This story starts with a conversation between the BEWA team and our good friends, Todd and Darnell from ND. Already planning an October deer hunt, the question was posed, "What about a bear hunt?" Our usual Fall bear hunts are taking place in the end of August and into the first half of September, on the Boreal Forest fringe nestled in amongst ripe oat crops and river bank ridges heavy with berries. This however would not be a typical fall bear hunt, taking place a full month after we would normally be wrapping up our hunts. But the challenge was issued, and so we committed to doing our very best, amidst our race against the upcoming hibernation, to try and get Todd and Darnell on their first ever bears.
      Fast forward to the day we had all been waiting for. After doing everything in our power to keep the bears more interested in feasting than sleeping, we were finally on our way out to the stands for our first afternoon sit. Todd was the first to get dropped off at his comfortable double treestand. After spreading some fresh goodies around, we headed out to take Darnell to his stand.  Darnell had laughed and predicted we would be back picking up Todd and a bear within a couple hours. Obviously, however, he had no idea what was in store for him.
      We were able to drive the truck fairly close to the stand we had picked out for Darnell, and decided we would just sneak in on foot. Darnell would carry his crossbow and be ready just in case, dad would haul the bait, and I would load up on anything else left to carry in. I led the way as we quietly worked our way into the bait, and about halfway in, I froze. The hollow 'clunking' of plastic barrels knocking together could be heard up ahead, just out of sight. Communicating with hand gestures and intense eye contact, we silently decided to have dad wait with most of the supplies, while I took the black seat cushion and crept forward, with Darnell right behind me, crossbow at the ready. As we turned the final bend, I could see a glimpse of black retreating from the site. With our hearts pounding from the close call, we beckoned dad forward and resumed getting everything ready. While Dad was spreading some fresh bear goodies, I climbed up into the stand to get the gear stowed and test the radio. As it turned out the radio battery was low, so I headed back to the truck to grab another one while Darnell stood guard for dad at the bait barrels.
      During my short absence, Dad climbed into the tree stand to just double check and make sure it was a battery issue with the radio. While he was playing with that, Darnell whispered from below that the bear was coming back. Assuming that Darnell was just hearing it back in the trees, Dad whispered back to keep an eye out for it, and asked if he had any idea where it was. Darnell, who I imagine was feeling a little confused by this as he was literally watching the bear walk back into the bait site, responded with, "Umm…yeah he's about 30 yards away walking towards us!" Dad and Darnell watched the bear walk right up to the barrel about 20 yards away and start eating, but decided there would probably be a bigger one around.
      It was about this time I meandered back into the picture, holding back a laugh as I saw Darnell with a huge smile pointing at the bear munching in front of him. I walked over and was quickly filled in on things with whispers and barely restrained  laughter. I passed the fresh radio up to Dad, which now worked crystal clear from the stand back to home base. Dad the motioned for Darnell to pass his crossbow up to him, while I scanned the treeline. The bow had no sooner left Darnell's hand when I saw another black shape moving towards us, slowly and more on alert than the first one. I leaned over to my friend and pointed it out coming down the trail, and then motioned to get Dad's attention. The situation struck me as quite hilarious and would later be the source of lots of laughs around the supper table, as here we were, one of the guides up in the treestand with our hunter's crossbow, while Darnell and I stood on ground level with two beautiful black bears milling around within a stones throw. With a whispered voice I explained to Darnell that this was probably the group of three bears that had been travelling between sites, and that likely the next bear to arrive would be the biggest of the three. So Dad and Darnell switched places, and we left to use the rest of our afternoon freshening up a few more sites.
      By the time we got to the next location, unloaded the quad and bait, freshened the site and collected the trail cam pics, and made it back to the truck, less than an hour had passed. Dad radioed mom back at home base just to check in before we moved on to the next site. Instead of the expected "Roger that!" returning through the radio, we caught snippets of 2 different parties informing us that a bear was already on the ground!
      As it turns out, Darnell had been keeping a very careful eye out for that third bigger bear to wander in as well as the amount of time that passed from the point we drove out of the site to a bolt leaving his crossbow…a whopping 12 minutes! With a beautiful shot that passed straight through and into a tree (come for a bear hunt sometime and I will show you the broadhead still buried in the trunk!), the bear did not go very far before it piled up. It had come in apparently as we had left the site, but nervously circled for almost 12 straight minutes, being more wary than the two smaller bears that had been in while we were getting Darnell into the stand. Wow what a whirlwind of a hunt! Congrats Darnell on a gorgeous first bear!
      Now let's jump back to Todd…we picked him up at dark with no second bear on the ground. This wasn't for lack of opportunity, as Todd reported a single bear had come in not too long after we left, and stayed for quite a spell. This was Todd's first bear hunt, and as with any beginner bear hunter (and even many experienced bear hunters) was finding it difficult to judge the size of the bear. Was it a shooter? Should he hold off? He knew it was very late in the season and the bears could decide at any point to just head off to sleep for the winter, but man oh man…decisions! Todd decided he would use the evening as a learning experience, and so filmed the bear and observed its mannerisms. Todd showed us the video that night, to which Dad and I, without skipping a beat, gasped in amazement that Todd would pass such an enormous animal! Now to be fair, in reality it was a very average sized 2 or 3 year old bear, and Todd made an excellent call in holding off the trigger. But in that moment back at camp, all he had to judge by was his gnawing doubts as to whether he should have shot or not, and then dad's and my taken aback reactions…the look of shock was priceless! We couldn't hold a straight face for long though, and after a good laugh we reassured Todd that he had made a good call. It was a good bear for Todd to have in for so long to study because it gave him a standard to judge the next bear by…which would be a very good bear indeed!
      It was late into day two before the radio buzzed us again. We had spend all afternoon going about our daily routine eagerly waiting for Todd's announcement and even though Darnell could have been in a deer stand, he had chosen to help us skin his bear while waiting to hear from his buddy. Well Todd kept us all in super high suspense right through until early evening, (probably as revenge for our joke on him the night previous!), before the excited call came through…"Big Bear Down!!"
      Todd had made a beautiful shot, making the tracking job very easy as we could literally see the bait barrels from where we stood admiring and taking field pictures of his first ever bear. The adrenaline was pounding as we all congratulated Todd on a great bear and planned our path to carry the brute back out to the truck. I don't even remember who it was who first noticed, but in the excitement and focus on the downed bear in front of us, a second bear had worked its way in and was at the bait barrels, between us and the truck. A reminder was quickly brought up by our dear friends that Dad had an unused tag in his pocket from the spring season. Todd generously offered his gun and both he and Darnell began urging Dad to make it 3 bears down in 2 days! However, as tempting as it was, legally we are not allowed to be hunting while on guiding duty, and there just seemed like we may have our work already cut out for us. And so we let the new comer bear wander off the site as we hauled Todd's big bruin out of the woods, leaving him for another time and, hopefully, for one of our future hunters.
      It was a thrilling challenge Todd and Darnell had posed to us, to try and keep the bears awake and decently patterned for them so late in the year, but a challenge we at BEWA relish. These two buddies, and really good friends of the BEWA Team, went home having each taken their very first bear. As exciting and as beautiful as those two bears were, it was all the added blessings that made these hunts what they were. The friends hunting with friends, the laughs and the jokes, the being all together in the entertaining close encounters…that is what makes these hunts such a blessing and so memorable. That is what Bear Camp is all about. 

     Don’t you just love when a great plan comes together? What do you mean you don’t? What kind of a person doesn’t enjoy that?? You know what, forget I even asked, I'm narrating this story, I will tell it my way.
      I really do love when a plan comes together, and that is exactly what happened this year hunting with Darnell from North Dakota. We spent a lot of hours through a lot of days using a lot of different hunting methods, but it seemed like the bucks we were after were always 2 steps ahead of us. One might even be tempted to get a touch discouraged if not for the contagious excitement of Darnell, who has long ago made the transition from simply a hunter to a very dear friend.

      It was amidst such excitement one night going through some trail cam pics together in the living room that a new comer buck grabbed our attention.  Darnell and I christened him with the name "Atlas" as he had shown himself on a piece of land we fondly refer to as Olympus. He was a gorgeous "rib cage" 5x5 with a broken brow. One might think that the following plan would be pretty cut and dried, however we had a couple small issues. The first being that we only had 3 days left of the season; we were on a time crunch and while I greatly enjoyed my time hunting with my friend, I really did want Darnell to go home with more than just a few more hunting stories of big bucks and fun times with me! The second issue was that Atlas was not the only solid and tempting buck in that specific area. This normally wouldn’t be much of an issue for others, but Darnell, much like me, really enjoys learning the animals themselves and seeing the potential behind the rack. Aside from Atlas, we had Titan, Split 2, and Baby Drop working the area, all very impressive bucks. But when Darnell and I studied the pics closely it was obvious all those bucks were power packed with potential to explode next year. Once again one would likely think this to be a good thing. Darnell, however, despite the desire to pass up those other striking bucks, isn't exactly known for passing up a good opportunity at a solid buck. And so we moved forward with the plan, knowing full well that there was a chance he would be presented with a very difficult choice to be made; to shoot one of the other dandy bucks should one of them wander in, or to sweat it out and wait for Atlas himself to show.
   
     Day one came and went, as did day two with no sighting of Atlas. Darnell did fill us in through the day via radio as not one, not two, but all three of the other big bucks tested him again and again. Honestly I don’t know who was more shocked that none of those bucks went down in those two days, Darnell or myself, but I can say Darnell impressed the whole camp with his willpower!
     Day three arrived and anticipation was high. With less and less daylight hours to make it happen, we had one final day to outsmart Atlas. As morning turned to afternoon and afternoon slowly crept towards evening we devised our "Final Phase" plan.
     My dad was hunting with another good buddy from ND, Shawn, who also was still holding a tag. Now Shawn was a little different as he was specifically targeting an absolute monster named Ghost, and had made it clear that because of the ability to hunt at the 8 point special price until he caught up to old Ghost, he was not pulling the trigger on anything less. That is a whole different story though, with the bottom line being that Ghost is still roaming the north woods, causing us to drool and dream over what he could be next year. 
     This all worked out perfectly for our final hooraw, as after touching base with Darnell on the plan, Dad and Shawn headed to a field just south of where Darnell was posted to rattle and call. Meanwhile I headed to a field edge north of Darnell to glass for anything noteworthy. All three groups having radios turned on low volume, we kept each other updated on what we were seeing.
     Darnell's crackled whisper came through the radio announcing that Split 2 was standing in front of him. I glanced at the time…less than an hour left…I stared in Darnell's direction and waited for the "boom". After waiting a few more minutes, Darnell's voice came through again, informing us that Titan had just shown up too! At this point I was thinking poor Darnell has got to be really struggling with this. Suddenly my eye caught some movement by the entrance trail the led into the bush edge just off the field to Darnell. That wide frame and drop tine stuck out starkly against the snow and I quickly whispered that I had eyes on Baby Drop. Darnell in turn informed me that yes, he had just been watching him too. I checked the time…about 30 minutes left, and found myself sitting in amazement at my friends will power right to the end!
     Dad's voice whispered through the radio that they were going to try rattling again, just to see if anything might be hovering just out of sight. As they started their routine I watched Titan, Split 2, and Baby Drop all make their way northwards towards the middle of the field with a large group of does, shaking my head in amazement as to how all three of those deer were still alive.
     All of a sudden my eyes caught some strange movement in behind the group of deer. Everything was slowly working its way north, but suddenly there was a single lone animal working its way against the flow, headed south. I threw my binos up and stared hard through the slowly fading light. No way….with about 25 minutes left in the season, I radioed Darnell, struggling to contain the excitement in my voice. I informed the group that there was a new buck in the field, who I was 85% sure was Atlas, but he was about 800 yards from me so it was tough to tell for sure. The craziest thing was that every other animal was headed away from Darnell, this one was working his was towards him! Making constant glances at the time ticking away, I started giving the update as Atlas closed the distance. All of a sudden my radio battery started to die, and Darnell couldn’t hear me anymore. I could still hear him asking Dad if he could hear me and what he should do. In perfect timing, Mom, who was stationed back at the home base radio and still able to hear me a little, jumped in and relayed my updates. I watched as Atlas broke into a run towards Darnell (though I found out after it was actually that Dad and Shawn had just started to rattle in an attempt to hurry Atlas along before we hit the end of legal shooting light). With between 15 and 20 minutes left in our 2021 season, I watched Atlas enter the treeline and held my breath, praying and waiting for a gunshot. Darnell did not disappoint as his shot echoed out along the field edge, reporting the "thwack" of a solid hit!
     After a long hunt of seemingly always being a few steps behind, the culmination of the group effort ended in Atlas running a short 25 yards before piling up. It is hard to capture the incredible feeling in that moment. My friend and I had more than our share of excitement and challenges through his hunt, and while we all heartily acknowledge that is just what hunting is, this grand finale seemed to make it all extra special.  Everybody's individual role played, the incredible display of will power in passing 3 beautiful bucks time and again, the nail biting count down in the final minutes had all led us to this point, with an absolutely gorgeous deer on the ground, but far more importantly, an incredible hunt what will be treasured in everyone's memories for a long time. That is what BEWA is all about, we are friends hunting with friends, experiencing the adventure of a lifetime together and making memories that are worth even more than just another trophy buck on the ground. Congratulations my friend on another gorgeous Saskatchewan buck, and a heartfelt thank you for allowing me to live that adventure with you!