Stories from the Mountains – Day 1

I said in a previous post that nothing was better than experience…well I got that this week and shared some more.  I headed up into the Smoky Mountains on Monday afternoon.  After setting up camp along the creek, I went to high ground to look for bears.  Parking the truck on the side of the mountain with the ebrake on, I decided to travel down an old logging road.  Walking in about a mile, I found a spot I liked.  The thick brush behind me was very steep, but down below me was more open forest of hardwoods.  Stopped on the logging road, I could see up hill for about 40 yards and downhill for about 125 yards.  Several hunters had suggested vanilla extract as a cover scent?  Skeptical, but that quickly vanished.  I poured out a small amount on a dead tree in front of me and barely had time to get my bow back in my hand before I heard crashing coming from uphill.  Quickly reaching for the quiver, disappointment instantly set in…during all the preparation for this hunt I had missed a crucial step.  All of the arrows still had field points and no broadheads.  I stood there shocked at my mistake.  Even rookies remember to switch back their arrows.  Had I really done this?  While all these evil thoughts of myself crossed my mind, the crashing continued.  All of sudden, a smaller bear, but big enough appeared on the logging road.  Without seeing a lot of bears, I assumed him to be about 100-125 pounds.  Standing broadside at 27 yards, I was left with nothing to do but stare.  He stayed in the road for 30 seconds before heading down the hill and out of sight.  Retreating to the truck and cussing myself the entire way, I switched back the arrowheads.  After exploring the area a little more and making plans for the morning, dark was closing in quickly so I headed back to the truck.  Arriving back at camp, I realized that Casey hadn’t made it yet.  Warning him not to try those roads by himself in the dark, I went into town to meet him.  We returned to camp about an hour later.  After some creative fire building and heating up the soup, it was story time.  I told Casey about the adventures of the afternoon and promised an exciting Day 2.