Fair Chase in North America

by Boddington, Craig

  Later that evening, while cruising the shore, Randy and I spotted the same bear. I know it was the same bear because, later, I checked the tracks. We stalked him from the other direction and Randy flattened him with a lovely shot at about 150 yards. Except it just wasn’t a big bear. Reasonable, maybe even respectable, and with a lovely hide . . . but a long ways from the bear I thought he was. Since I have shot a lot of black bears and Randy has not, it was my fault altogether—but on black bears you must be very careful to avoid “ground shrinkage.” Look for small ears spread wide apart, and avoid Mickey Mouse ears. Try to look for a ponderous, swinging walk. As Jack O’Connor said, the big ones look big . . . but with black bears, the small ones sometimes do!

  I’m not sure there is any real limit to how big black bears get. I have shot three that squared, without stretching, over seven feet. That’s rare, but I have seen legitimate eight-foot black bears and heard of at least one nine-footer. This, of course, is well beyond average grizzly size and well into Alaska brown bear size. Such bears are very rare, but they exist. The obvious problem, of course, is that body size doesn’t always translate exactly into the skull size that’s all-important for record book measurements. I do agree with skull measurements, since no measurement can be “stretched” more than the hides of bears and cats—but no one can judge a skull on a live bear except to say “that bear has a big head.”

  I believe most areas can produce giant black bears, given good feed and the opportunity for bears to fully mature. Surprisingly, Pennsylvania produces shockingly huge bears, despite heavy hunting pressure. Another oddball hotspot is coastal North Carolina, and perhaps even more odd—unless you’ve been there and seen the country—is California, both the northern and southern mountains. Then there are the more traditional big bear hotspots: central Arizona’s mountain ranges, Newfoundland, Vancouver Island, the Queen Charlotte Islands, southeast Alaska. And one shouldn’t overlook Manitoba, northern Alberta, and southern British Columbia. In fact, there are just a lot of places that produce good bears!

  We all dream of huge bears, but what most of us really want is a well-furred rug. With black bears that can mean a rug in a wide variety of colors, but most of the color phases of black bears are somewhat regional. “Basic black” often includes a white star at the throat, and in many areas black is darn near the only color. This is generally true in the East, likewise in most of southeast Alaska, while throughout much of central and western Canada and the western United States at least some percentage of the black bears are some shade of brown. Occasionally, as is the case in northern California, brown is actually predominant.

  A “brown black bear” may run in a variety of shades, from blonde through the gingery “cinnamon bear” to various shades of reddish and chocolate brown. It is my experience that the lighter shades, especially the prized blonde and cinnamon colors, are usually smaller bears. Radiotelemetric research has proven that bears do sometimes change color in their lifetimes—from brown to black, even—and it is likely that very light bears will darken with age. For darn sure, if you take a big blonde or cinnamon bear you have a great prize.

  The two most rare color phases of black bear are very localized. The Kermode bear, confined to the Queen Charlotte Islands and protected for many years, is a white black bear. Not an albino, he has black eyes and claws with a very white or yellowish-white coat. My uncle and longtime Boone and Crockett Club member, Art Popham, took one on a museum permit some thirty years ago. It’s mounted in the Kansas City Museum of Natural History in a diorama with a black black bear, and is a most dramatic creature.

  The other localized color phase is the so-called glacier bear or blue bear. Like the Kermode bear, this is caused by a recessive gene, meaning that where the gene pool exists a black mother can have a blue or white cub; or vice versa. The glacier bear is found basically within 100 miles north or south of Yakutat, Alaska, and is huntable on a black bear tag . . . but (again quoting O’Connor) even where there are lots of ‘em there aren’t many of them.

  On a second hunt in that area in 1995, again with Jim Keeline and guide Jack Ringus, I actually saw three glacier bears, a massive herd of such things. They vary immensely, as do all color phases. One, a small bear, was very gray with black head and stockings. Another, a big sow with a pure-black cub, had silver streaks all down her side. The bear I shot was a very big, very old boar. Perhaps, as a cub and younger bear, he had looked like that gray bear that I saw. As he was, in dim light he looked very black . . . but in sunlight he turned powder-puff blue. We watched him and stalked him for three days before getting a shot, and when we finally got him I found the blue tint to be caused by an underlayer of very fine, white hair.

  With any of the unusual colorations, you really can’t hunt for size. If I could have gotten a shot, you bet I would have taken that gray glacier bear I saw. Over the years I’ve taken two beautiful cinnamon bears, neither large, and I didn’t hesitate. Someday perhaps I’ll see a blonde black bear, but I never have. On the other hand, if you prefer size over color, you can hunt for that instead.

  The wonderful thing about black bears is that there are plenty of them and the hunting is economical. You never need to feel like a black bear that you pass up is the only one you’ll ever see. And yet, like all bears, there’s that special element of caution when you’re hunting them. No, they aren’t really dangerous . . . but they can sure turn the tables if you make a mistake. I don’t know anyone who has been mauled by the unquestionably more dangerous grizzly bear, but I know fully three good black bear guides who have been serious mauled by black bears. No, I don’t want to get mauled and I don’t want to get charged . . . but the possibilities make life more interesting.

  I took this nice Manitoba black bear over bait with the help of trapper Don McRae.

  A beautiful cinnamon bear taken on a horseback hunt in southern British Columbia. This is not a big bear, but the lighter color phases are often smaller bears, taken for color and beauty rather than size.

  My glacier bear was unusually large… and was probably at the end of the color phase. The blue tint was caused by an underlayer of fine white hairs.

  ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOAT—Lord of the Crags

  The Short-Horned, Long-Haired Lord of The Crags is One of Our Most Under-Rated Big Game Animals!

  This business of writing about hunting and guns isn’t all that easy. There are, after all, only so many ways to hunt deer and so many things to be said about the .30-06. Therefore I suppose we writers can be forgiven occasional flights of fancy in developing catchy titles and offbeat slants for what really are “business as usual” stories. I, of course, have been equally guilty.

  However, over the years I’ve seen a number of writers (and/or helpful editors) try to stir up additional interest in a story about hunting the Rocky Mountain goat by calling it “the poor man’s sheep hunt.”

  This offends me. It is true, thank goodness, that hunting our mountain goat on a guided hunt basis is far less expensive than sheep hunting. But does the phrase mean that the mountain goat is worthy of only a working hunter’s attention? That there is more worthy quarry for the wealthy? Or does it mean that the mountain goat is some sort of backward cousin to the more noble sheep? These premises and any extensions thereof are simply preposterous, and are a great disservice to both a superb game animal and those who might pursue him. Serious goat hunters—and there are a few—got a huge boost in 2001 when two British Columbian hunters were awarded Boone and Crockett’s highest award, the Sagamore Hill trophy, for taking the new World’s Record Rocky Mountain goat on a difficult and grueling self-guided hunt. This may create a bit more interest in hunting this beautiful animal!

  Our unique Rocky Mountain goat is not a cousin to any sheep, backward or otherwise. He is a majestic and challenging trophy in his own right, and I consider it a blessing, not an indictment, that he can be pursued for a fraction of the cost of a sheep hunt. Unfortunately, since both Rocky Mountain goats and our American wild sheep are hig
h country animals, some parallels must be drawn. In this regard, goat hunting is both more difficult and much easier than sheep hunting.

  In good country goats are extremely prolific and can become quite plentiful. They are normally found above timberline and are relatively sedentary in their habits. Their year-’round white coats make them extremely prominent in the ledges and crags they prefer. These facts combine to make Rocky Mountain goats relatively easy to locate at long range, certainly easier than any sheep excepting Dall’s sheep before the snow flies.

  It is also much easier to shoot a goat than it is to shoot a sheep—provided your goal is simply to shoot a goat. With goats there are no 3/4-curl or full-curl minimums nor a requirement to count annual rings. Under most circumstances both billies and nannies are legal game. This is probably because the horns of both sexes are quite similar; those of the nannies tend to be long and slender, while a billy’s horns are thicker. Both genders, however, carry short black daggers that curve back and slightly out from bases just above the ears. A difference in length of just two inches can separate mediocre from outstanding. Thus, if your desire is to simply shoot a goat, in decent country you can do this in a day or two of hard hunting and be done with goat hunting.

  Such was my first experience with the Rocky Mountain goat nearly thirty years ago. The goat was part of a mixed-bag hunt in northern B.C. When it was time to get a goat we simply climbed up and got one. Mind you, it wasn’t all that easy. In fact, it was probably the most physically demanding day I’d spent hunting up to that point in my career—and I was young and in great shape, fresh out of Marine Corps officer candidate school.

  This was in late August, when the goats’ pelage is short, patchy, and ugly. The result of that day was a particularly long-horned nanny goat. Despite the poor hide and the sex of the trophy, that remains a memorable day and its result a prized trophy. But many years passed before I really understood what goat hunting was all about.

  If you want to hunt goats, and just perhaps take a fine goat—rather than just shoot a goat—the game changes dramatically. Goat hunting is then no longer just a difficult physical exercise, but a gruelling mental challenge as well. Here’s where goat hunting becomes more difficult than sheep hunting.

  While it’s often far easier to locate goats, it’s usually more difficult to get to them. It’s axiomatic but true that goats live in rougher country than sheep. In fact, goats often live quite happily in country so rocky, steep, and treacherous that sheep will not—perhaps cannot—tread. Horses are a limited advantage in most sheep hunting; sooner or later you must leave them and eventually you must come back to them. In goat hunting that “sooner” is often much sooner!

  If you can reach them and, preferably, get above them, then goats are usually not all that difficult to approach. Among their high crags they are confident in their security and a close stalk is likely. But that’s a big “if.”

  Goats subsist on much rougher forage than sheep. They don’t need the grassy basins and can make do nicely on the sparse but nutritious grasses and forbs that grow among the rocks. Especially the older billies may spend virtually all of their time on narrow benches or ledges, never revealing even a clue as to how they got there or how—if—they ever leave their sanctuary. Two factors must be considered in planning a stalk on a goat. First, how to get there safely. Second, how to recover the goat safely. Sometimes the first condition is impossible to meet; the second often is.

  In the summer, when the rocks are dry, goat country is steep and treacherous. Later, when the pelts are most prime, those rocks are frozen and deadly. Common sense and sound judgement must be applied when planning a stalk, and it must be thought through all the way. Sometimes you can approach to shooting range, but if you shoot the goat you can’t get to it. And if you can get to it, can you get yourselves and goat back out? Often you have to walk away. Or, rather, you have to climb away, for only rarely are the obstacles so obviously insurmountable that no stalk is attempted.

  If it doesn’t work one way, perhaps you can try a different approach. Or perhaps you can wait in the hopes the goat will move to a more accessible spot. Sometimes they will, but often you’re better off looking for a goat you can reach!

  Whichever, only common sense can mitigate the very real dangers of goat hunting. Never go it alone, especially in an unguided situation, and don’t let goat fever push you past your mountaineering capabilities. I’ve been stuck for long, horrifying minutes, unable to go up or down—and I’ve felt my feet slide on icy rocks with nothingness inches away. I always carry an ice axe on mountain hunts these days, and on late hunts crampons make sense—but it’s far better to stay out of situations where you might need either, let alone climbing ropes and pitons.

  That’s getting to the goat. The next, and possibly larger question, is exactly what kind of goat you’re getting to. Oreamnos americanus, the Rocky Mountain goat, is a unique genus and species found only in the mountains of western North America, naturally from the northern Rockies and coastal ranges on north to southern Alaska. He has been transplanted, and has done very well, as far south as Colorado and Nevada, equally well on Kodiak Island. The heart of his range and the bulk of his population is found in British Columbia’s mountains and adjacent southeast Alaska, but northern B.C. seems the limit of the goat’s ability to withstand northern winters. Just a few extend up into the Yukon and the Mackenzie Mountains of Northwest Territories.

  The mountain goat is not a true goat of the Capra genus, but rather a rupacaprine, or goat-antelope, somewhat similar to Old World animals such as the European chamois and the goral and serow of the Himalayas. Note, however, that he occupies his own unique genus with just one species; like the American pronghorn, he has no close relative on this or any other continent.

  There is a great disparity in physical size among individual goats, but a large billy can exceed 300 pounds and will seem much larger in his flowing winter coat. The horns are small, which probably accounts for his second-rate status among trophy hunters. A billy with eight-inch horns is minimally acceptable. A nine-inch billy is perfectly shootable. A ten-inch billy is fabulous. And of course the nannies have horns as well, and virtually all goats have horns in relation to body size. These factors combine to make the Rocky Mountain goat the most difficult of all North American animals to judge. I’d be lying if I said I was good at it—and so is anyone who claims to be foolproof at judging goats!

  The charm—and heartbreak—of goat hunting is you must get close to be certain. There are, of course, long-range indicators of sex and size. Herds, especially with young ones, are unlikely to have trophy billies among them—but if there is a big billy temporarily in a family herd he will dwarf the rest. In general, though, mature billies are likely to be in twos or threes or solitary, and they’re likely to be in higher, rougher, more inaccessible crags than the nanny herds. Typically a billy will have a slightly off-white, yellowish cast to his coat, and the billies will come into long winter coats well ahead of the nannies.

  These clues will make you climb a mountain for a closer look, but they aren’t definitive. The horns are, of course, but the horns are the very devil to judge. Yes, the billies have heavier bases—but heavier in comparison to what when you’re looking at a lone animal of unknown size from several hundred yards away?

  When push comes to shove, you must be very close to be certain both of sex and size. The best way to be 100 percent certain is to see the black, pad-like glands at the base of the horns. Both males and females have this gland, supposedly used to mark territories. However, the gland is much more prominent in billies and, at close range, will be visible—whereas, in nannies, the horn glands are concealed by hair. To see this feature you need patience and good optics—and you’d better be close.

  With most open-country game, certainly with sheep, you can make a sound shoot/don’t shoot decision long before you’re in rifle range. On a calm day with a decent spotting scope you might decide that a ram meets your standards from a
mile away, but certainly at a half-mile. The selection is made and the stalk is simply closing the deal; when you reach your shooting position, be it 30 or 300 yards, all that remains is a last-minute check to make sure you have the right animal. This is not so with goats. At distance you will have subtle indicators of size and sex, but it’s a mistake to anticipate a shot at the end of a stalk. First you have to get close. Once you’ve closed in and you can see the black pads at the horn bases then it’s time to get serious about final evaluation of the horns.

  How close you must get depends on optics, terrain, weather conditions, and of course how particular you are. A goat hunt is one of the very best places for a variable­-power spotting scope with an upper range of 40 or 45X. Twenty power really isn’t enough past a couple hundred yards—but in the mountains it’s a rare day when it’s calm enough to really use extreme magnification. The approach is to plan a stalk that will bring you within 200 yards—all the while understanding that then and only then will you make the final judgement and decide whether to shoot or walk away.

  That’s the hard part. Reaching that decision point can be an agonizing ordeal, so much so that you can’t imagine doing it again the next day—or walking away without shooting. All too often the difficulty of the stalk takes over and a decision is reached long before you really see the goat. That can work out okay; a lone, seemingly big-bodied, yellowish-hued goat will probably be a good trophy. But not always. Been there, done that. Get close, make sure—and regardless of how hard the stalk, retain the mental toughness to walk away if you aren’t sure. You’ll be glad you did.

  There are, of course, worse things than walking away or shooting a goat with an inch less horn than you’d hoped for. One morning, from our camp in a sheltered valley, we glassed two billies moving along just below a big face literally miles above us. They were moving along the mountain in our direction, so we planned an intercept. After six hours of climbing we had them in sight, bedded on a little knife-edge ridge 500 yards below us. Both goats looked big, and in retrospect I’m sure both were Boone and Crockett quality. One was slightly bigger than the other. There was little cover, so I inched my way down alone, slipping through deep snow. At 300 yards one billy spotted me. They both stood up, ready to bolt into thick cover below. Exhausted and winded, I sat down in the snow and just plain missed the larger goat.