, I asked if any had any special travel plans.

A few were headed to pleasantly warm destinations like Mexico or South Padre Island. Many were just planning on sticking around Minnesota and just “chilling” if you’ll excuse the pun.

But one young man said he and a couple of buddies were going to pile into a car and just start heading south, letting the road and their finances guide them where ever.

I admired his sense of adventure.

Nearly 40 years ago, under similar circumstances, a couple of buddies and I hatched a plan for an archery spring bear hunt in northeastern Minnesota.

At that unenlightened time, black bears were an unprotected species in Minnesota and fair game year-round.

Another sign of the unenlightened times, to “hunt” them sometimes meant staking out a city dump and bagging a bruin as it rummaged and rattled through the tin cans and other garbage — kind of like hunting over the ultimate bait station.

So with college classes dismissed for spring break, we piled our camping and hunting gear into my friend’s 1963 Mercury Comet and set the compass due northeast.

We had no specific destination in mind, knew nothing about bear hunting except to get deep into the woods where we presumed the bears would be obligingly wandering around, groggy after a winter of deep sleep.

Now, anyone who has ever traveled Minnesota’s entire depth can attest to just how varied and contrasting the state’s geography is.

The same holds true meteorologically, as well.

When we left southwest Minnesota, the countryside was bereft of snow with balmy temperatures in the 70s, even the 80s.

By the time we reached Duluth, the temperature was as cold as the snow was deep. The Comet finally foundered on a desolate, muddy, gravel road someplace east of Cotton.

A few feet into the woods, the snow was still thigh-deep so we pitched our tent on a bare patch a few feet from the road. In a fashion, we officially were bear hunting.

Of course, as deep as the snow was, we quickly realized that no self-respecting bear would be wandering through such wintery conditions.

With no bears to hunt, we settled into a routine of digging enough firewood out of the snow to keep the fire burning and visiting with curious locals who decided to drive by after hearing rumors about three hippie college students camped east of town.

One evening, bored, we decided a little beer might liven things up a bit around the campfire.

Since I looked the oldest for my 19 years, I got the honor of strolling nervously into the country crossroads bar/grocery store/gas station a mile from our campsite.

You know the routine: “Let’s see, a couple of bags of those chips, and maybe some of those salted herring ... and you might was well get me a 6-pack of Old Milwaukee, too.”

It was a different time and on a slow night in St. Louis County, business was business. The owner pulled the brew from the cooler and slide it across the counter without a question.

We cut our bear hunting excursion short. After a day or two of plinking at the empty beer cans with the .45 caliber M1911 pistol one of my companions had packed as “ backup” should one of us arrow a bruin, we loaded up and steered the trusty Comet homeward.

Technically at least, in spite of seeing neither hide nor hair, we could brag that we had been hunting bears.

As the student who with his buddies was going to let the spring break highway take them to points yet undetermined disappeared down the hallway, I pleasantly recalled my own free-wheeling adventure and how it might be fun to try it again.

But this time, I’d like to think I would have the good sense to head south.

        

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