Full Cry Column
July 2004

Clint Stubbe (Northern Working Airedale Terrier Association correspondent)

96.9 CENTS A LITRE!!! How the heck is a poor working stiff supposed to go hunting when gas is at an all time high? For you metrically challenged folks that equates to $3.67 a gallon. A little Honda prius is looking more attractive all the time, I wonder how many dogs you could get in one of those hybrid things. I wish I could believe that this was just a bubble and prices would get back to where they were a few years ago but I think this is the way things will be with gas prices rising all the time. Partly I think there will be a push to move folks in the cities towards hybrid vehicles and public transit and one way will be to raise gasoline prices. Unfortunately we who live far from the cities will suffer at the same time. Another reason is that however much we like to think that there is no end to the amount of resources we can extract from the earth or how much garbage we can dump on it the stark truth of the matter is fossil fuels will run out and from all predictions not very far down the road. I wonder how different my children's lives will be when they are my age because of fuel shortages. Certainly if and when hydrogen is perfected as a fuel the results can only be good when a vehicle's only emission is water.

VANCOUVER ISLAND OFF HIGHWAY LOGGING TRUCK - photo from the web

The mailbag is light but I will pass this on from Matt Thom in Arizona regarding his "Cajun" a slick coated Airedale Matt purchased from Glenn Overstreet in California.

"Just wanted to let you all know that I had Cajun put down this morning. He has been fighting some kind of upper respiratory crud and something went wrong inside and he started to fill up with fluids. Cajun was 10yrs old on May 2nd.... he has put that old blood into a lot of Airedales. Hard tree dogs with lots of voice. We have two great grand daughters here in the yard plus two pups. There are many dogs right out of Cajun to pass on his genes all over the US and yes even overseas. If all goes well there should be his last litter born in July to Xena, so I plan to keep one pup out of that (female) and Martin and Billy will get one. Tomas Teskey DMV. Thank you for all you help with Cajun and the rest of my dogs even it was by way of phone or email. And the times you worked on some of them in your neck of the woods.

I put him next to his grandson out in the yard.

Matt"

Sorry to hear that Matt but I also know Cajun put his mark on your dogs and he is alive and well in his offspring.

I've been chasing a few bears this spring and as usual running more than I tree. Unfortunately I haven't been able to talk any of my kids into coming along with me this spring. My girls held the bear my daughter got last spring for me while I skinned it, unfortunately it was fresh out of the den and we were all lousy when it was done. Standing around picking lice off each other before we were allowed into the truck is apparently not the best way to endear young girls to bear hunting. I've been chasing bears for a number of years now and the thrill never seems to wear off, I think part of the appeal is because bear numbers are generally stable and you can usually be assured of some good action every time you go out, unlike lion hunting where cutting a track can be a real effort.

A WRONG BEAR

Back when whaling ships plied the oceans several species of whale were hunted but the "right whale" was considered the best. The "right whale" was given it's name by whalers who considered them the right whales to catch because they were slow moving, had lots of blubber, and floated when dead.
Around here there are only two types of bears, right bears and wrong bears. Although I've never knowingly put the dogs on a wrong bear chasing one can be pretty risky business and not generally productive. Wrong bears can take offense at being bothered and are generally best given a wide berth. Of the right kind of bear there are three types; the running bear, the walking bear and treeing bears. The running bears are no fun at all to chase because the race is liable to take your dogs to parts unknown and will burn up the better part of a day if not two. I like to get on the ground with the dogs but with a running bear this is pointless as the bear will be far away in no time flat and catching up is just an idle dream so it's back to the truck to try to get near enough to head the dogs off at some point because a running bear will do just that for mile after mile. Tree bears provide lots of fun, as there are ample photo opportunities although getting a really good picture of a treed bear is a skill I haven't mastered. All the huffing and jaw popping a treed bear does really gets the dogs worked up and makes for some fun at the tree. Climbing up under a treed bear is not to be recommended however unless one is wearing a wide brimmed hat and raingear.
Of all the bears a walking bear is the most exciting but also the most physically demanding because unlike a running bear where it is painfully obvious how futile keeping up on puny human legs is, a walking bear goes just fast enough to keep you in the game while taxing you to your limits.

A COUPLE RIGHT BEARS TREED BY MY DOGS THIS SPRING

Since news is light I will relate one of my most memorable bear chases which happened in 1992 while I was living on Vancouver Island home of big bears and lots of them. It was early June and I had loaded up Timber, Turok and my little Walker Jujube along with a sleeping bag, fishing rod and some food and headed over to the rugged west coast in search of bears. Finding bears on Vancouver Island is never a problem but I was after one to equal my first bow killed bear, which squared seven foot on the nose. I had

killed a few since then but none to match the size of my first and I would soon be leaving the Island to return to work in the interior of BC. Why I was trying to equal that first bear was because not only was it my first bear with a bow it was also my first attempt at tanning a hide on my own and when the hide came out of the pickle the hair didn't. There's a lesson to be learned there, saving money on some things is great but take your trophies to a taxidermist and not just any taxidermist but a good taxidermist because you'll be looking at these wall hangers for the next twenty plus years and you better be happy or they will haunt you for every one of those years. Anyway, what Vancouver Island lacks in variety of big game animals it makes up for in bear numbers and access. The entire Northern Island is a mazelike network of logging roads and clear cuts, each one filled with salal berries, huckleberries, skunk cabbage and grass, a veritable buffet for bears not to mention the inter-tidal zone where every rock flipped over holds a mouthful of tiny crabs and rivers fill with spawning salmon. This abundance of food coupled with a mild climate, which means shorter hibernation times helps produce some good size bears. The regional district thankfully produced a map showing all the logging roads to help a person make their way through the tangled web and to help stay off the roads where the off highway logging trucks were hauling their huge loads. Meeting one of these trucks on a corner was no fun and made the ditch look like a real attractive place to be. They take up the entire roadway and the amount of wood they can haul is impressive. Since I didn't have a real destination in mind I just referred to the map often enough to get back from wherever I ended up which I hoped would be some river mouth where I could pick up some sea run cutthroat trout for dinner. I was driving through a very large cut block, which would dwarf anything seen in the interior of the province when I spotted two bears making for some cover. Since love was in the air for those of the ursine kind I knew it was a sow and boar and I waited for them to separate.

BUZZ, TERRA, GRIZZ AND BAR AT A BEAR TREE

Picking the bigger of the two I jumped out and tried to get the dogs lined out on him and was happy to see the dogs make a beeline for his last location. Grabbing my recurve bow I ran to catch up as the dogs could be heard running the bear in a strip of timber which bordered a lake all inside the bounds of the giant cut block. I don't remember how many times we made the loop but the bear was reluctant to leave the cover of the trees and he kept us going in a circle along the edge of the lake. At certain points I would pass Timber, down in a puddle cooling off and getting water. I didn't realize it at the time but age was starting to get the old girl down and she couldn't keep up with the two younger dogs although after a brief rest she would be back in the fray. Often she would be passing me as I paused to try and get my breath. It seemed I was just about to get into a position to make a shot and the bear would see me and pour on the gas leaving me to catch up again. After what seemed like more go-rounds than I could take I was able to cut a corner and get in close enough to make a shot while the bear was otherwise occupied. Being completely exhausted does nothing to improve accuracy and I shot too far forward putting an arrow into the bears shoulder. The only effect the shot had was to make the bear more determined than ever to lose the dogs and me. Realizing I was in for a dollar now I took two more poor percentage shots and missed both times. After a few more rings around the rosy the bear headed into the lake and took cover under a fallen cedar tree. His position in the water left no chance for a shot since the bear's entire body was under water, so after a quick picture I tip toed out on the log he was under being careful not to go swimming. Falling in with that fellow would be equal to jumping into a pool of alligators.

TUROK AND JU JUBE WITH THE BEAR

Getting directly above the bear I picked the only shot I had and drove an arrow down between his shoulder blades causing him to explode out of there and away into some extremely thick salal brush. His days were numbered but he wasn't yet down for the count and I caught up and poked him again from extremely close range. As I did he reared up and with paws and claws outstretched he came down just missing me and got Timber in his jaws. Thankfully he was on the downhill slide and only got Timber by the skin of her side. That was the second time that Timber got between a wounded bear and me and she paid for it both times. I don't remember when the chase started but it was dark when it ended and past midnight when I got the bear skinned out in the swamp he expired in. It was too dark and I was too tired to skin out the head so I threw the whole water soaked hide and head over my shoulder and stumbled back to the truck. I'm not sure of the actual weight but it seemed as if the hide alone weighed a hundred pounds. Remembering passing an old cabin not far back down the road I returned and found it preferable to the box of the truck where I would be accompanied by three-swamp mud covered dogs. Lying in my bag that night I replayed that day over and over in my mind and two images will stick with me forever, one was of the bear and dogs and me all lined out single file along a rock ledge trail and having the bear turn and face us and not getting the picture. The other is when the bear reared up and came down on Timber, I can still picture how wide he could spread his paws, it looked like he was wearing catchers mitts.
We all have hunts that stand out among the rest and this was one for me. That bear is hanging on my wall and he squares 6' 11" tanned but his size doesn't really matter. His hide's a little rubbed in places but that doesn't matter either.

NOW THE WORK STARTS

Timber started going downhill from there and only made it a couple more years, Jujube was lost on a lion hunt and Turok was shot on a bear chase but I will have great memories of them and that hunt for the rest of my life and that's what matters.

This is my last scheduled column although I may submit the odd thing when the mood strikes. How Henry Johnson made it ten years I don't know but I realize I am starting to babble and the mailbag has dried up so it's time to take a break. I sure hope that message boards aren't the way of the future and that there will always be a place for a monthly magazine where not everything needs a response and if it does perhaps it may have been pondered for more than five seconds before hitting send. We need to support those folks who work at putting together the columns that makes Full Cry the interesting and enjoyable magazine that it is. I want to thank those of you who have read what I submitted over the past three years and REALLY thank those of you who sent me material to share and Full Cry for printing it. I believe Kevin will continue with the WATA column so Airedales will still have a place in the pages of Full Cry and if anyone wants to step up to the plate contact Kevin.

Well that's it then. The quote of the month is: " If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in. " Rachel Carson

As Henry Johnson always said: "Don't forget to put your arms around those black and tan dogs with the beards and the moustaches and talk to them. They are people dogs and family members. "
Signing off, Clint Stubbe, Northern Corresponding Secretary for the Working Airedale Terrier Association. No rules, regulations, officers, dues or formal affiliations. It's more a state of mind.