this is a story about a bear i fondly named the blueberry bear.this story took place thirty years ago on the oregon coast.
i was living in cloverdale oregon at the time this occured,my mothers neighbor had been complaining to her of a huge black bear that was raiding her blueberry patch and scaring away all of her u-pick customers as this bear was pretty much camping out in the rows of blueberries.i was more than willing to go in and shoot this bear for her until i found out she wanted it done with no firearms .
i was understandably bewildered by this development and asked her why no guns.she told me she hated guns and that i should be a man about it and use a bow.i cringed at the thought of going head to head with a five hundred pound blackie with a bow but i agreed to try it with her patting me on the back and flashing the money she promised to pay me for one dead bear.
the next morning i went to the local gun shop and asked if he had a bow i could rent or buy cheaply for my quest.he curiously asked me what i was hunting with it and when i told him the story he laughed so hard at me that i felt like a complete fool.he went into his back shop and came out with a bear recurve that he had taken as a down payment on a rifle.
he told me with a look of pure genuine pity that since this was more than likely the last time he was going to see me alive that he was giving me the bow free of charge.the bow came with six wooden arrows topped with some old rusty broadheads,i was quickly coming to the realization that my days on earth as a breather were slipping rapidly away.
we spent the next two hours trying to sharpen the broadheads with a file and actually got them pretty darn sharp.he wished me luck and said he needed to get home and dig out his funeral suit.i asked him who had passed and his reply really floored me...no one....yet he yelped in his shrill little voice.i was feeling pretty weak in the spine as i left for home,i asked for help learning to shoot a bow but got no help as virtually no one in the area knew any more than i did about archery.
i spent the next two days figuring out how to string it,load it and pull it back then release it.after two more days i felt confident enough to give it a try,the next morning my bear quest began.
i woke up to the usual coastal rain that i was completely at home in.i jumped out of bed tossed on my clothes and went into the kitchen looking for what very well might be my last meal,my mother had prepared a special breakfast for me.now i really knew this was serious buisness,i quickly ate and got up to leave before what was left of my nerves fell out of my ears.
i loaded my arsenal and headed west in my beat up dodge truck,the 8 mile drive was over much to quickly.i pulled my truck in front of the old womans barn and slid out feeling weak in the knees.the old woman appeared in front of me from her barn.one look at her and i was sure she was the devils messenger,she asked if i was ready to earn some money and i eagerly nodded in agreement,she reached into her pocket and pulled out four fifty dollar gold pieces.these are yours when you come back with that damn bear she growled.i was shocked that i was to be paid in gold.
with no further comments the devil bid me good luck and my hunt was on.i entered the blueberry patch and started shaking like i was stricken with the plague,i crept silently down the soft dirt road towards my fate.i crept past each row of bushes expecting to be jumped on at any second by the devils beast,row by row i crept.i was down to the last five or six rows when i heard a deep growling followed by loud popping sounds coming from the patch ahead of me,silently i stood ready and willing to die.i suddenly saw him running through the blueberries away from me.he stopped to look at me at less than twenty yards,i pulled that bow back as far as i could and let it fly.time stood still as that arrow delivered the devil his medicine.the arrow went into his vitals low.he wheeled and snapped at the arrow with a crazed gutteral scream.he then ran off into the berries popping his jaws and moaning the whole way.
i was suddenly a brave indian warrior about to be crowned,i ran after the devil bear sure he was lying dead in the berries.there was blood everywhere.i tracked him to the edge of the patch and into some alders,i suddenly spotted him alive but very much done,i crept to within ten yards and let another arrow fly.my deed was done.the blueberry bear was dead.i broke off a branch from a berry bush and opened the bears mouth and placed it in his massive jaws.this is the indian way my grandfather had taught me.i went to the old womans door and she said she had listened to the popping and growling and my victory yell.we took her tractor to the bear and scooped him up in the bucket and dumped him on her pallet scale for weighing large pallets of apples etc.543 pounds ungutted.what a whopper.
i had pictures but they were lost over the years and i held onto that old bear recurve up until it was stolen from my home years later.
mark i will miss you,you were a good man and great hunter.you gave me the courage to hunt this bear and you didnt even know it.ya see...i just had to prove you wrong.goodbye my friend.
larry
Topic: the blueberry bear (Read 966 times)
