Hunting elk on horseback in Idaho’s Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness.

Photo above copyright VictorSchendelPhotography.com

My sleep-addled brain woke slowly as I removed my earplugs in time to hear Ron say, “He sure is asleep!”

I mumbled, “Not any more,” but then sat bolt upright in my cot as I heard the terrified whinnying of the horse outside our tent and a chorus of wolf howls from nearby.

I grew up in West Texas, where coyotes yapping at the moon are a common occurrence. This was not yapping–this was a rich cacophony of baritone and bass voices announcing the demise of an unfortunate elk, moose, or deer. Like the unseasonably warm weather, the wolves were an unwelcome addition to our hunt. But even though both represented obstacles that were conspiring against our attempts to take home a trophy elk, they could not dampen the joy of being in these imposing mountains that, two centuries before, had formed a formidable barrier for the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

Several days earlier, as the twin-engine Britain Islander skimmed across the rugged hilltops and sailed over the intervening chasms of the Salmon River Mountains, I had pondered Lewis and Clark’s Herculean feat in crossing these mountains. For us, the journey from Salmon, Idaho, to the grass airstrip that gave us access to the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness was a smooth one. 

Set aside by Congress in 1980, the Frank Church-River of No Return extends across 2.3 million acres, making it the largest contiguous wilderness in the Lower 48. The name of this wilderness has two origins. “The River of No Return” reflected well the early days of exploration of this area because boats could navigate downstream on the Salmon River, but not upstream, because of the fast-flowing water and numerous rapids. The addition of the name Frank Church, a long-serving senator from Idaho who worked broadly for protection of natural areas, including authoring the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968, came in 1984.

I was confident as I could be when heading into the backwoods after game because I had been in camp once before with the same outfitter. On that first hunt, I fulfilled a lifelong goal of doing a real wilderness hunt, and in the process I collected a trophy black bear. This second trip would consist of the same key ingredients; high quality guides, a great base camp, and an extremely remote hunting area with only horses, mules, and our own feet and backs to find and bring back the game. Although we all had deer and bear tags, we three hunters–Ron Differ, my brother Randy, and I–had come primarily for the chance to hunt elk during the bugle.

Idaho has a rifle season coincident with the period that should include the elk rut (mid-September to early October). Elk, however, don’t always decide to bugle during this time, especially, as in the fall of 2003, when the temperature is high enough to roast a chicken on an exposed rock.

Being a relative neophyte to elk hunting, and never having hunted during the rut, I was blissfully unaware of the steep odds against our hunting party as we made the five-hour ride from the airstrip to our alpine base camp. As we began the final, steep descent into the 6,500-foot elevation meadow where camp was located, the chime of the bells hanging around the necks of the grazing horses and mules, the warm, golden glow of the lantern light through the sides of the cook tent, and the smell of woodsmoke from the camp stove filled our senses with a comforting welcome. Randy commented that this combination of sounds, sights, and smells never failed to lift spirits at the end of a long, exhausting trail.

Our first hunting day was typical of our outfitter’s program: a predawn wake-up by a guide lighting our tent’s lantern and stove, a hot breakfast, a several-mile ride or walk into the surrounding country, still-hunting throughout the morning, an “elk nap” in the middle of the day, glassing the afternoon away, traveling back to base camp in the dark, a hot dinner eaten in an exhaustion-induced daze, and a final grateful collapse onto the cot. The only discordant note from this first day came from the lack of animals spotted by our three two-man teams.

For guide Gary Gingerich and me, the second day was much the same, except that we found elk tracks on top of our previous day’s horse tracks on the main trail to camp. I was also thrilled when we still-hunted to within forty yards of a mule deer doe, two fawns, two young bucks, and a 2 1/2-year-old 4-pointer. Nowadays I live in Georgia, and I regularly see whitetail deer, but mule deer always elevate my heart rate. To me, their ears appear to be two feet long and completely full of thick, soft hair. These six deer inspected us nervously and then moved slowly down slope and out of sight. Though fulfilling, seeing the mule deer could not remove the nagging worry that hot weather and wolf packs might foil our search for elk. That night, the same story repeated itself as the other hunters and guides drifted back into camp–they, too, had seen plenty of heat, dust, and flies, but no elk.

Like the two before it, day three dawned bright, dry, and with the threat of increasing temperatures. However, this morning, Randy and his guide, Dave, along with Gary and I, had risen and left camp even earlier than usual so that we could reach a distant ridge near the headwaters of Bear Creek. Gary and I left Randy and Dave just short of the ridgeline that would mark the boundary between our respective hunting areas. We continued to the ridge, where we unbridled our horses just before 8 a.m., tethering them with their halters to trees in an island of young pines.

We had traveled no more than fifty yards from the glade when I thought I heard a distant bugle. Gary looked at me doubtfully when I told him what I had heard. His skepticism came from my repeated attempts in the days prior to turn braying mules, singing birds, and creaking trees into bugling elk. However, the bull almost immediately sounded off again. This time the elk’s clear notes seemed to match the dry, crisp, alpine coolness.

When Gary unleashed his response bugle, the elk gave an immediate answering grunt. We moved farther along the ridge while waiting for another call. We did not have to wait long as we carefully picked our way along the ridge. This next call sounded closer and was not a grunt, but a full-blooded bugle. We would conclude later that we were working two bulls, or maybe more accurately, two bulls were working us, but at the time we thought it to be one very talented performer. 

For the next hour and a half our hunt followed a scripted pattern, one that hunting-video producers, I am sure, wish they could capture: Gary called; the elk responded with grunts and complex bugles; we moved slowly and carefully along the ridge before answering; Gary called again; after a brief pause, the elk responded. Forty-five minutes passed, and Gary had to decide whether to go after the bull or try to set up and entice him to us. After a short discussion, we chose to set up just below the ridgeline. 

Gary motioned to the tree he wanted me to sit beneath and whispered, “I’ll stay behind and to your right to try and draw the bull’s attention away from you.” Our stand appeared to be nearly perfect; the wind was in our faces, coming from the direction of the bugling bull, and we had a good view of the valley below and the slope opposite us. However, calling elk is a fluid process. After only fifteen minutes on our stand, Gary joined me to say that, because the steadily lessening volume of the bull’s grunts suggested he was moving away from us, we might have to go after him. Gary gave another blast from his tube and my heart skipped a beat because the answering call seemed to be right on top of us. Gary switched to a cow call and then followed up immediately with a bugle. 

The elk answered, and Gary whispered urgently, “There he is–he’s a six-point!” and then, because I was looking at the opposite slope, he asked, “Can you see him?” 

I answered “No,” but then a golden flash in the valley bottom made me glance in that direction. I raised my rifle just as the elk moved behind a stand of fire-killed trees. The bull stretched out his neck and let out a mosaic of sounds. Gary cow-called and then bugled, and the bull responded immediately. More cow calls emanated from Gary and as I watched through my scope, the bull turned and faced our position. Though he remained screened, I could just make out the curve of his barrel-like ribcage. As he turned in our direction, he began a series of barks. Each time he barked, his ribcage gave a sudden jerk due to the violent expulsion of air. 

In answer to the barks, Gary bugled long and loud and then mewed through his cow call. I slowly raised my right leg so that the tree and both legs would brace me. But as I slid my right elbow onto my raised knee, my right leg began to tremble uncontrollably. That wouldn’t work. I lowered it back to the ground and rested my supporting hand across my still-steady left knee.

After an eternity, I watched through my scope as the bull slowly swiveled to his right. First, his nose inched out from the screen of trees. As Gary and the bull continued to exchange insults, his eye appeared and then the base of his antlers, followed by his impossibly thick neck and finally, ever so slowly, his shoulder slid into view. The recoil from my rifle rocked me back a fraction of a second after the cross hairs rested behind his shoulder. As I worked the bolt of my rifle, the elk froze and then turned slowly to trot into the stand of dead pines that occupied the valley floor. The faint rattling of the elk’s feet in the timber followed. Gary threw his arm around my shoulders as I stumbled to my feet and exclaimed, “Now, was that worth the price of admission?”  

“Unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable,” was my answer.

The next moment Gary asked the million-dollar question. “How did your shot feel?” 

I answered slowly, “My sight picture was just behind his shoulder, so I think it was solid.” Gary, too, felt the shot was good because the bull had momentarily frozen, rather than bolting immediately out of the valley. He also thought he had seen a flash of antlers as if the bull had fallen somewhere in the timber. 

Then he spoke the words I hate the most: “We’ll just wait and give him time to die or lie down.” No matter how sensible the advice, I have no patience for waiting to see if I messed up a shot. But we waited. And then after ten minutes or so, and with me muttering a prayer under my breath, we slowly made our way down the slope.

When we reached the spot where the elk had stood when I first fired, we found no blood. We cast out farther, but we still did not find any blood. And then, fifty yards to our left, the bull thrashed on the other side of a downed tree. I shouldered my rifle and aimed, but Gary stopped me with the words “Wait, but if he gets up, hit him again.”

I needn’t have worried. The elk was done, and after a five-minute wait, we approached the ultimate symbol of a wilderness hunt in western North America.

As I ran my hands through his luxurious mane and down his golden back, I marveled that the combination of lousy weather and hungry wolves had done their worst and yet still had not defeated Gary and me. I then ran my hands over the long, pine pitch-stained antlers, and savored the sweet, musky smell that I remembered from my only other elk. This time, though, I was not contemplating a raghorn bull, but instead a monarch who had seen many winters, who had avoided numerous hunters, and who had likely fathered several successors. I was deeply grateful for this magnificent animal. 

In the years since, this trophy has been the spark that endlessly rekindles memories of long trails that weave along mountain ridges and pass through alpine forests, and end, as darkness falls, with the chime of horse bells, golden light from the cook tent, and wood smoke hovering over frosted ground.

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Hunting a bighorn ram high in the Colorado Rockies.

I stared pensively into the flames of the campfire as they popped and crackled, consuming the aspen logs and sending a fragrant plume into the September sky. Mingling with the wood smoke was the delicious aroma of elk brats roasting on a metal grate propped atop the logs. It was a glorious evening at our sheep camp at 9,500 feet in the Colorado Rockies, and the last glow of sunset had painted an orange blush on the rocky peaks that surrounded us. But when I glanced up at those ramparts I felt like they were daring me to scale them, and making it plain they cared not one whit whether I succeeded.

Under normal circumstances, I would have been relaxing and reveling in this wonderful place. Instead, I tore my gaze away from the crags and looked back at the campfire, sipping a Gatorade, my stomach churning with nerves and my mind riddled with doubts. Can I do this? Am I in good enough shape? Will we see a good ram? If we do, can I make the shot?

Drawing a Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep tag had been an incredible stroke of good fortune, but I had not anticipated the stress I felt once I had the coveted permit in hand. If a bighorn tag is not once in a lifetime, it’s close enough. If you don’t fill it, it’s very unlikely you’re ever going to get a second chance. The pressure I had put on myself had been building all summer as the hunt got closer, and now, the evening before opening day in my unit, it felt as crushing as a hundred-pound pack.

Around me was the low, reassuring murmur of conversation from my hunting team. My guide, Jesse Bauer, and the two assistant guides, Trevor and Chad, were whipsaw-thin and tough as rawhide, sharp-eyed veterans of the high country with decades of sheep-hunting experience between them. My husband, Scott, had given up his elk tag and spent the summer getting into sheep shape with me so he could come along to provide motivation, support, and an extra set of eyes. He had even loaded his pack with extra water, food, and gear so I could go in as light as possible. 

In short, I had quite possibly the best sheep-hunting team in the state of Colorado in my corner. But there were so many wild cards: The mountains. The weather. The sheep themselves. And, of course, me. 

Unexpected Challenges

I had first set foot in the magnificent San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado a month prior, when Scott and I had made the eight-hour drive from our home in northern Colorado to accompany sheep guide Justin Adkisson and his son, Ridge, on a scouting trip. 

The country was everything I had imagined in my sheep-hunting dreams: steep, rugged mountains flanking long, narrow valleys, high alpine meadows filled with lush grass and tiny wildflowers, hot sun and cool breezes, the coarse calls of magpies and Steller’s jays, and trickling headwater creeks filled with native Rio Grande cutthroat trout. 

We went in on four-wheelers, rumbling up the trail until it narrowed to singletrack, and then parking the vehicles and making a circuitous nine-mile hike, all of it at more than 10,000 feet of elevation. Following rumors of ram sightings passed on by the inhabitants of a backcountry fishing camp, we climbed and glassed, and climbed and glassed some more, spotting only a group of ewes. This time of year, Justin explained, the rams and ewes stayed in separate herds, but the rams would often be just one drainage over. 

We went back to the four-wheelers and negotiated a rocky trail into the next drainage. Justin’s sheep savvy proved correct, and we spent the afternoon and evening glassing a group of rams very high on the crest of a ridge and studying what looked like a good one in the mix. I was simultaneously thrilled at finding rams and humbled by the difficulty of the terrain. I had been working out hard, and I had a month left. I determined to double my efforts in the time remaining.

But on the way back to the trailhead that evening, disaster struck when the four-wheeler I was on rolled over on a sharp turn. Just before it flipped, I jumped off, landing on my left leg, hard.

It could have been a lot worse. A trip to urgent care when I got home showed no bones broken, but I was in significant pain, barely able to hobble around the house, much less hike. I rehabbed the injury with single-minded determination, and a little more than two weeks later I was hiking again, albeit with a marked decline in my hard-won fitness level. 

Around the same time, I began to have problems with my rifle. The groups I shot with the rig I had planned to use were unsatisfactory, and it developed feeding problems to boot. I turned to the trusty rifle I had been using on our DIY elk hunts, a Ruger American .30-06. It was lightweight, accurate, and dependable—everything a sheep rifle needs to be.

I topped it with the Swarovski scope that had been on the other rifle, joking to Scott that my scope cost four times as much as my rifle. During the weeks I couldn’t hike, I spent my mornings at the shooting range, practicing out to 300 yards, lying on a prone mat and shooting off my pack.

At last, just days before the hunt was to begin, my leg was healed and I had a rifle in hand I trusted. Scott and I loaded our truck with camping gear, hunting packs, rifle, ammo, and two big coolers, and we hit the road for the high country.

Into the Mountains

Trevor had spotted a nice ram several days prior to our arrival, but he had not been able to find it since then. So at daylight on the first morning, the plan was for the five of us to split up and glass the two drainages we had scouted back in August. Jesse, Scott, and I headed up the drainage where the ATV wreck had occurred, while Trevor and Chad hiked up the valley just to the west of it, where we had seen the ewes on our scouting trip.

The morning dawned clear and beautiful—a perfect fall day, and I felt much better as soon as we started hunting. My head cleared, my insides unclenched, and my mind focused on the task at hand. The three of us scoured the mountainside thoroughly with our binoculars and spotters, seeing nothing but a few elk. Some three hours later, Jesse was certain the rams weren’t in this drainage. It was time to go join Trevor and Chad.

We left the ATVs where the trail narrowed to a footpath and shouldered our packs for the hike up the next drainage. After about a mile and a half, we found Trevor sitting next to the trail, glued to his spotting scope, which was trained on the opposite ridge. I plopped down beside him and he gestured for me to take a peek. I held my breath as several blocky gray forms came into focus through the glass. Rams!  

There were probably a dozen rams in the group, mostly four- to six-year-olds, and we spent the morning enjoying watching them feed, sniff each other, lick rocks, and do other sheepy things. Just before midday, they went into a copse of trees and bedded down.

In the meantime, Jesse and Chad had climbed the slope behind us, where they had a higher vantage and could see a group of four rams a little way past and above the bunch we were watching—and one of them looked big. They were bedded in a rocky, cliffy spot, but Jesse thought we might be able to get to within 300 yards of them, if the wind didn’t change and the other group of rams didn’t blow our stalk. 

We discussed the problem at length. Scott studied the grass on top of the ridge through his 15X binocular and determined the wind was blowing left to right up on the ridge. He said that if we stayed to the right of the young rams, we should be able to get around them to where the big ram was without spooking them. But it was a risk.

In the end, Jesse looked at me. “It’s your call,” he said. “That ram is in a tough spot. We can climb the mountain and try it, but there are no guarantees it will work. We might blow it. We can also watch him and wait to see if he moves into a place where it would be easier for us to stalk him.” 

I had already made up my mind, and it wasn’t a hard call. There was a big ram up there on the mountain. The stalk might or might not work, but one thing was for sure: I wasn’t going to kill him sitting down here. 

“Let’s go,” I said. The midday sun was warm, and I stood up and began stripping off all my outer layers and stuffing them in my pack. Everyone else followed suit. 

It wasn’t an overly long climb, but it was straight up, more than a thousand feet of elevation gain, and the altitude made it brutally tough. I followed Jesse, and Scott and Trevor followed me, while Chad stayed at the base of the mountain to watch the proceedings unfold through his spotter; that way, if we spooked the rams, he would be able to see which way they went, and if we were successful, he would come up and join us to help pack out the ram.

The first part of the climb involved clambering through thick timber and over deadfalls. My legs felt like someone had hung lead weights on them, and I hauled myself up the slope by grabbing bushes and small saplings. Finally we were above timberline, and a near-vertical slope stretched before us, all rock and loose scree. 

Once we got up there, everything started to go wrong. The wind, which had been blowing lightly but steadily left to right as Scott had seen, switched, and with horror, I felt it touch the back of my neck. Shortly afterward, I dislodged a large rock, which bounded down the mountain sounding like a drum solo at a rock concert. We all froze, clinging to the unstable scree. A moment later, I saw a young ram run across the cliff face to our front. I was sure we were busted. 

But Jesse kept going, picking his way across the loose rock, and I followed him, taking extra time to place my feet as carefully as I could. A pika scurried in front of me with some plants in its mouth and ducked under a rock. Then I saw Jesse crawl up to a little notch with a rock ledge almost like a windowsill and peer over it with the rangefinding binocular I’d loaned him.

I dropped to my knees, stripped off my pack, unclipped the rifle from it, racked a round into the chamber as quietly as possible, checked the safety, then crawled up behind him, pushing the pack and rifle ahead of me. A huge alpine bowl opened in front of me, studded with enormous boulders.

Jesse hand-signaled two-six-zero. I felt a rush of adrenaline; the sheep were in range. I breathed deeply, slowly eased the pack on top of the rock ledge, and shoved the rifle over it.

Then Jesse said, “They’ve winded us; they’re up.” 

My heart sank, sure we had done the tough climb for nothing. But wonder of wonders, the rams weren’t running. They were only standing, looking curiously our way. I settled in prone behind the rifle, working the fore-end into my pack, steadying it just as I had done countless times on the 300-yard range back home.

Jesse talked me calmly onto the rams until I had them in my scope. The big ram, he said, was third from the front. I panned past one, two, and then–wow! This ram was much bigger than the others. He was standing broadside at the base of an enormous boulder, looking right at me. He was the embodiment of every adjective I had ever heard applied to bighorn rams: Royal. Majestic. Magnificent.

Then he took a few steps forward. He was walking, and I wasn’t ready. To my complete astonishment, Jesse bellowed a loud, “BAAA.” The ram stopped and looked toward us again. 

My cross hairs were on him, but it wasn’t quite right. This shot had to be perfect. There could be no doubt at all. I breathed, shifted, got steadier. And the ram started walking again. 

Once again, Jesse let out a “BAAA!” The ram stopped again, broadside, looking right at me. The rifle was zeroed at 200. I adjusted for the holdover. The cross hairs came steady. It was right. Trigger squeeze. The shot was like a thunderclap in the mountain basin.

And the rams were running.

“You hit him. Reload.” I heard Jesse, but I was already racking the bolt. All four of the rams were running straight up the mountain, including the big ram. Straight up. Not good.

I knew I had to stay calm and make the follow-up shot. I asked Jesse for a range, and he said 300. I reached up and dialed the scope turret to 300 and settled back down behind the rifle to get the ram in my sights. He had stopped. I breathed and steadied myself. And then, before I could do anything else, the ram dropped right out of the scope.

After his initial forty-yard bolt up the mountain, he simply collapsed in his tracks and rolled down the mountain like a loose cannonball. I heard Jesse shout, “He’s rolling!” The bullet had done its job and the tough old ram had been dead on his feet; he just hadn’t known it. 

I let out a long breath, rested my forehead on my rifle, and said a heartfelt prayer of thanks. Then I turned to Jesse and gave him a hug. “Thank you so much,” I said. 

Jesse’s million-dollar smile was a mile wide. He said, “Thank you for not missing!”

Trevor and Scott came running up with congratulations and hugs. They had been crouched low behind us, and hadn’t seen the ram, but they had seen the shot and our reactions. 

Scott said to Jesse, “I heard you go BAAA!”

Jesse said, “I can’t believe that worked!”

After unloading my rifle, I picked my way out into the scree field behind the others. We looked for the ram near the boulder where he had originally stood, thinking he had rolled back down close to it. But he wasn’t there. Trevor ranged farther up the mountain, Scott went to the right, and I stayed close to Jesse, but we were looking for a rock-colored ram in an ocean of rock-colored scree. 

I felt panic rising. Had he really been dead? Did he get up and run after that awful fall? Or did he roll all the way to the bottom of the basin, which dropped off in sheer cliffs far below us?

Jesse and Trevor were looking around, shaking their heads, crisscrossing the slope. I had gone from rocket-ship high to a deep low in just minutes. And then I looked up the scree field to my left and saw something yellowish-brown. It was an animal. A large, dead one, with horns.

“Jesse!” I yelled, pointing. 

“It’s him!” He shouted, and he and Trevor bounded over. 

It seemed to take me forever to get there; it was difficult to move on that loose scree. Scott was right beside me, and we gasped in the thin air, slipping and stumbling in our eagerness to get to the ram. The altimeter on my watch read 11,800 feet.

When I finally got to the ram, the others stood back and I knelt and put my hands around the bases of his magnificent horns, marveling at their mass and how it carried through to the broomed tips of his three-quarter curl. He was everything I had imagined, and more: a fine, mature ram, eight or nine years old. I thought of all the preparation and stress, the hikes, the injury, the mornings of shooting, the dry firing, the workouts, the doubts, the fears. It all came together as I held the ram and looked down from the lofty heights he had called home to my own world far below.

That evening found us around the campfire again. Four ghostly white shapes–the sheep quarters in their game bags–swayed from nearby tree branches where we had hung them to cool. I had trimmed the tenderloins from the ram, sprinkled them with salt and pepper, and laid them on the metal grate over the logs. Exhausted, hungry, and jubilant, our little group of sheep hunters watched in companionable silence as they cooked.

My aching muscles and the bruises I had sustained from countless falls on the way down the mountain with the ram’s head on my back told me it had all really happened. But every few minutes I had to get up and touch the horns, just to be sure.

When I looked up at the jagged peaks above us, silhouetted now against a star-filled sky, I felt humbled and grateful to have briefly been granted entry into the rarefied world of the bighorn sheep. They are the ultimate symbol of these mountains, an integral and essential part of the high country, and of hunters’ dreams.

Gear for the Sheep Hunt

My rather unconventional sheep rig was a Ruger American rifle in .30-06 topped with Swarovski’s Z6 2.5-15×44 HD. Weighing just over 7.5 pounds, this turned out to be an outstanding combination, and I wouldn’t hesitate to take it on another high-stakes mountain hunt. Barnes VOR-TX ammo with the excellent 168-grain TTSX bullet shot consistent sub-MOA groups and exhibited deadly terminal performance on my tough old mountain ram.

Top-of-the-line glass is perhaps the most crucial gear item on any sheep hunt. I carried my trusty 10X Swarovski EL Range binocular, which has stood me in good stead on many hunts. At the moment of truth, I handed it to my guide so he could glass and range my ram while I prepared to shoot. 

For long hours of glassing, Steiner’s HX 15x56X binocular on a Leupold ProGuide Carbon Fiber tripod proved to be ideal, much more powerful than 10X binocular and far easier to use and pack than a spotting scope. We used it to spot sheep on our summer scouting trip and on the hunt itself. However, I was glad Scott was carrying it up the mountain and not me.

Kuiu’s Pro 3600 is my favorite hunting pack, weighing almost nothing by itself, yet able to handle very heavy loads, including all my gear and the ram head on the way down. I wore my trusty, well-broken-in Kenetrek Mountain Extreme Boots. Without their rock-solid ankle support and aggressive tread, I would have likely fallen off a mountain long before now.—D.R.

This hunt was outfitted by Rio Grande Outfitters and guided by Justin Adkisson and Jesse Bauer with Crazy Horse Outfitters. For information about backcountry hunts for big game in southwestern Colorado, contact Justin Adkisson at [email protected] or 970-731-HUNT.

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Hunting gobblers in the shadow of Devils Tower with the newly updated Benelli M2 Field.

One of the coolest things about hunting on the ranches near Carlile in northeastern Wyoming is the way you are treated to frequent and unexpected views of the region’s most famous monolith. Almost every time you top a hill or come around a curve on a gravel road, you’ll see, looming on the horizon, the iconic form of Devils Tower, a magnificent rock formation made famous in the 1977 sci-fi classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The famous rock aside, the landscape in this section of the Black Hills is  exceptionally beautiful, with rolling, grassy hills, scattered trees, and an abundance of antelope, mule deer, whitetails, and Merriam’s turkeys. This spring, I was lured there not by mysterious aliens, but just as irresistibly, by the siren song of a big gobbler.

The other reason for the trip was to test out Benelli’s newly updated M2 Field shotgun. For nearly twenty years, the M2 Field has been considered the reliable workhorse of Benelli’s semi-auto shotgun stable. Continuing the equine analogy, the company is billing the updated M2 Field—introduced in 2023–as “workhorse rugged with thoroughbred speed.”

The M2 Field is offered in numerous configurations, including 12- and 20-gauge versions with 24-, 26-, and 28-inch barrel lengths and 2 3/4- and 3-inch chambers. Finish options include black synthetic, Mossy Oak Bottomland, Gore Optifade Waterfowl Timber, and Realtree Max-7 across both the standard and compact models.

The major changes to the updated M2 Field involve the stock and bolt. The fore-end and receiver are sleeker, with a longer grip surface on the fore-end. The buttstock has an extended AirTouch surface behind the pistol grip for better grip with wet or gloved hands.

The new bolt design is supposed to be smoother, quieter, and stronger than the old one—I can’t speak to that, but I will say that my gun cycled flawlessly and the action seemed much quieter than other semiauto shotguns I’ve used. The bolt release has been changed from a conventional round button to one with a longer bar shape that is easy to find and quick to manipulate, even with gloves on. 

Benelli puts a lot of thought into recoil reduction, which is one reason I’m a fan of their shotguns. The updated M2 has their new Micro Cell recoil pad, which works in conjunction with a recoil tube and stainless-steel spring inside the stock that significantly reduces felt recoil. You can buy the recoil pads in varying widths to adjust the length of pull. 

This is an inertia-driven shotgun, designed to handle a wide range of loads from light field loads to heavy payloads for turkeys and geese. The system is strong and made with durable steel locking lugs on a rotating bolt head.

The gun I hunted with was the 20-gauge version of the M2 in black synthetic with a 24-inch barrel, kitted out with an Aimpoint Acro S2 reflex red dot optic. I had a chance to shoot it shortly after arriving at the lodge at Trophy Ridge Outfitters; outfitter Ralph Dampman has a nice shooting bench and target frames out back of his lodge, and we tacked up turkey-head targets for patterning the guns at thirty yards. 

The M2 utilizes Benelli’s Crio System barrels. The company says that cryogenically treating a barrel creates a smoother bore surface that patterns better (13.2 percent more pellets on target) and stays cleaner longer. All I can say is that I was impressed with the tight patterns I shot off the bench.

Speaking of tight patterns, I loaded the M2 with Fiocchi’s Golden Turkey TSS load. Nearly 70 percent denser than lead, tungsten shot has revolutionized the shotgun world in recent years. It’s expensive, but since once you pattern your gun you’ll likely only use one shot on a gobbler, a box or two of high-performance tungsten loads are a sensible investment for a turkey hunter.

I don’t have a lot of experience with red-dot sights, but I liked the Aimpoint Acro S-2 and found it very easy to use. Specifically designed to mount on ventilated shotgun ribs (interchangeable base plates accommodate most rib sizes), it is small, light, sleek, and doesn’t get in the way. When you mount the gun, there’s a clear field of view through it with both eyes open, and the large 9-MOA dot is quick and easy to center on the target. It has ten different intensity settings that you can easily adjust with a push of a button, which was a useful feature since our hunting days started well before dawn and continued through the bright sunlight of midday. 

A great thing about the Acro S-2 is you don’t have to worry about turning it off. Aimpoint says it can operate for 50,000 hours on a single CR2032 battery. I left mine on for the entire three days of hunting, including overnight, with no problems.

Northeastern Wyoming was having a cold spring, and unfortunately the turkeys weren’t cooperating, so I spent a lot of time hoofing around the countryside and setting up in different spots to call. At just 5.8 pounds, the M2 Field was a delight to carry over miles of hiking in the rolling country. During three days of hunting I got a lot of experience handling the gun and working the bolt release, finding it fast and easy to load and unload, even in the frigid predawn darkness with gloves on.

There is no shortage of turkeys in this region, and I had numerous encounters with gobblers, but they none of them ever quite moved into a position where I could close the deal. On the first morning, I had the gun trained in the direction of a gobbler that needed to take a couple more steps to give me a clear shot—but he turned and went the other way. On day two, we had a gobbler with a flock of hens nearly in range, but a barbed-wire fence stood between us, and they declined to cross it. 

On the last morning, my guide and I figured we had a foolproof plan. We set up a couple hundred yards from a roost tree in a pop-up blind placed where a big field pinched down into a funnel. We had noticed that the turkeys in the roost tree had been flying down and heading this way, so we figured we could ambush them. 

It was 24 degrees that morning, and when I reached down for my water bottle, I discovered it was frozen solid. But the turkeys were talking as they flew down, and as it got light, we saw the flock gathering at the other end of the field. Soon a few hens came our way and walked right by the blind. 

There was a lull, and then another hen came by, and I saw another lone turkey making its way in our direction—another hen, I figured. Most of the flock was still at the end of the field, and we could hear a gobbler and see him strutting down there. Focusing on the distant flock, I paid little attention as the lone turkey walked casually past the blind. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed it had a beard—not a long beard, but not a jake beard, either. This gobbler had never fanned out or gobbled, just moseyed past us in a sort of gobbler stealth mode. Unfortunately, by the time I spotted the beard, the bird had scooted on past the blind and my chance was lost. 

We continued to hunt for the rest of the morning, but I’d had my best chance and blown it, making me the only hunter out of the eight in our group who went home empty-handed. But I wasn’t unhappy—I could only laugh ruefully at the way I had been outsmarted by a pea-brained bird. I’d been more than fortunate to have the chance to hunt the beautiful rolling hills of Devils Tower country with a sleek new shotgun and enjoy some close encounters of the turkey kind.

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Just like practicing with your firearm, practicing the use of bear spray is crucial and could save your life.

Photo above: In most grizzly encounters, people become aware of an approaching bear when it is less than 100 feet away. Photo copyright VictorSchendelPhotography.com

Even though bear spray has been on the market for more than thirty years and has been widely publicized and promoted, I’ve noticed that many hunters still don’t know the correct ways to use the deterrent. They carry the spray canister improperly, fumble with detaching the trigger guard, and don’t understand when and how to release spray in various types of situations. Adding to the problem are some dubious procedures often recommended in training videos and materials. There are also a number of fine points and recent scientific findings, not widely known, that can be important when dealing with aggressive bears.

As for hunters who don’t trust a can of pepper-based spray to stop a charging grizzly, or who believe their rifles and handguns are a better form of self-defense, I offer a few brief thoughts worth considering. First is the reality that a bear charging you at 30 mph (some top-speed estimates for grizzlies are closer to 40 mph) is covering forty-four feet per second. Next, as a 2018 Alaska study showed, in 86 percent of cases the person(s) involved first became aware of a charging bear when it was less than 100 feet away–and the average distance was less than 30 feet. This explains why, in almost 20 percent of surprise-charge encounters, those with guns couldn’t even get the weapon into play, and many more who did get a shot off missed. When bear spray is carried and triggered properly, it can be deployed in about two seconds, does not need to be precisely “aimed,” only pointed in the bear’s direction, and delivers a pressurized cloud-plume of deterrent rather than a small projectile.

As studies have also shown, gun users are much more likely to be seriously injured, even when the bear is eventually stopped, and of course, many bears get wounded or killed. Injuries do happen to spray users, but at a significantly lower rate, while success percentages are higher and no bears are permanently harmed. (Obviously, there are some situations where a firearm, if used skillfully, is a better bear-defense weapon, as we’ll see.)

First, a brief review of what bear spray actually is, and how it works. The spray itself is a mix of three components: oleoresin capsicum (OC), a thinning carrier agent, and a propellant. OC is a mix of oleoresin oil and 1 to 2 percent capsaicin and related capsaicinoids, which are derived from hot peppers. Capsaicinoids are high-powered irritants that cause intense burning sensations and membrane inflammation, particularly in the eyes, nose, mouth, and respiratory tract. When charging or aggressive bears approach, they are first startled by the spray’s loud hissing noise and the billowing red or orange cloud coming at them. This “startle effect” is very important, surprising and confusing many bears, causing some to turn or run off. The effect is compounded if the animal hits the cloud of spray and breathes it in. The bear’s sense of smell is suddenly shut down, its eyes burn and may be temporarily blinded, impaired by blepharospasms (involuntary eyelid muscle contractions); and its airway is restricted, sometimes causing coughing and choking. No surprise, then, that most bears quickly break off the charge, attack, or aggression and run away. 

But for all this to happen, you need to be carrying the right product, bear spray, not pepper spray. Bear spray is regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), while pepper sprays are not. The latter are used by law enforcement and for individual self-defense against human assailants and (perhaps) dogs. They are not adequate for bear protection. Legitimate bear spray will have the words “To Deter Bears from Attacking Humans” and an EPA registration number on the label. It will contain 1 to 2 percent (not more or less) capsaicin and related capsaicinoids. You want a canister that holds at least 7.9 ounces, and has a spray duration of at least six seconds, with a range of at least 25 feet. The best sprays–the ones I carry–last seven-plus seconds and reach thirty feet or more. (Brands I personally use and trust are Counter Assault and UDAP; there may be other good ones.) Always know the distance and duration numbers of your spray. Also check the expiration date. Propellant leaks from the seals over time, so cans that are four years old or older should be replaced. 

Having the right spray is essential, and having immediate access to it is equally important. I don’t know how many case histories I’ve reviewed where the mauled hunters involved said they had bear spray but it was their daypack, or they couldn’t get to it in time, because the canister was buried in a coat pocket or clipped to a pack strap. I carry bear spray in a hip holster, as I would a handgun. If there is a protective hood over the trigger/nozzle head, I remove it or tuck it tightly out of the way. I want direct, quick access to the finger-ring grip and the trigger guard. Chest holsters are sometimes touted, but most big-game hunters already have a binocular hanging there, and things can get tangled. If you’re making a stalk, or want to shoot from a prone position, is the chest holster going to be in the way? (The same considerations need to be made for handgun carry options.)

With a hip holster, your hanging hand is already near the spray canister–you don’t have to reach or dig for it. With a bit of practice, it takes a second to get your index finger in the grip-ring while you also nip the trigger guard back with your thumb. (Place your thumb against the upcurled lip of the trigger guard, not on top of the guard surface, and pop it backward.) Then, if there’s time, as happens in some kinds of encounters, you can lift the canister from the holster and hold it in front of you handgun-style, ready to point and deploy. 

But in a sudden-encounter, charging-bear situation, you do not need to unholster and lift the canister (as is usually taught in various training formats, and as you would have to do with a handgun). You can, and in many cases should, spray right from the holster. All you have to do is point the nozzle toward the bear (you might need to pivot your body) and press the trigger button. Adjust spray direction and elevation as you fire and as the animal moves. Every bear expert/biologist I know–people who, combined, have sprayed hundreds of bears–agrees with this approach, which they all use themselves. 

A few more details about sudden encounters, which are the most common kind of aggressive-bear situation hunters experience, and which might involve being charged. (Remember, a charge is not necessarily an attack. Many bears charge but stop or veer off if the person simply stands his or her ground and does nothing to provoke a full attack–like yelling, arm waving, running, or trying to climb a tree.) A close review of cases indicates there are three major mistakes people make with bear spray in encounter situations. One, they wait too long to shoot their spray. Remember the speed factor mentioned earlier–a bear coming in at 44 feet per second. If someone waits until the charging animal is twenty feet away (“to be sure of hitting it in the face”), by the time the spray actually deploys the bear is nearly on them, and its momentum can carry it right through the spray cloud and onto the person. Also, capsaicin is more effective when it fully aerosolizes, which it can’t do at three to five feet.

With a bear charging all out, you might need to hit the trigger button when the animal is at the fifty- to sixty-foot mark, so it collides with the aerosolized spray at about thirty feet. This socks the bear with a full dose of irritant but also gives it time to react, veer off, and hopefully run away. With a bear that charges from closer in, thirty feet or less, shoot immediately and continuously, being sure to tip the canister nozzle slightly downward, avoiding mistake number two, which is pointing the nozzle (or letting spray “recoil” tip it) upward, sending the cloud too high, over the bear’s head. You want to spray in front of the bear’s face, not on its back. 

An important side note here: If you are carrying a rifle in the traditional slung position, and a bear bursts toward you at close range, you’re probably better off using your spray–hitting the button in the holster–than trying to unsling the gun, lift it to shooting position, aim, and fire. But if you are carrying a loaded rifle in a ready or near-ready two-handed position, and a bear suddenly rushes you and keeps coming, point/aim the rifle while clicking off the safety and shoot! Anyone who expects a hunter to put aside or drop a firearm to reach for bear spray has no sense of the reality of these situations. 

The third mistake is the opposite of the first: spraying too soon, when a bear is so far out it won’t be much affected by the initial whoosh and color-burst, and the plume becomes so dissipated the bear might run right through it without impact. In terms of actual distance measurement, “too far out” depends on what the bear is doing, whether it’s running full speed, walking steadily, or jumping forward then stopping, half-charging and halting, or hopping on stiff forelegs. With a bear steadily walking toward you or test-charging, keyed in on you, pick a spot thirty feet away–a rock or shrub, for instance–and if the bear is still coming forward at that mark, blast it with spray.

Avoid the commonly advised strategy of spraying a short burst at a bear that isn’t charging, but is acting either curious, unafraid, or menacing. The idea here is that the short burst might dissuade the animal and send it on its way. But a 2020 study on factors influencing bear-spray performance revealed a surprising finding: that more than half of a new, 7-second-duration canister’s propulsive pressure is lost in the first 1 second of spraying. Which means that the remaining contents, when needed, will not project as fast or far as they would had the canister not been fired.

This fact is so important I want to set it apart for emphasis, especially since some manufacturers have recommended “test firing” new bear spray before taking it afield. Do not test fire your bear spray! And replace any canister that has been used even briefly with a new one before heading out again. Also–something I’ve rarely seen mentioned–it’s wise when feasible to have a second canister with you for backup, perhaps in a daypack. If you do need to spray a bear while deep in the wild, what do you have to get back with? Also, in a number of instances a sprayed bear has returned (as have gunshot ones) to attack a second or even third time. Backup spray could save your life in such situations. 

The same study proved that cold temperatures, below freezing, can affect spray efficacy. At about 9 degrees F, the spray plume was narrow, did not aerosolize well, and had a range of only thirteen feet. It’s suggested that in very cold weather, spray canisters should be carried inside your coat, or in a pocket to keep the contents warmer, though I advise doing this with some thought, practicing how you will quickly remove and deploy from that kind of carry. When camping in cold weather, keep the canister inside your sleeping bag at night so it stays warm enough to function normally.

Wind can be a serious factor when using bear spray. The study showed that even in fairly strong head- and cross-winds, spray could reach targets approximately 6.5 feet in front of the user. Six or seven feet is awfully close–too close for comfort with a charging bear. The study doesn’t mention blow-back (into the user’s face, or a companion’s) but as anyone who has thoroughly tested bear spray knows, blow-back from a headwind is a real issue and can be highly unpleasant to incapacitating. (In strong wind situations, an appropriate handgun might be a better self-defense choice, assuming the person is skillful in its use.) The study also neglected to look at the effects of rain on bear spray. In my experience, even a light, steady rain can seriously inhibit the spray plume, and a heavy rain can negate it. Handgun backup for such conditions would be preferred.

When handling dead game in grizzly country, have spray ready to grab and go, and also have your firearm nearby, loaded with a chambered round and the safety on. With a companion, have one person standing ready with both holstered spray and a loaded firearm, surveying the surroundings.

If a companion is attacked in any situation, move within about ten feet and spray the bear directly in the face. Don’t be concerned about also spraying the person; any injury the capsaicin might cause is nothing compared to the damage a bear can do in just a few seconds. In most cases, when sprayed, mauling bears break off the attack. In about one in ten instances, the bear then turns on the rescuer, though usually it quickly ceases and runs off. When firearms are used for “rescue,” there have been a number of mauling victims accidentally shot, and sometimes killed, by the well-intended bullet(s). 

It’s common sense that if you want to rely on a weapon of any kind for self-defense, you must practice with it until the skills involved become efficient and automatic. Practice placing your index finger in the ring-grip of the hip-holstered canister while at the same time flicking back the trigger guard with your thumb. This should become so reflexive you can do it instantly, without looking down or fumbling. Then practice turning and pointing the spray nozzle in various directions, sometimes with the aid of a body pivot. 

Next comes experimenting with an inert spray can. These look and act like actual bear spray, but lack the capsaicin. They are about half the price of real spray and can sometimes be gotten for free from local fish and game departments, which universally encourage hunters to carry bear spray. Practice shooting from the hip, right from the holster. Mark off thirty feet and sixty feet, perhaps placing a wheelbarrow or similar object at those points to represent the bear. This is to reinforce a visual sense of actual key distances. Remember with spray you are “directing,” pointing the spray plume in front of an incoming animal, not aiming it precisely. Also practice lifting the canister from the holster (after flicking off the trigger guard) and holding it handgun-style in front of you with both hands, keeping the nozzle tipped slightly downward, as though pointing at an incoming bear. If you are going to be wearing gloves, practice the ring-grip, guard-flick, nozzle-direct sequence with the same gloves you’ll be using. 

Whenever possible, try to replicate actual field conditions, clothing and gear, including a slung rifle. For periodic refresher tune-ups, my habit is to take expired but otherwise unused real-spray canisters out to a safe place and deploy them while imagining a variety of realistic encounter scenarios. Even experienced gunslingers need to practice!

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When hunting dangerous game, it doesn’t matter how many shots are fired—what matters is that you finish what you started.

If you mess up on a dangerous animal, bad things can happen. Thanks to all the stuff we’ve read and seen on videos, it seems that if you shoot a Cape buffalo poorly, a charge is almost certain, right? Yes, it does happen, and not all charges can be stopped.

In my experience with buffalo, however, if you make a bad shot, a hair-raising charge is not the most common result. More likely, that buffalo will never be seen again. The vital area is not small, but it has lots of non-vital stuff around it. All Cape buffalo seem to surge with adrenaline when hurt. However, their attitudes differ. Some will circle and lie in wait. Others focus on escape.

In the years when we were doing a lot of filming in the Zambezi Valley, the annual quota exceeded a hundred buffalo, so we saw many buffalo shot. It seemed to me nearly one in ten was wounded and lost. This sounds like, and is, a high percentage. Contributing factors include hard ground with difficult tracking. Also, it’s a roadless wilderness. There is no opportunity to leapfrog forward; you just follow the track as far as possible. Many of our hunters were taking their first buffalo. There were lots of jitters. 

While we lost maybe ten buffalo a season, there were no more than one or two charges. This suggests not all buffalo have the propensity to wreak vengeance. Maybe one in five, perhaps only one in ten. But that’s enough if you draw one of those.

I didn’t hit my first buffalo well, and we lost it. Dark animals have a way of confounding the human eye. The most common error is to see that massive black shoulder and shoot too high, up in that “no man’s land” between the top of the lungs and the bottom of the spine, not much damage, not much blood. On that first buffalo, our trackers thought I shot too far forward, which may be even worse.

I compounded the error by not being quick enough to shoot again. PH Willem van Dyk tried to help. He was carrying a European over/under .458. When he backed me up, both barrels went off simultaneously. While working my bolt, I heard a weird sound like a massive bell ringing. I glanced to my left and saw the rifle spinning end over end, Willem propelled backward. His bullets went into space. Meantime, the buffalo was still running, toward the edge of Mount Kenya’s high bamboo forest.

I can still see my cross hairs on that broad behind as the cover closed around it. I didn’t get the shot off, and 47 years later, I still kick myself for it. Even more now than then, because there’s another statistic I believe in: Of several hundred buffaloes I’ve seen shot, until recently I had never seen a buffalo wounded and lost that was hit more than once in the first encounter.

This isn’t to say a buffalo hit only once, even if poorly, can’t be recovered. I’ve been in on a lot of scary tracking jobs, even caused a couple of them. African trackers are fantastic. So long as there’s blood, they can follow. Sometimes they can even follow if there isn’t. It depends on where the buffalo is hit, and whether it stops or just keeps going.

The first shot is the most important, and should be the best because it’s the most deliberate. Despite good intentions, it won’t always be perfect. Even if it is, any bullet can fail. We can’t know until the animal is recovered. Additional shots are usually rushed, often at a moving animal, so ideal shot placement is less likely. Even so, provided the target animal remains clear, I believe strongly that additional shot(s) should be fired. 

Once the ball game is opened, it needs to be finished. Additional bullet(s) increase the blood trail, perhaps slow the animal, and might reduce danger. For decades I’ve preached the credo to “just keep shooting” if a dangerous animal remains on its feet. I’ve reinforced this with my homespun statistic: I had never seen a buffalo lost that was initially hit more than once.

Until a couple of weeks ago, when I was hunting buffalo with a friend.  He took his shot off sticks, quartering to, at seventy yards. The impact looked good–good enough that our PH hesitated perhaps a millisecond too long as the buffalo turned away and ran up a slight rise. At the top, just past a hundred yards, our PH unleashed his double .500. The impact knocked the buffalo down. Then it struggled over the crest, out of sight. We congratulated each other. Then, we advanced over the ridge, fully expecting to find a dead buffalo.

Nothing. Maybe four drops of blood. We had video, and did the instant replay. It hadn’t looked like it, but my friend’s shot was high, into that “not much up there” space. Our PH intended to put a 570-grain solid up the buffalo’s bum. If he had, we would have found the buffalo, or the buffalo would have found us. The video showed that his shot also went high, over the hips and into the top of the shoulder, angling into heavy neck muscle, apparently miraculously avoiding bone. That’s not an easy shot with open sights at that range. We looked for three days, but that buffalo is one that got away. Absent infection, it may have survived.

Regardless of caliber, I must now concede that extra holes offer no guarantee. Even so, on dangerous game, I maintain my mantra to “just keep shooting” until there is clearly no danger. It is essential to practice with a full magazine in a repeater, learn how to quickly use the second barrel in a double, or to practice fast reloading of a single-shot.

On dangerous game I tell my guides and PHs to use their judgment and shoot if they deem it necessary. Naturally, trigger-happy guides are poison. For me, it’s also not good for guides to cling to the ethic “it’s the hunter’s animal” and not fire if collaboration appears called for. Once that deadly ball game is opened, it must be finished. Hunters who practice repeat shots and follow up quickly are less likely to require—or receive—assistance.

Other than a bruised ego, it doesn’t matter who else fired. What does matter is if the animal is lost or someone gets hurt in the follow-up. It also doesn’t matter how many shots are fired.

The buffalo that killed excellent Zimbabwe PH Owain Lewis was hit just once, too far back, in the first encounter. It is unknown if Owain or the hunter had a chance to fire again. The bull was in a group and, often, things happen too fast, or the target animal isn’t clear.

What is known is that they followed intermittent spoor for three days. Many PHs would have given up. Through persistence and great tracking, they found the bull lying down and shots were fired. Instead of succumbing, the buffalo rose and attacked. Owain took the charge and apparently died instantly. In that final deadly encounter, as many as seventeen shots were fired. Sure, we can conclude they weren’t all good. If any of the first few shots took effect, Owain might have survived unscathed.

Shot placement always matters, but in such a wild melee, stuff happens. I’ve never seen anything like that, but African buffalo are incredibly strong. I’ve seen many drop quickly—rarely instantly—to one well-placed shot. I’ve seen others take, well, several shots before giving up. Although every shot should be placed as well as possible, if they are not hit in the brain or spine, some buffalo don’t give up.

With hippos, the brain shot is often what is offered. With elephants, those of us who read too much Karamojo Bell always dream of making a brain shot. With both species, when the brain shot works, it is lights out. When it doesn’t, at least you know immediately. Just keep shooting. On such large animals, the heart/lung shot is not instantaneous, but it is certain. Study the anatomy, place your shot as well as possible, then back it up.

Whether Alaskan brown, polar, or a huge grizzly, the largest bears are similar in weight to a Cape buffalo. I’ve seen big bears fall to one perfectly placed shot, but I’ve also seen them shrug off good hits from powerful rifles. While I admittedly have less experience with bears than with buffalo, I think big bears are buffalo-tough.

Thirty years ago in Southeast Alaska, Jack Ringus and I were backpacking up a valley when another distant hunting team opened fire. I counted thirteen faint shots. There was no satcom back then, so we didn’t know until days later that nobody was hurt; it was just a tough, extra-large bear. That may seem like a profligate expenditure of ammo—it couldn’t happen to you or me, right? Always carry plenty.

This past May, on the southern tip of the Alaska Peninsula, guide Dave Dye and I had a stalk on a big brown bear go awry. We went up a ridge and there was our bear. We were trapped in tall alders and the bear was a couple hundred yards above us, and there was no option to take a rest. I fired, we heard my bullet hit, and Dave knew what to do. We kept shooting, and we got the bear.

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Sports Afield is once again recognized as one of the top brands in the world.

For the ninth consecutive year, Sports Afield has had the prestigious honor of being chosen as one of License Global magazine’s Top Global Licensors. As the foremost publication in the brand-name industry, License Global meticulously curates a list of the most influential global brands annually. This year, 2024, we are thrilled to announce that Sports Afield has once again made the cut, solidifying our position among the industry’s elite. The entire team at Sports Afield is proud of this achievement, and we sincerely thank our loyal supporters for their unwavering trust and continued patronage.

Our dedication to providing exceptional products and experiences remains steadfast, and we look forward to scaling new heights in the years to come. This recognition is not just a testament to our hard work and innovation, but also to the enduring bond we share with our community. As we continue to push the boundaries of excellence, we remain committed to upholding the values that have made Sports Afield a trusted name. The future holds exciting prospects, and we are eager to embark on new ventures that will further enhance the legacy of the Sports Afield brand.

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It’s the world’s most versatile big-game cartridge.

Photo above: Nobody talks a lot about .375 accuracy because the caliber is typically used for larger animals, and because recoil makes tight groups difficult. But accuracy is usually excellent, as this .375 RUM shows with several different loads.

For worldwide use on game of all sizes, it’s hard to imagine a complete rifle battery that lacks a .375. To be fair, we could lump the .375 with its European equivalent, the 9.3mm (.366-inch). There’s not enough difference in bullet diameter or weight to make serious arguments. However, in the English-speaking world, the .375 is dominant. The 9.3mm, despite its merits, is little known.

Legend has it that Holland & Holland introduced the .400/.375 Belted Nitro Express in 1905 as the answer to the 9.5x57mm Mannlicher. That’s unlikely, because the 9.5 didn’t come out until 1908. The excellent 9.3x62mm Mauser, designed by Otto Beck, also came out in 1905. It took off, and it remains the most popular 9.3mm cartridge. The .400/.375 was the world’s first belted cartridge. Underpowered, it didn’t catch on. H&H apparently believed in the .375-inch bullet. So in 1912 they tried again with the .375 H&H Magnum: same diameter, larger case. The belt was retained as a headspacing index, which was essential with the new cartridge’s tapered case and minimal shoulder.

Although the magnum suffix connotes “larger and more powerful,” it wasn’t applied strictly for sales hype. “Magnum” comes from the French term for an extra-large bottle of champagne. In the staid British gun trade, magnum was only applied to a more powerful cartridge using a bullet diameter previous to that firm. So, rival firm John Rigby’s .350 Rigby Rimless Magnum, following the .400/.350, was termed magnum. The .416 Rigby was not, because it was the first .416-caliber cartridge. Since it followed the failed .400/.375, the .375 H&H was a magnum by all definitions.

To this day, the .375 H&H is one of the world’s most versatile cartridges. It is fast enough and flat-shooting enough for use in plains and mountains, and powerful enough for the world’s largest game. Sure, it has more power than is needed for most game, but it gets the job done. I always argue that the .375 is marginal for elephant, hippo, and rhino. However, it’s on the correct side of the margin, and gets those jobs done as well. Also, it is “street-legal” for the largest game.  

Despite its versatility, the .375 is perfect for just a few species. Lion, eland, and the biggest bears come immediately to mind. I almost included buffalo, but held back. The .375 is just fine for big bovines. However, the “lower .40” cartridges are probably more ideal for Cape and water buffalo.

So, which .375-caliber cartridge should you choose? Initially, there were just two: the .375 H&H Magnum and its rimmed counterpart, the .375 Flanged Magnum. The original belted magnum loads were: 235-grain bullet at 2,800 fps; 270-grain bullet at 2,650 fps; 300-grain bullet at 2,500 fps. The rimmed or “flanged” version was downloaded slightly to reduce pressure in doubles–likely not enough for any buffalo to notice. Some new doubles are so chambered, but the .375 Flanged is mostly seen in older rifles. 

The 235-grain load has gone by the wayside, and current .375 H&H loads are faster. Standard velocities today: 2,530 fps for the 300-grain load; 2,690 fps for the 270-grain load. Trajectory of the latter load is about the same as 180 grains in the .30-06. Careful handloading and/or modern loads (such as Hornady’s Superformance) can increase .375 H&H velocity by 100 fps or so. Again, no buffalo is likely to notice.

Yielding something over 4,000 ft-lbs, performance of the .375 H&H on large game remains a gold standard. That said, with increased case capacity .375 bullets can be pushed faster, flattening trajectory and increasing energy yield. The simplest way is to ream out the .375 H&H chamber, removing body taper. In the 1950s, my uncle Art Popham took all his dangerous game with a .375 Improved. Developed in 1944, Roy Weatherby’s .375 Weatherby Magnum is the most common version. The .375 Weatherby Magnum increases velocity by as much as 250 fps, increasing energy yield to more than 5,000 ft-lbs, much the same as the .416 Rigby and .416 Remington Magnum.

In 1953 Weatherby one-upped himself with the .378 Weatherby Magnum, sort of a belted version of the .416 Rigby case. Velocity is sizzling, pushing a 300-grain bullet to 2,900, a .270-grain bullet well over 3,000, with energy yield up to 6,000 ft-lbs. Remington’s .375 RUM was introduced in 2000. In case capacity, the RUM lies between the .375 and .378 Weatherby Magnums. So it’s fast and flat, developing well over 5,000 ft-lbs. The two Weatherby cartridges and the RUM are the only “fast .375” factory cartridges, but there are numerous fast and faster wildcats and proprietaries.

If a little .375 velocity is good, a lot must be better, right? To a degree. When you step up from the .375 H&H, the biggest problem is recoil. I find the .378 Weatherby Magnum one of the worst-kicking rifles on the planet, hitting you fast and hard. I haven’t hunted with it, but I’ve hunted quite a bit with both the .375 Weatherby Magnum and .375 RUM. The performance is there. It seems to me both cartridges perform on buffalo much the same as the .416s. That makes sense, because energy is similar.

This is good, but the cost is high. With added velocity, muzzle energy goes up exponentially. So does recoil. The .375 RUM and Weatherby Magnum produce up to 80 ft-lbs of recoil, about double .375 H&H recoil. I loved the raw performance of the fast .375s, but I gave up on them as too much of a good thing, especially since .375 H&H-level performance has been demonstrably adequate since 1912. The beauty of the .375 H&H is that it’s shootable. It kicks, but most people can learn to handle it. The fast .375s aren’t fun, and many people have trouble shooting them well.

Most of the .375s are suitable choices for one-rifle safaris, effective for everything from tiny antelopes on up. The African context magnifies the recoil issue. It’s one thing on a one-species American hunt; it’s another to take fast .375 RUM or Weatherby Mag to Africa and shoot it every day. After a ten-year fling across several safaris, I abandoned the fast .375s twenty years ago. If their performance were essential, I’d deal with the recoil, but in my experience, it is not.

The .375 H&H is not the only shootable .375. The .375 Winchester, introduced in 1978, is a potent cartridge, with performance like the old 9.5×57 Mannlicher and .400/.375. All three of these were effective short-range cartridges for medium game, lacking in power for larger stuff. All three are pretty much dead.

Recent .375 cartridges include the .376 Steyr (1999), and .375 Ruger (2007). The .376 Steyr was developed to fit Jeff Cooper’s “Super Scout Rifle” concept: Short and light, with a forward-mounted scope, yet capable of handling larger game.  I’m not much on the scout rifle thing, but the .376 Steyr is a capable cartridge, shooting a 270-grain bullet up to 2,600 fps, producing 4,000 ft-lbs of energy. It has less recoil than the .375 H&H, yet still legal worldwide for the largest game. My wife, Donna, has one built by MGA on a Remington action in Cerakote and synthetic, and it’s a great rifle. Last time we were in Mozambique, she took it to the swamp and dropped a good buffalo with one shot.

The only thing about the .376 Steyr: It is not popular. Ammo is scarce, and its case is based on the 9.3×64 Brenneke, which is rare in the US. The idea was a lighter rifle for Donna, yet with less recoil than a too-light .375 H&H. MGA’s Kerry O’Day suggested building her a 9.3×62. I insisted on the .376 Steyr. We are happy with the .376 Steyr and we have plenty of ammo, but I concede he was right.

Available worldwide, the H&H is the most popular .375 cartridge. The Hornady-designed .375 Ruger is a not-so-distant second. We first saw it while filming Tracks Across Africa in 2006 and spilled the beans prematurely, resulting in an a shockingly successful release. Since then, sales have cooled but remain steady. Based on a brilliantly simple new case, the .375 Ruger uses the .532-inch rim and base diameter of a belted magnum—without the belt—thus increasing case capacity while using standard belted magnum bolt face and magazine. Case length is 2.580 inches, housed in a .30-06-length action. The H&H’s 2.85-inch case requires a full-length action.

The .375 Ruger has found favor with manufacturers who don’t make .375-length actions. In platforms such as the Savage 110, Mossberg Patriot, and Ruger Hawkeye, the .375 Ruger is now the world’s most available and affordable dangerous-game rifle. I used a Mossberg Patriot in stainless and laminate on my polar bear hunt, and it was perfect for the Arctic. Just a month ago I was in a spike camp for brown bears on the Alaska Peninsula. There were two hunters, two guides, and a packer, with five rifles between us. Three were Ruger Hawkeyes in .375 Ruger, plus a Gunwerks in .375 Ruger. I was the lone holdout; I carried a .338 Winchester Magnum.

The .375 Ruger’s modern, unbelted case fits in a shorter, lighter action with shorter bolt throw than the .375 H&H. Absent body taper, despite its shorter case it offers 4 percent greater case capacity than the H&H. Add the efficiency of the shorter, fatter case, and the .375 Ruger exceeds the .375 H&H by about 150 fps, obviously delivering more energy. This is not enough of an increase to create excessive recoil, nor put it in a different power class. However, be careful with a .375 Ruger: You don’t want it in too light a rifle! 

The choice today depends largely on the rifle platform you prefer. Since 2007 I’ve used both. There’s nothing the H&H will do that a .375 Ruger can’t do, and vice versa. Being a bit of a nostalgia freak, I suppose I prefer the .375 H&H. I doubt the .375 Ruger will become more popular than the H&H, nor offered in as many loadings from as many sources. But I concede that, in all the ways I can think of, the .375 Ruger is a better cartridge.

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A fly-in wilderness hunt in British Columbia with his father four decades ago still sparks wonderful memories.

Oh, how the years have slipped away. More than forty years have passed since that frosty morning in late September found us transferring our hunting gear and supplies from the back of Dad’s pickup to a small bush plane on a gravel landing strip in a remote area of northern British Columbia. This would be my dad’s first real wilderness hunt.

It had been a hard sell, convincing my dad to accompany me on a wilderness hunt, especially when planes were involved. He hated flying, even in big commercial jets, so when he looked at the little single-engine plane perched on its big “tundra tires,” I could see he was more than a little distressed. Thinking it was probably best not to give him too much more time to dwell on the situation, we quickly loaded our gear and stuffed him in the plane.

Our family tended to be a pretty tough crowd, where good-natured ribbing was the norm, and any chance to get a dig in was rarely squandered. Realizing that I had a rare opportunity before me, I pointed at the fabric skin of the fuselage, and poked it with my finger. My dad watched as the skin moved in and out with the pressure of my finger and I said, “Huh…it’s cloth!” At that moment the engine roared, and we were off.

About 45 minutes later we circled the drop-off point high in the Northern Rockies and the pilot set the plane down as pretty as you please on a gravel bar next to a crystal-clear mountain stream. We quickly unloaded the gear and minutes later the little plane departed. We were alone in God’s country, with nine days of hunting ahead of us.

You must remember that when this hunt took place and the plane left, you were on your own. There were no cell phones, no GPS, no satellite phones for the working class. If something went wrong you had to tough it out until the plane flew back to get you…weather permitting.

The main purpose of our hunt was to target a couple of the big bull moose that northern British Columbia is famous for, but I had also purchased sheep, mountain goat, and grizzly tags just in case an opportunity presented itself. In those days big-game draws were rare and most big-game licenses were available over the counter.

We quickly moved all our gear up into a small clearing about a dozen feet above the creek and set up camp so that we could do a bit of scouting and glass the area, and make a battle plan for the next day. Our hunt had been planned to hit the rut, and it was obvious we had timed things perfectly, as we soon located fresh rubs and several fresh rut pits within a few hundred yards of our camp.

I climbed up onto a small knoll a quarter-mile downstream and immediately noticed a small lake set back into the spruce trees a short distance away. It looked like an ideal place to hunt the next day, and my suspicions were quickly confirmed when I raised my binocular and a couple of dark spots on the lake’s shoreline turned into two cows and a decent-sized bull.

The scenery was absolutely breathtaking, and I could tell my father was suitably impressed as he took it all in. Our glassing didn’t turn up any more moose, but we did see a herd of about 30 mountain goats on slope a couple of miles upstream, and a bunch of stone sheep in a small basin directly above us. It was a heck of a good start for our first day in what appeared to be a hunter’s Shangri-La.

Back at camp we spent an hour gathering firewood to last a few days and as the light faded, we cooked a couple of steaks over the coals of the fire and got our gear ready for the next morning. Later we enjoyed a sundowner next to the fire and listened to a couple of wolves howl in the distance. Anticipating the next day could be a busy one, we hit the sack early.

The thermometer tied on my pack read 25 F the next morning, as I crawled out of the warmth of my sleeping bag. The little Coleman stove soon had the coffee perking, and we quickly downed a greasy breakfast of bacon and eggs, grabbed our rifles and day packs and headed off toward the little lake we had found the previous evening.

As we got closer to the lake, I marveled at the moose trails that were two feet deep in places, and all of the fresh sign indicated that the area had to be absolutely filthy with moose. So, not unexpectedly, when we were a few hundred yards from the lake I could see a couple of moose on the shoreline ahead, so we stopped and carefully glassed the area. A couple of moose soon turned into eight moose, including three bulls, a decent bull with a spread in the high 40s, and two young satellite bulls whose rutting enthusiasm made up for what they lacked in the antler department.

As it was our first morning and it was obvious there were a lot of moose In the area, we backed quietly out of the area and spent the rest of the day exploring and glassing. Toward the end of the day, we spotted a big bull about half a mile in the other direction from camp. It was too late in the afternoon to try and get closer, so we called it a day and headed back to camp.

The next morning, we decided to split up as my dad wanted to try and get a better look at the bull we had spotted the previous afternoon, and I would make my way back down to the little lake. We would meet back at camp after the morning hunt and make a plan, which would hopefully involve quartering a bull.

Now familiar with the route, it didn’t take long for me to sneak back to the lake. Once again, there were a few moose puddling around at the edge of the lake, including several cows and calves, and the two young bulls we had seen previously. I did not see the bigger bull, but I could hear the odd twig break and saw flashes of movement back in the spruce trees. I waited for a bit to see if the other moose would move out to where I could get a glimpse of them, but nothing happened, so I decided to call and see if that got any reaction. I let go with a couple of grunts and instantly had a bull reply and could hear it moving in my direction. I saw the flash of a palm and figured it was probably the bigger bull from the previous morning, but out came a different bull, a bigger bull.

This bull had nice wide palms, lots of points, and was definitely over 50 inches, so I wasted no time in sending a Partition on the way. The Nosler did its job, punching through both lungs and, in true moose fashion, the bull thought about things for a few moments and then did a slow-motion pirouette and toppled to the ground. 

After gutting the bull, I made my way back to camp and found my dad was already there and had made some lunch. He had seen the bull he was looking for and decided he would take it, given the opportunity, as it was an older bull with antlers that carried a lot of mass. Unfortunately, the bull was way up the side of the mountain and would be too difficult to pack out, so when he heard me shoot, he decided to head back to camp. 

We spent the rest of the day quartering my bull and getting the quarters out and hung in some trees near the creek. In the evening, we decided to try calling the bull my dad was after. Perhaps we could convince it to move closer to the creek, where packing the big ungulate out would be less onerous.  

The following morning was crisp and clear, and felt very moosey. As luck would have it, not two hundred yards from camp stood a nice big bull on the gravel bar the plane had landed on. It was a nice big bull with heavy antlers and my dad was pretty certain it was the same bull he had been focusing on. Moments later the big bull was down, and our moose hunting was officially over.

 We spent most of the next day cleaning up the quarters of our two bulls and bagging them with cheesecloth. In the late afternoon we did a bit of fishing and caught a couple of nice trout for dinner. After doing the dishes we made ourselves a drink and sat around glassing. I looked at the ridge right above camp and was just in time to count seven Stone rams as they walked over the top and into the basin behind. I knew exactly what I would be doing in the morning.

We left camp at first light, and after about three hours of steady climbing we made it to the ridge above camp. Using some big rocks as cover, I peeked into the basin and could see the rams were bedded down in the shale on the far side. With my spotting scope I could tell that two of the rams were legal full curls and decided to go for it.

My dad decided he was not up to any more climbing and said he would stay behind while I attempted the stalk. Not wanting him to overdo it, I said that was absolutely okay, as sheep were small, and I could easily handle the pack out with the horns and meat if I got lucky.

The stalk was pretty much textbook. I dropped down below the ridgeline and then circled around the backside of the basin, checking periodically to make sure the rams had not decided to move and to keep track of where I was. I pinpointed a specific bump on the ridge that appeared to be above where the rams were bedded and when I figured I was in the right spot I slowly inched up and peered over the edge.

The rams were still there, bedded down and looking off across the basin. I figured they were about 250 yards away, but I would have to wait until they stood up before shooting. The two legal rams were about the same size, but the one ram had the classic Stone sheep coloring with a light-colored head and upper neck, with dark shoulders. That was the ram I wanted, so I settled in with a good rest and waited for the ram to get up.

I only had to wait about fifteen minutes before the rams started to fidget and they began to get up. When my ram stood, I was ready, and when the .300 Weatherby barked he dropped and slid a few feet in the shale and stopped. His companions paused for a few seconds and then trotted off around the basin and disappeared over the far ridge.

I had my first sheep. Dad couldn’t complete the stalk with me, but when I got back to him with a pack full of meat and the lovely amber-colored horns, I found out that he had been able to watch the whole thing go down through his binocular.

I spent the next day skinning, fleshing, and salting the cape of my ram and that evening we had an extremely memorable meal of sheep ribs cooked over the coals of our fire. It was an outstanding meal and one that neither of us would ever forget.

As luck would have it, the pilot dropped in the next day to check on us and see how we were getting along. Sadly, the pilot said that there was a chance the weather was going to change, with rain and flurries a possibility. Since a couple of extra flights were needed to get us and all of the moose meat out, the prudent course of action would be to do the flying while the weather was still decent.

It was a fantastic hunt, but at the time I certainly had no way of knowing that some forty-plus years later I would be looking back and considering it to be my greatest hunt. Getting a Stone ram on my own certainly rates right up there as one of my best hunts, and my dad and I both taking a big bull moose on the hunt would have been a fantastic hunt in and of itself.

As the years have gone by and life’s unexpected challenges and curve balls have occurred for both of us, as they do for everyone, my perception of that hunt we shared together has changed. The experience also taught me that you should never put things off to do in the future, because you simply do not know what the future holds.

My father passed away two years ago. After that great hunt we shared, he never again went on another true wilderness hunt, and it was really the last time that we got to share that sort of experience together, just the two of us. Time restraints due to career paths, and later, health issues that both of my parents had to deal with, combined in such a way that they prevented any further opportunities for us to experience another hunt together, let alone another hunt of that magnitude.

I have been on lots of great hunts, and I hope I have a few more ahead of me. But for now, at least, I must rate that hunt with my father all those years ago as my greatest hunt.

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The Outdoor Stewards of Conservation Foundation is working to improve public perceptions of hunting and shooting.

Image above: The “Fill a Bag while Filling your Tag” initiative encourages hunters to pick up any trash they find in the field as a way to bolster our image as responsible stewards of the outdoors.

Hunters, anglers, trappers, and recreational shooters are the backbone of conservation in North America. We know this, but most of the rest of the world does not. And that may be part of the reason that the public’s attitude toward what we do is trending more toward disapproval all the time.

“Hunters and shooters are good at a lot of things, but we are not good at communicating what we do,” said Jim Curcuruto, Executive Director of the Outdoor Stewards of Conservation Foundation (OSCF). 

The decline in cultural acceptance of hunting and shooting is a huge potential problem for the future of our outdoor traditions, and that’s the reason Curcuruto launched OSCF, a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Its mission is to work with all facets of the outdoor industry to improve the public’s perception of traditional outdoor pursuits using research-based communications and engagement programs. 

Curcuruto’s decade-plus stint leading research, market development, and recruitment efforts for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) gave him a close-up look at the problem and spurred him to start OSCF in 2021. While the majority of non-hunters are still not overtly opposed to hunting, a survey in 2023 conducted by OSCF and Responsive Management showed an alarming 4 percent decline in the general public’s approval of these activities. 

OSCF is working to buck this trend by publicizing and celebrating all the good things done by hunters, anglers, trappers, and shooters, which it refers to with the shorthand HATS. “It was definitely time for an organization dedicated to promoting everything that we do,” he said.

OSCF has several major initiatives. First and foremost is “Connecting with Conservation,” a communication program formed with a wide range of industry and agency partners to spread the word about how conservation is funded in America. Through a series of professionally produced videos and social media postings that can be used and shared, OSCF explains how HATS fund conservation through excise taxes and license fees. 

Further, through its newly formed Outdoor Industry Communication Council (OICC), OSCF is working to amplify these communications efforts through coordinated partnerships with outdoor gear manufacturers, state fish and wildlife agencies, and conservation groups. Curcuruto points out that all these entities share the common goal of increasing participation in hunting and angling, but they rarely work together. The need for coordinated messaging was recently recognized by the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies and the US Fish & Wildlife service, which awarded a multistate conservation grant to OSCF to develop an integrated communications strategy to educate the masses on conservation topics. 

Through this, OICC has made available a series of free articles written by professional outdoor writers that they are encouraging their partners to reprint and share on websites, social channels, e-newsletters, podcasts, and printed publications.

Articles available for immediate distribution include an overview of the outdoor industry’s $80 billion economic impact, details of the 400,000 American jobs that are created or sustained by the outdoor industry, and how a single hunter’s seasonal purchases help fund wildlife management. Additional features profile a production-line manager at a firearms manufacturer, how to get started in recreational shooting, and how to recruit the next generation of hunters and target shooters. 

OSCF is also currently developing public service announcements that explain how conservation is funded. These 60-second and 30-second TV spots will be provided to 11,000 TV stations in a pilot project this year.

A second OSCF initiative, “Fill a Bag while Filling your Tag,” focuses on the unsung ways that HATS are stewards of nature. “So many hunters and anglers pick up trash when they’re out in the woods,” Curcuruto said. “In fact, 80 percent of HATS say they clean up nature on a regular basis, versus 60 percent of general outdoor users.” 

OSCF works with its industry and agency partners to distribute reusable, biodegradable bags all over the country, encouraging people to take the bags with them while out hunting, fishing, trapping, or target shooting and use them to take out any trash they find while outdoors. Bags are preprinted with messages that ask HATS to post photos or short videos of themselves with their bag and trash to their social media accounts to show others who the true stewards of conservation are. (Posters should include the hashtag #TrophyTrash to be tracked on social media sites such as Instagram.) It’s another way to bolster our image as responsible, caring stewards of the outdoors.

The third initiative, which OSCF calls, “Come With!” is a challenge to all of us to invite someone new to come along with them to the range, field, or lake. Millions of dollars have been spent by agencies and organizations over the past decade trying to figure out how to recruit new hunters and anglers to our ranks, but Curcuruto says it all boils down to a very simple concept.

“The number-one way to recruit new people is not through a youth program—it’s to have somebody who is experienced in outdoor pursuits invite someone who isn’t experienced,” said Curcuruto. “Some 25 million Americans say they have an interest in these pursuits—they are just waiting for someone to invite them.”

To learn more about OSCF’s work, or to donate and receive a “Trophy Trash” bag, see outdoorstewards.org.—Diana Rupp

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Black bear hunting is available, affordable, and typically successful. But bears are tough to judge!

Photo above: This bear has all the hallmarks of a big boy: The head appears small, legs seem short, body is ponderous, ears seem wide apart on the skull.

For many hunters, spring is about turkeys. And as I wrote last month, for European hunters, spring is about roebuck. For me, though, spring is about bear hunting. Primarily black bear hunting, because the hunts are widely available, affordable, and highly successful. Early in spring, only the big boars are out of their dens. Now, in June, they’re all out. This time of year, we have to be careful to watch for sows with cubs, which may be hidden back in the brush a bit. But the advantage of hunting in June is that the boars are getting amorous.

This is the first spring in several that I haven’t gone black bear hunting. I’m missing it, but don’t feel sorry for me; I’m in Alaska looking for a big brown bear. Honestly, I have no great reason or excuse to take another bear of any kind. But I like bear hunting; it is interesting and exciting. I expect this to be my last hunt for a brown bear, but I’ll do more black bear hunting. What’s not to like about a hunt that is so available, affordable, and typically successful?

Everybody wants a big bear, of course. And everybody wants a beautiful bear. June is a great time to hunt, but the older boars have been out for a while. Especially if the weather is warm, some hides are rubbed. This is not always easy to see, especially in poor light; you just have to look as close as you can. If the fur looks patchy and thin, it may be a giant bear, but it may make a poor rug.

Personally, I like black bears that are black. Maybe this is because I’ve shot brown and cinnamon-colored black bears. Maybe it’s because I’ve shot brown/grizzly bears that are anything except black. I don’t know; to each his/her own. The various color phases of black bears are exceptionally beautiful, and many bear hunters are crazy for them. However, you can hunt black bears for size or color, but it’s difficult to do both with equal results.

In a perfect world, I like two-bear areas. With black bears, unlike most North American big game, there are lots of multiple-bear areas, including parts of Alaska, several Canadian provinces, and northern Idaho. I’ve been skunked many times on hunts when I would have been delighted with one chance at one bear. But let’s enjoy our perfect world: For many, a perfect black bear hunt would be to take one big black bear, plus a pretty, color-phase bear.

I shot my first black bear in Montana in the spring of 1973; it happened to be a beautiful, brown-colored bear. Since then, I’ve taken two bears in two-bear areas, one bear in one-bear areas, one bear in two-bear areas, and no bears at all in both one and two-bear areas. All multiple times. I don’t go every spring, but I like black bear hunting. But in fifty years of black bear hunting, exactly once have I taken a black-colored black bear and a color-phase black bear on the same hunt. That was with Trapper Don McRae in northern Manitoba, some forty years ago. 

My young Kansas friend Michael Persinger, cousin to my neighbor and whitetail partner Chuck Herbel, was recently headed to Alberta on his first black bear hunt and first-ever guided hunt. He was apprehensive; nervous about hunting with a guide, nervous about bears. Understand, Kansans don’t live with bears; all we know about bears is the scary horse-pucky. Well, he had his Dad’s Remington M700 .30-06, won in a raffle in 1985. His Dad wasn’t a hunter, so it was still a new gun, broken in on Michael’s first Kansas buck. The .30-06 is not a big gun, but it’s plenty for any black bear that walks, especially when hunting over bait, where shots will be close.

So he was well-armed, and headed to a good two-bear area, hunting with Red Willow Outfitters in central Alberta. He told his guide, Taylor, “I really hope to get a color-phase bear and a big black bear.” Well, who doesn’t? The outfit must know what they’re doing, because Michael’s black bear measured 7 feet 4 inches, an awesome bear with a big skull.

Then he took a beautiful, red-colored bear, not a small one. He might do a lot of black bear hunts in a lot of places and not do that again.

Big black bears are difficult. They exist wherever black bears occur (which is now almost continent-wide) but the biggest problem is to judge them. Even after fifty years, knowing full well what a big bear looks like, I still make mistakes. We’ll come back to that. Color phases are perhaps even more difficult than big bears.

Black bears occur in a wide color spectrum. Brown, blond, tan, red, and cinnamon bears probably occur almost anywhere black bears exist. The white (also called Kermode or “spirit”) black bear is mostly confined to the Queen Charlotte Islands. The “glacier,” or blue-gray, color phase occurs rarely in the Yakutat area of southeast Alaska, and is almost unknown elsewhere.

The tan-red-brown phases are common in some areas, rare in others. Central Alberta, where Red Willow operates, has a high percentage of color-phase bears. Color-phase bears are plentiful in much of the Rocky Mountain West, on up into central Canada. But, glacier bears aside, color-phase black bears are rare in Alaska. They are not uncommon in British Columbia, but scarce on Vancouver Island. It’s spotty. Because I prefer black-colored black bears, I don’t know enough to suggest where color phases are common, or where they are unicorns. I do know the odds are better in some places than others.

In 2022 and 2023, I hunted in extreme northern Alberta, right on the NWT line, with Wally and Louisa Mack’s WL Guide Service. The hunt used a similar methodology to what Michael described: Bait barrels to judge size, stands set close to baits for dual archery/rifle use. Both years I hunted there, most hunters took two bears. I took two nice bears both years. I was part of a group, other parties overlapping, so in twenty days in Wally’s camp I saw thirty bears come into the skinning shed. Every single one was coal black! So that’s not the place to look for a color phase, although they take them occasionally and have seen them on trail cameras.

The other thing about color-phase bears that must be understood: They are usually not the biggest bears. There are exceptions, but there is radio-collar evidence that color-phase bears sometimes turn darker (black) at full maturity. Now, the North American black bear population runs into the low millions. Hunting pressure is generally light, and the bears are a major nuisance in some areas. So there are sound management reasons why seasons are long with multiple-bear options; and why, typically, any bear without a cub is legal game. Don’t second-guess it to death, just accept that color-phase bears are beautiful, but usually, they’re not huge.

It’s okay if you get carried away by the color, and there may even be an optical illusion at play: Light-colored bears look bigger. But all bears are difficult to judge. If you see a bear on a hillside, and then you see a basketball-sized black object beside her, that’s easy: it’s a sow with cub, so quit looking. See any lone bear on a hillside, though, and it’s tough. Sure, there are signs: Ears seeming wide apart on the skull, short legs compared to the body, small head compared to the body, ponderous gait, broad chest. All of that, and it’s still easy to get fooled.

The two most selective methods for hunting black bear are over bait, and with dogs. The former works because the bait barrel is the yardstick, or because actual yardsticks have been set near the bait. The latter works because the encounter is too close for error, and because the track has been seen before the dogs are released.

Otherwise, judging bears is an imprecise science. Guides and outfitters who take more bears in a season than most will in a lifetime have an edge; we amateurs cannot compete. However, judging a lone bear on a hillside is always fraught with risk. Absent a cub, it will be legal to take, but often it is not the bear you think it is. Even after fifty years of hunting black bears, I can say this: they all look big when you first see them.

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