First Bear Comes With Added Excitement

Laura Garrett, of Hiawassee, killed her first bear with an hour of daylight left. It meant an after-dark skinning experience deep in a Towns County portion of public land with another bear still in the area.

By Daniel Garrett

My wife, Laura, and I met just before hunting season started in 2021. She had never hunted before, but not long after we started dating, she took an interest in my favorite hobby. We started out with what I told her were “hiking” trips where I happened to point out deer, bear and hog sign. Fortunately for me, Laura already knew how to shoot and she loved to hike, so I did not have to do much convincing to get her interested in hunting.

We put many hours and miles into scouting and hunting. Most of those hours and miles were spent with us huffing and sweating up the sides of mountains and turning up empty, as is often the case with mountain hunting.

Fast forward to 2024, and Laura was still searching for her first deer, bear or hog. We had both cleared out our work schedules for several days and afternoons in October to focus on bears. Our plan was simple: Hit some of our honey holes from years past until we found lots of white oak acorns and heavy bear sign. We found plenty of sign in the honey holes, but it was all two-plus weeks old. The sign we did find was at the high elevation mountain tops and ridges.

I started going through places in my head I had scouted or hiked that were high elevation with lots of white oak trees. I had a ridge in mind, but it was a steep and long walk in. I had to work that morning, but we made plans to hike in that afternoon. As often happens, I got stuck at work that afternoon, and we were way behind schedule that afternoon. We decided it was too late to go the ridge I had in mind. We were frustrated that we now had to scramble to a different spot.

There was another mountain top that I had only been to once, and it was several years ago during the summer while I was out scouting. It fit the description of the type place we had been finding sign. I told Laura it would not be that far of a walk.

Boy, was my memory wrong. We hiked straight up the side of a mountain for several hours and saw zero bear sign the entire way. It seemed like another one of those trips where you think there has never been any animal in these woods and probably never would be.

When we got to the top of the mountain, everything changed. It looked like an army of bears had beat down every bush and tore out every white oak limb in sight. There was bear scat covering the ground. We knew we were in the right spot. We crept really slow across the top of the mountain through the thick brush. I reminded Laura to listen not only for something walking but also something crunching on white oaks.

All of the sudden we hear a thump… thump… thump… thump… thump that sounded like an engine cranking up. It was grouse drumming somewhere just off the side of the mountain.

We worked our way across the top of the mountain. I remembered there was a small saddle on the backside of the mountain and suggested we head toward the saddle. When we got to the top of the saddle, we sat down for a break to drink some water and eat a snack while watching down toward the saddle. We had about an hour and half until dark, which was about how long it would take us to hike out.

We had been sitting down for a minute or two when I heard something that sounded like a bear smacking on white oak acorns. I told Laura to get ready, and we stood up to get a better view point down the mountain. We strained our eyes looking through the oak trees and mountain laurel wishing we could see through them. We waited about 10 minutes and did not hear or see anything else.

Just as we were about to give up, I saw a small patch of black fuzz through the trees that I knew was a bear. We slipped down toward the saddle, trying to be as quiet as possible. We closed 20 to 30 yards fairly quickly. We could still only see bits and pieces of the bear. By this point, we were confident it was a lone bear that was just camped out under a white oak tree. We watched it feed from one side of the saddle to the other. When the bear would go behind a tree or face directly away from us, we moved closer. We tried to time our movement for when we could hear the CRUNCH of acorns and leaves.

Finally, we closed the gap to about 60 yards. It was still thick, but we had one lane to shoot through on the very edge of the saddle. We got on our knees, and I whispered that we would wait for the bear to feed back into that lane.

As the bear worked its way over to the edge of the saddle, Laura raised her .35 Remington and pulled the hammer back. I whispered to take her time and just squeeze the trigger when she was ready. BOOM! The bear took off down the mountain, and the woods went silent.

At this point, we were well over a mile from the truck and on the wrong side of the mountain with less than an hour of daylight left. We headed down to check for blood. After a few minutes, Laura said, “Hey I got something,” and we started to follow the blood trail. It was not heavy blood, but it was blood. We followed the trail down out of the saddle. With darkness coming quickly, we spread out about 30 yards from each other and walked down the mountain looking for the bear.

We walked about 50 yards when Laura says, “I think I see it.” Sure enough, there it was, a beautiful sow. We high-fived, hugged and took some pictures.

Now the real work began. We got the bear up against a tree to keep it from rolling down the mountain, skinned and quartered it out. About two hours later, we were ready to hike out. We had the head, hide and meat in our packs. By the time we started the pack out, it was several hours after dark, and a thick fog had rolled through the saddle and down the side of the mountain. Even if not for the brush or the darkness, we could not see more than a few yards through the fog.

About the time we got back into the saddle, we heard a “HOOF.” We stopped, and I whispered that it sounded like a deer blowing. Then we heard it again but closer. I realized it was not a deer blowing but a bear huffing. We had walked up on a second bear right where we shot the first one.

As soon as we realized it was a bear, we both started yelling. As we’re talking to the bear, we hear leaves like something moving toward us and “POP, POP, POP,” the sound of the bear popping its jaw at us. I set my rifle on the ground, which we unloaded for the hike out and drew my handgun. After a few tense seconds of us straining to see what was through the fog, it got quiet.

I holstered my handgun, picked up my rifle, and loaded it. Laura loaded her rifle too, just in case. We slowly moved back up out of the saddle toward the top of the mountain still yelling periodically. Even though our packs were heavy, we did not stop until we got back to the top.

The top of the mountain, as in where we saw all the bear sign early that evening. We were still on edge, but I needed a break from the heavy pack. I sat down on a rock ledge and took my pack off. Laura stood in front of me. We briefly rehashed everything that happened while I reassured both of us that everything was fine, and the bears were more scared of us than we were of them.

Just as we were getting ready to keep moving, we heard a “SCREEEEEECCCCH” from a tree right in front of us. My first thought was, Oh great, now we’ve run a cub up a tree and mama’s not gonna be too happy with us. After hearing it a second and third time, we realized it was an owl. We had enough excitement and both just wanted to get back to the truck.

We hiked down for another hour plus with no excitement or noise other than the occasional whistle or “Hey Bear!” to alert everyone in the woods we were coming. The meat was worth every second. Laura is already excited about next bear season but will never forget her first bear.