An Honest Black Bear
You think a bear loses weight fast in its winter den? Try putting it on a scale! The best way to field-judge a bear is when two or more are close together. In a lot of cases, that’s going to be a sow and cubs. In the spring, two bears together could be a male and female. Note how this sow is looking around for danger in between mouthfuls.
Story and Photos By Gary Lewis
D
oes your scale go to 500 pounds?” It was September, in Minnesota, and the season was open. Brian Bachman outfits bear hunts on public lands in the Superior National Forest. When a group of public land hunters brought a bear into the local sporting goods store, the owner suggested they call Bachman and see if he would weigh the bruin. “Are you sure you want me to weigh it?” Brian asked. “Right now your bear weighs 500 pounds. After we put it on the scale, it won’t weigh 500 pounds ever again.” “Well sure we want to weigh it, it’s huge, it’s got to be at least 400 pounds.” Notice how by introducing the scale to the discussion, the bear immediately lost 100 pounds? By the time the guys showed up at camp, a half-mile from the store, it had lost another 100 pounds. “Well, for sure it’s 300 pounds.” “Are you sure you want me to weigh it?” Bachman asked again. The truck was backed up to the scale. It was a big bear, and it had been gutted. When the bear hung from the scale, the digital readout told the truth. Two-hundred-eighty pounds. Bachman guessed the live weight was somewhere around 320. It was a good bear for sure. Better than good. It was that most rare of animals. It was an honest bear. Bachman weighs every bear his hunters take because the Department of Natural Resources requires him to keep records. When I was in camp last September, 16 hunters tagged 14 bears. Every one went on the scale. One of the reasons it’s so hard to guess a bear’s weight is that every bear is
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26 February 2019 | SPORTSMAN’S NEWS
different. They have different musculature, different amounts of fat, and bears, from region to region, have different hair length, which also varies season to season. “Some are long and skinny, some are short and fat,” Bachman says. The same could be said of bear hunters. One of the guides in camp was Ron Radika, an honest man. Radika has been guiding bear hunters in Minnesota for four years and he has looked at as many as 25 bears on the ground each season. After all his experience, Ron Radika said he is still “the world’s worst guesser.” He gave some examples of how wrong he has been. “It’s just hard to know how big they are.” Radika tries to guess on the low side, but it doesn’t always go that way. Once he told a hunter he had the biggest bear in camp. “It is way over 300 pounds, I told him, and when we put it on A bear on the the scale, it was 156 ground. This is where pounds!” the guessing usually Another time he told starts. Bears typically a hunter his bear was 90 weigh more, the pounds and it turned out to weigh 206 pounds. further they are from
a scale.
