On The Track: Hunting Michigan Black Bear
By Brent Bruggink, Lansing SCI member and avid hunter
I met Ramey on a Saturday morning in an elementary school gym, the kind that smells faintly of floor cleaner and old rubber soles. The wood floors shone under fluorescent lights, and bleachers lined the walls, squeaking every time a parent shifted their weight. Our daughters played basketball in the same league. Second graders. A lot of double dribbling. A lot of whistles. A lot of enthusiasm pointed in every possible direction at once.
There’s a certain look a man has when he spends real time in the woods. It’s subtle. You don’t always know why you recognize it; you just do. I saw it in Ramey almost immediately. Before long, a handshake and small talk turned into hunting talk, and hunting talk turned into photos passed quietly between phones. Michigan whitetail bucks, elks in Montana, Texas nilgai, and vibrantly colored pheasants. A few stories exchanged while the girls ran drills and did their best to make baskets. When practice ended, we shook hands and went our separate ways. On the drive home, I told my wife, “I’d like to hunt with that guy.”
I’d wanted to hunt Michigan black bear for some time. I grew up hunting pheasants, small game, and whitetail deer. I love working dogs, having raised bird dogs when I was a kid, and the idea of hounds chasing after a black bear was my constant daydream. A coworker of mine lived in the Upper Peninsula. Her husband had been hunting bears with hounds for more than thirty years, and her sons guided full time. It was the kind of opportunity you don’t manufacture or rush. You recognize it when it shows up, and you respect it enough not to overthink it. I knew it would all come together.
At basketball practice the following weekend, after maybe an hour of total conversation between us, I asked Ramey if he wanted to do a bear hunt with me. Five days in the woods together. An eighteen-hour round trip drive with a guy I just met. A question you don’t ask unless your gut tells you something matters and mine did. This is something only guys can do; get introduced, talk for an hour and then agree to spend thousands of dollars and days together, all for the love of hunting. My wife gave me the look she saves for ideas she already knows I’m committed to. I’m blessed to have a wife that supports and encourages my hunting ventures.
Michigan Black Bear Hunting Trip Planned
By June, we both drew tags for Michigan’s third season. October suddenly felt impossibly far away. Leading up to fall, Ramey and I became good friends. Our daughters did too. So did our wives. Any guy with a family knows how rare that alignment really is. Most of the time, someone doesn’t click. Kids fight. Adults tolerate each other politely and then talk shit on the drive home. This felt different, a real friendship of families being formed.
We left early that October morning, the truck heavy with gear and expectation. The farther north we drove, the more Michigan began to feel like itself again. The land opened up. Traffic thinned. Reds, yellows, and muted oranges lined the highways as the fall colors were beginning to peak. Water appeared where you don’t expect it; lakes tucked behind trees, rivers running parallel to the road. Just past the mighty Mackinac Bridge, we stopped for pasties overlooking Lake Huron. Any true Michigander knows the delicious magic a pasty possesses. Hot. Simple. Perfect. There’s something grounding about eating good food with a good friend before disappearing into wild country.
The Upper Peninsula is easy to underestimate until you’re in it. Millions of acres of timber, lakes, swamps, rivers, and bog stretch in every direction. Remote. Unapologetic. Much of it unchanged, and far better for it. Our camp sat deep in the western UP, another four hours past the bridge. The cabin was modest and comfortable. It had electricity and running water, not always common in the remote UP. We met our guides, Jordan and Justin. These men carried themselves like they belonged exactly where they were. Bear hunters. Lifers. This wasn’t a job for them; it was simply what they did and they loved doing it.
The dogs told us morning had arrived before the coffee finished brewing as they yelped anxiously. An army of hounds vibrating with purpose, barking and whining in anticipation. I didn’t understand yet just how hard this kind of hunting would be and how much effort lived behind the scenes. We loaded the trucks and left for the sand trails that morning. I watched in amazement as the guides read bear tracks at speed, leaning out truck windows with spotlights, searching for things my eyes never could see. They’d been doing this since childhood. I was a guest in their mastery, and I knew it. Not once over the course of this hunt would Ramey or I spot a track before our guides.
The first few days were humbling. We released the dogs on a set of tracks, but it went cold. It wasn’t the freshest of tracks and the bear seemed to double back and head towards a ravine. This particular ravine is where dogs get lost for days, even weeks we were told. Either that, or they run into a pack of wolves which is a hound hunters’ nightmare. Just the year prior, Jordan lost a dog to wolves in the woods.
The pressure of a guided hunt has weight to it, time, money, distance from home and obligation. Expectations you try not to name out loud. Day after day of cold tracks and no luck, the frustration was beginning to infiltrate. The heat didn’t help things. Ninety degrees in Michigan’s UP in October was almost unheard of. Every step felt heavier than it should have. The guides were the most frustrated. Pride doesn’t disappear just because conditions turn against you. We returned to camp, seeking shade and refuge from the hot sun. Cold beers cracked open as we dined on bear enchiladas. Our guides were strategizing for the next day as Ramey and I were quietly optimistic.
That following morning, elk steaks hit the hot pan while coffee brewed. Jordan checked a camera and broke the quiet with a grin and a few words of excitement. “A big fucking bear.” The trail cam had photos of a big boar just after 1am. We moved fast after that, scarfing down breakfast as we loaded gear and dogs. Our mission was trying to catch a track still fresh enough to matter. The waiting for legal light stretched thin. Nobody spoke as the dogs whined softly, waiting to be released as we all listened. Anticipation filled the dark morning air.
When the dogs were released, they vanished into the timber like they’d been fired from a cannon. At first, the only sounds were breaking sticks and rustling leaves in the wake of the hounds. Then a bark. Then another. The barks grew, layered and urgent. The track was on, and everything shifted. The woods intensified with the hot trail.
Ramey and I split up, each with a guide, hoping the bear would give one of us a chance. Jordan and I left the truck and went on foot, straight into the swamp. Five miles of sucking wind and burning legs. I fell more than once, tripping over roots I never saw coming. Jordan never slowed. Despite appearances, he moved like someone built for this ground. I kept whispering to myself “go you bastard, keep up”. My goal became being within eyesight of Jordan.
We got close. Close enough to feel it. We could hear the dogs baying and barking while the bear crashed through the trees. Then the bear turned, running toward Ramey’s direction. Jordan radioed to Justin, alerting him the bear was headed towards them. Jordan and I regrouped and raced back to the truck. We kicked up dirt as we tore down a two-track trail to cut off the bear as he winded Ramey and Justin, turning directions once again.
We skidded to a stop and took off again on foot. My heart hammered as I tried to steady my breathing running down the sandy trail. Jordan raised a hand. “Listen.”
The woods went still.
Then the bear came. And the dogs with him. The scene erupted into chaos as a beast of a bear broke the timber twenty yards out, a black wall of muscle and motion. The pack of hounds chasing close behind. Jordan shouted, “Shoot it!” Instinct took over and I fired twice from my lever-action rifle. The bear didn’t stop or slow. “Did you hit him!?” Jordan yelled. I knew I hit twice, but on the run, perfect shot placement can go out the window.
We followed after the wounded bear on foot, crashing through brush, the noise of dogs filling the trees. When we reached him again, he was down on the ground, bloody but fighting. I moved closer than I remember deciding to. Less than ten feet and the shot had to be perfect. The hounds were sprinting back and forth, biting at the bear as he clawed at them. Red dot on the side of his head and I squeezed the trigger. One final shot and he dropped with an echo that filled the air. Silence soon followed.
I knelt beside him. Thick black fur dark with blood. I whispered thanks, to God, and to the bear. Gratitude felt like the only appropriate response. My heart still pounding as I marveled at his magnificence.
When the rest of our hunting party arrived, we stood there together. Ramey’s excitement was contagious as he congratulated me on the success. Even though Ramey also got close to this bear, but never got a shot, his genuineness and thankfulness that I killed this bear was beautiful. A guy I met in a gym on a Saturday, spontaneously agreed to spend time and money with a stranger, turned into a lifelong friend.
The bear was large, yes, but what stayed with me was the effort it took from everyone. The miles, sweat and fatigue. The failure. The persistence. The bond.
Hunting doesn’t always reward you. Sometimes it just teaches you. This time, it did both.
Author’s note: For the bear hunt I used a Marlin 1894 Dark Series lever-action rifle chambered in .44mag. For ammo, I used HSM Bear Load 305 grain hard cast bullet.
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