On Saturday morning, we split up into two parties, each with a dog rig and a full-size diesel following. Not intentionally; that’s just how it worked out. While Todd went around one side, Don and I went around the other, circling that same apple orchard and old ranger station that’s proved so profitable over the last month.

Todd’s bear was treed close to the road, and while we were on our way over to meet him, Don’s dogs struck, and hard. He turned Chalk out to see if it was worth chasing, and it was, so the other three went out too. We heard them go over a ridge, but then they came back, and Don sent me down to listen further than he was, near where I had faced rattling brush that turned out not to be a bear a few weeks ago.

When I stopped and listened, it was clear that Don and I had them bracketed, and they were coming my way. What’s worse is that they were headed down into some majorly rough country, the Lumsden Canyon which goes right down into the Tuolumne River. At one point, I could see the hounds running just across the canyon from me. We leap-frogged back and forth, the dogs and I, and every time I stopped, I’d holler and honk at them to try to get them in.

But they know damn well that I’m not their person, and why should they listen to me? My heart sank when they got in front of me past the gate down into the Lumsden. I didn’t want to be the one responsible for a long, hard day of trying to get the dogs back out of that impossible place. Don was too far behind me though, and they had to be stopped, so I kept racing them, watching the road get narrower and narrower and the banks get steeper and steeper. I knew the sheer bluffs were right around the corner.

Finally I could hear them over the diesel, so I knew they were close. I stopped the truck and stepped out to listen one more time, and there they were, not ten feet from me. Only when I looked closer at the rattling brush this time, I clearly saw a brown back, not a tri-colored hound. I squirted back into the cab of the truck, having stepped out completely unarmed (not even the camera) although a really pissed-off bear would have come right in the open passenger window, which was right at eye-level to him on the bank.

Fortunately, he saw me too, and flipped a quick U-turn back up into the brush. It happened so quickly that I had to look around before I got back out of the truck and to check the road to make sure that he hadn’t crossed either in front of or behind me. I wasn’t sure that he hadn’t, but the dogs weren’t continuing to chase, so I sincerely hoped that he’d given them the slip.

The dogs popped out looking like they were worn out, and I snagged two. The third one was bleeding from her ear, probably from running through the brush, and she’d flung it all over her face, making it look much worse than it really was, and it took me a while to catch her. I could see the fourth dog, Shady, right up the bank in the brush looking at me, but she wouldn’t come. I was starting to suspect that she was hurt too. Right about the time I was weighing the odds of going in after her with a bear right close, Don pulled up, and managed to coax her down the last ten feet after ten minutes of talking to her. Sure enough, she’d been grabbed on the back. She’s got a few puncture wounds and is holding herself as if she hurts internally, so Don took her back home to doctor her up tonight. She’ll be all right.

But once again, I was grinning from ear to ear. That was the first time I’ve actually seen a bear on the ground during a chase, and to actually be close enough to smell him was high on the excitement scale.

After we all met back up and admired Jim’s bear, we all convoyed up through the apple orchard to see if we couldn’t get a strike while going back to camp. Sure enough, we did, and turned a couple of dogs out on it. In no time at all, we couldn’t hear any of them, and split up to triangulate them by ear. We eventually ended up almost across from camp, just over the ridge from where I killed my bear, with a very nice brown bear in an oak tree. One of the other hunter’s daughters wanted to shoot it, so we hung out and took pictures while they got there. It was nice, and close to the road, but nowhere near the adrenaline rush that I got by being out on foot with one running towards me.

I may be just a little bit hooked. I’m going back up in two weeks, and the guys have suggested that I postpone the trailer repairs so I can go varmint hunting with them. Oh yeah.