Pirates Looking at 40
“A Bear Blood Oath”
There is no way we are finding this bear… it’s too dense in this buckbrush and it’s been an hour since we found the last specks of blood. Without tripping over it, we won’t find him. He’s gone.
Those were the words rattling inside the rational part of my brain. Words I suppressed and refused to say out loud to my two hunting partners who were on hands and knees inspecting every leaf, stick, and rock for blood within a 25 foot radius in front of me.
Instead, I shut off those rational comments and mouthed off a half-hearted encouragement. One that mimicked the tone of eeyore trying to motivate winnie the pooh. At the sound of my pitiful rally cry, I received no response, only blank and dejected stares. With nothing left to say, the void of speech was consumed by the silence of the mountains and was accentuated by the quickly fading sunlight. We had to find this bear.
In a twist of irony, it was silence and suppression that hurled us into our bear-tracking predicament 18 hours prior. Sitting on the high-side of a hill overlooking a baited barrel that I had been working for weeks, Sam Singleton and I were at the ready. It was the first night of our multi-day hunt and the wind was just right. I had confidence, too, because if my trail cameras were calibrated correctly, bears were beginning to skirt the edges of daylight and come in for a sweet treat near last light – which was coming upon us fast.
Staring at the bait barrel Sam and I were hopeful, but as each minute passed closer to darkness my cognition jumped to tasks that had to be done later… What would I cook for dinner? How is our other hunting partner, Johnny Mack – host of the Soul Seekers podcast & TV show – doing on his unplanned dash to town for new film equipment? What are tomorrow’s hunt plans going to be?
Then in one of those hazed moments of distractedness, Sam snapped me out of my monkey-mind with a simple and stoically-delivered sentence, “Zach, bear. A big bear.”
It didn’t take long for my eyes to connect to what we thought was a huge jet-black bear meandering up the drainage toward the barrel. With just minutes of shooting light left in the day, the big bruin stopped in his tracks a little over one hundred yards away before he turned around. In an effort to not miss our opportunity I eagerly whispered to Sam, “If you have a shot, take it.”
As Sam adjusted himself on a log lying in front of us, I scrambled to get my phone out of my pocket to capture video of the beast since this hunt was intended to be filmed for a TV show on the importance of mentorship and conservation. Yet, as my iPhone peaked out from my pants pocket, the suppressed twang of Sam’s 7mm PRC rifle rang out and made impact with the bear.
We both watched as the bear kicked like a mule and b-lined down the drainage it had just walked up without so much as breaking a single stick or letting out any groan or growl.
It was only silence.
At that moment, Sam and I were elated. We were four hours into a multi-day hunt and we found ourselves in full confidence that we had just put down a big boar. After a few high-fives and mutual reassurances, we waited until darkness fully engulfed us and made our way to the scene of the impact.
With headlamps shining, the small depression where our barrel lay took on a different look altogether. Shadows were being cast from the wispy aspens that shook in the breeze making it hard to figure out the precise location we believed the bear had been standing in. Once we had pinpointed the location, however, we couldn't find a single positive sign of an impact. Not one droplet of blood, not one tuft of fur, not even a track in the loose dirt was present to indicate that a bear had ever even been there.
With nothing to discover, the demons of self-doubt made their first, but certainly not last, appearance on this hunt. They started their ugly manifestation with the questions Sam and I began to ask each other in the pitch black of a moonless night… Are you sure this is where the bear was? How confident were you that you hit the bear? Wouldn’t we have heard it groan on impact? Where was his death moan?! And the wicked list went on…
Dejected, but not quite defeated, we both decided it best to not bump the potentially injured bear in the dark and come back the next morning with fresh eyes to confirm what we believed to be the “best” worst case scenario - a clean miss.
As with any hunt where a round has been fired and an animal is left unfound, it doesn’t take an alarm to roll out of bed. No, our now complete band of middle aged pirates which included Johnny Mack & Sam Singleton of the Soul Seekers podcast and TV show and myself were wide awake come 4am. With no fanfare we chugged our coffee, grabbed our rifles, and headed up the mountain.
Acting as a new set of eyes, Johnny quizzed us perpetrators on the scene of the crime. He stood and triangulated the probable location of impact as Sam and I artfully reenacted the late-evening scene from the night before. With our new lead investigator and mentor on the case, Sam and I were hopeful that he would drum up clues we had missed and soon be drawing a chalk outline around where the bear should be laying. Yet, after an hour or so into the full investigation in the morning light, nothing was found.
All of the logical assumptions we followed told us the bear, if hit, would be taking the path of least resistance, which was the well beaten game trail that was flanked on either side by steep hillsides. That trail was this bear’s only option for escape, which dumped into a creek ¾ of a mile below us… and on that path we found nothing.
With a pat on Sam’s shoulder we reluctantly concluded the obvious and began consoling him on his lost opportunity and failed shot before we put our mind toward the spot-and-stalk plans for the rest of the day.
Intuition is a funny thing. Like a summer campfire that was not fully dowsed, each one of us had embers of hope crackling in our souls that were voiced through numerous “what-if scenarios,” which were distracting us from our hunt.
“What if that bear is down past the creek?” Johnny Mack would say, before I would retort with, “Or, what if that bear somehow decided to run uphill?”
A little time in silence would pass while we glassed up north facing slopes only to be interrupted by Sam, “Guys, what if that bear was so big that blood had trouble running down its fur?”
By the time we sat down for our mid-day meal the what ifs were all we could talk about. With a silent agreement, one usually reserved for friends that have known each other for much longer, we knew we had to go back and put more time into finding Sam’s bear. Once we downed our last spoonful of our dehydrated meals, we agreed that we needed to trust our guts – which were all aligned that our bear was still out there – and not give up this search. We hatched a plan and were in short order ready to execute.
With a renewed pep in our step we decided to work the drainage from the bottom up. Spread out like a fan in the creek bottom we looked like American GIs wading through rice paddies searching for Charlie as we held our rifles over head battling against the buck brush. Communicating only through whistles and hand gestures we made our way up the narrowing drainage until we finally stumbled upon a clue we had previously missed.
A sprung wolf trap.
You see, the drainage we were working is one that is a superhighway for all manner of critters, including some large canines that I have captured on my trail cameras. As a licensed wolf trapper, I had steel on the lower end of that drainage where I had seen wolf sign over the last few weeks. What Johnny Mack realized in that moment is that our bear had to have hit that wolf trap as he ran down the drainage – veering it off of the “obvious” path of least resistance and up the steep slope to the bear's left. Then, in a scene that would fit well in any HBO drama series, Johnny Mack looked at Sam in a flash of paternal mentorship and said, “Do me a favor and walk fifteen feet up the hillside and see if you see anything.”
While Sam disappeared into the timber, Johnny Mack and I investigated the sprung trap to look for hair or any sign of what animal may have tripped it, but we were cut short by the beautiful sound of Sam’s ever-stoic voice, “Guys, you aren’t gonna believe this… I’ve got blood.”
Passing excited glances, Johnny Mack and I dropped the sprung trap in the trail and bolted up to Sam’s side. As Sam stepped out of the way, there it was… the first downed log up the steep embankment was coated on both sides with the color of crimson. We had first blood. Good blood. The track was on.
Any hunter who has seen a working dog trail an animal knows it’s a sight to behold, but if you are looking for a close second all you need is to track an animal with Johnny Mack. At that first sight of blood he transformed before our eyes into a bloodhound tracking an escaped convict. Spurts of blood quickly led to a pool about midway up the steep hill and Johnny Mack was on fire – no speck of life force was unfounded. As I stood in awe watching him work outward from that pool of blood, our speed and tenacity began to slow for the first time – after about 20 minutes we had lost the trail.
Perplexed, we reconvened at the last major blood sight to have a gentlemen’s pow wow. Like a counsel of elders we offered up our theories – of which, all of them would turn out to be wrong – and decided it best that we slow down our search to ensure we didn’t lose this animal or our spirits.
It was 2 p.m.
What followed was nothing short of a condensed version of a brotherhood initiation. It was the same as being “beat-in” for a gang, getting a branding on Yellowstone, or going through a high-standard evolution during military training. For the next seven to eight hours, we suffered – together.
Myself and the Soul Seeker’s hunting crew crawled on hands and knees searching for droplets of blood all while lugging rifles, packs, camera gear, and what would turn out to be not nearly enough water. During our little “training evolution,” we each went through our own mental battles as we hit our own individual walls. When the trail would go hot, we would be elated and eager… and when the trail would inevitably go cold a few feet later… we would collectively let out a sigh.
If someone were to have come up on us in the woods during those low points they may have thought they were sneaking up on an early 20th century chain-gang busting up rocks. For during those low points we would hum and sing our favorite praise songs, which was a surprising glue to our budding friendship and a literal plea for help to our Higher power.
Each time we cried out a line from The Lion of Judah or my more elementary suggestion of Jesus Loves Me, it seemed as though we were answered with the gift of blood. Intermixed between our heavenly pleas we had three main roadblocks where the group collectively almost threw in the towel. In those three moments God gave us each the opportunity to reinvigorate the whole by guiding one of us to the smallest trickle of blood and putting us once more on the trail. It was through this faith-filled leapfrog approach that we began to once again get closer and closer to the last light of day. Over a five hour time frame we had worked just over one mile through the thickest, nastiest, and brutal foliage before the terrain opened up into a beautifully green knoll.
It was 7 p.m.
In most cases we would have celebrated the freedom of travel that this new terrain provided, but in the case of tracking our bear it proved to almost be the final nail in our emotional coffin – that bear could have run anywhere.
Frantically looking for any sign of tracks or blood, we spread out across the hill. We pulled out binoculars and glassed the trails in front of us and all silently prayed that yet another clue would be found.
Despite our best efforts and prayers we reconvened after 45 minutes of searching with nothing to show and no clue as to which way to go. The demon’s of self-doubt again dropped out of the trees, popped out behind bushes, and ambushed us at that moment… We were defenseless. Under their assault we all marked our OnX maps with where we had last found blood and repelled the demons with talks about coming back the next morning with fresh eyes.
With the doubt-demons temporarily held at bay, Sam listfully walked off into the buckbrush below us while Johnny Mack and I talked about getting some more water and concocted hunt plans for the next few days. As Jonny Mack and I sat on that hillside it was wild to watch Sam walk off.
It was as if he were drunk and mourning a great loss. His eyes weren’t looking down, but up toward the sky, as he let his hands gently roll over the buckbrush at his sides. Each step down that hill took him deeper and deeper into the bushes and it looked as if he were walking out into the ocean and letting the bigness of the landscape swallow him whole.
Once Sam was out of sight down that embankment Johnny and I went back to our conversation. However, our talks were cut short by a lightning strike of words that shot up from the hill below and struck at Johnny and I’s feet.
With the same words that started us on our quest seven hours earlier, Sam stoically called out, “Guys, you aren’t gonna believe this… I’ve got blood.”
Leaping to our feet, Johnny and I scrambled with our equipment to look down the steep side of the hill. Sure as day, there was Sam looking up at us with only the white of his teeth and the pop of crimson on the log beside him standing out in the fading light.
Johnny Mack pushed to the front as his tracking-dog spirit took a hard hit of this proverbial smelling salt and was once again off to the races. It felt like it took only a few more bounds before a silence once again fell over the group. Johnny Mack was perched on a log looking straight down into buck brush, with Sam right behind him, and I behind Sam. We all watched as Johnny Mack slowly turned around and with no words we saw the one thing that had been missing the entire day… a smile.
In that fraction of a second, before our ears picked up the verbal confirmation from Johnny Mack saying, “Boys… Dead Bear!” each one of our hearts exploded with joy.
A conjoined primal scream was let out on the side of that mountain as we each embraced and high-fived each other like we had just won the super bowl. A feeling that only a group of men who put faith in each other and God can feel – the cementing of a blood-oath brotherhood.
The hours of toil that followed to break down that huge bear went by without a single complaint. We each worked with our hands deep inside the animal which our demons of self-doubt nearly convinced us to let go. We worked with our knife blades cutting meat, trimming fat, and pulling hide until the wee hours of the morning – laughing and recounting our journey the whole time. We were present.
That presence, unaffected by cell phones, was capped off by our mid-morning hike out. We each shared the load of meat and equipment and were back to camp at 2am. Each one of us were sore, tired, and happy. We had found our bear and we brought him home.
My hope for every man or woman who has lost their way in life gets to pursue a primal experience such as this one. Nothing can recalibrate the human soul faster than going after an apex predator, shooting it, tracking it with your community, and bringing it home to be consumed by your loved ones.
If you enjoyed this story and resonate with the message of self-sufficiency, grit, and mentorship then please check out my best-selling book, Turning Feral, on Amazon. Furthermore, if you want to hear our first hand recounting of this hunt go check out and subscribe to the Soul Seekers podcast or tune into the Soul Seekers channel on CarbonTV where this hunt will air during season five.
About the Author:
Zachary Hanson is an adult-onset hunter and trapper. He is the author of the best-selling book ‘Turning Feral,’ and the host of the Okayest Trapper podcast. By trade, Hanson is an expert in artificial intelligence and machine learning product management.
He holds degrees from the College of Charleston and Johns Hopkins University. A backcountry enthusiast committed to sustainable living, he lives with his wife and three children at the base of the Sawtooth Mountains in rural Idaho.
#bawss