Tips for Tracking Wounded Black Bears

Hi, I'm Chris with Afflicted Broadheads, and today we're gonna talk about tracking wounded bear. I've been a bear guide for a long time, and in my early years, I made a lot of mistakes, and some of those mistakes could have ended very poorly for myself or for the bear, and I think that it's important to pass on what you've learned from experience to help somebody out. First thing I wanna say is if you hired a guide, listen to your guide. There's a reason for that. So if there's something I say contrary to what your guide is telling you on a hunt, listen to your guide and not me. As a guide, I would want somebody to give me that courtesy as well, because we know the bears, we know the area, we know the terrain, so that is my very first tip. Hire a guide, listen to your guide. The second thing, which is probably one of the most important parts of bear hunting, is the second you have either released an arrow or pulled the trigger, what are you going to do next? Now, this doesn't matter if you're in a tree or on the ground, what angle. It doesn't matter about where you hit the animal. It's just, did you hit the animal? What are you gonna do next? And the best advice I can tell you is to be quiet, listen, and watch. First, you wanna watch exactly where that bear has gone. Kinda get instantly a mental landmark. He went in by that bush, he went by this tree, he went this direction. And as you're watching that bear in that direction, you're listening, because when a bear is hit, he doesn't care what he's going through. He may or may not stay on trail at all. He may crash through the thickest, the worst, go into water, go straight up a hill. Bears are not like a whitetail when you're tracking. Sure, there's some similarities, but they are not a whitetail. And so you want to make sure that from your stand or your blind, you have got the best mental picture and audible picture, putting those two together, of what direction did that bear go? And can I see the treetops moving? Did I see some brush move over here? Where was the last place I saw him? And then after he's out of sight completely, where's the last place I heard him? Where did he go? What was he doing? And then of course at that point, you wanna listen in the silence. Best thing a bear hunter can hear is the death moan. The death moan is the last effort for a bear not to die. It's his last escaping breaths. It's not the air being released out of his lung as he expires. I've seen the death moan, I've watched it. A bear usually takes several breaths in. Whether that's unconscious or not, they are very near dead. But I think that that's their last plea to hold on. But it is a sign of imminent death. And so the death moan is a wonderful thing to hear. And once you hear it, if you've never heard it, you'll know exactly what it is the second you hear it. I promise you that. So you wanna listen for that. And if you don't hear that, it's not the end of the world. Not all bears will do it. So now you have to determine your next steps. If you have a great idea of your shot, and you get down and you take a peek, and you find your arrow, you got a pass through, you think it's a double lung or a heart shot, there's lots of sign, lots of blood, I still would recommend that you give that bear an hour or so, at least before you start tracking. There is no rush unless you're under a weather crunch. If there's an impending thunderstorm or it's 90 degrees, those are the only two things that kinda change things because bear do spoil quickly. So you wanna recover them as fast as possible. And of course, you wanna be able to find them without your blood trail getting washed away. Other than that, it's best to err on the side of complete patience. So let's start with examining the scene. After you've got down and you've gone to where you have shot your bear, hopefully you can find your arrow, you got a pass through, you need to examine that arrow for blood, fat, lung tissue, liver tissue, guts, smell it, you know, did you maybe hit farther back than you thought, maybe behind the diaphragm and got a gut shot. You need to really determine that because that's gonna affect the rest of your tracking totally. If you are not 100% sure of your shot, you need to go home. You need to give that bear a long, long time. If you can give him, if the weather is permitting, go home, have a sleepless night and come back in the morning and resume tracking if you are unsure. I even recommend this if you, for some reason, have taken a quartering away shot that's kinda hard or a quartering to shot, heaven forbid. If you watch any of my where to shoot black bear videos, you'll see why I say that. But if you are unsure, you really do just need to back out and give him plenty of time to expire. That's gonna give you your best chance for recovery, not only because it gives him more time to expire, but it gives him no time to be frightened of you and to keep on trucking. Now, you never know what a bear is going to do anyway. And again, I'm only speaking towards black bears. I have no idea about grizzlies and browns. I have no experience with them at all. But I have had black bears that have kept on running all night long. And I've had black bears that after several hundred yards got tired of running and decided that they were gonna turn and wait. So that's why I say it's really a good idea for you to pay attention. Now, if you've decided that it is a good shot and you're gonna go ahead and start tracking, again, it's all about going slow, looking ahead, taking your time, mark your trail well. If you're in daylight, use some toilet paper. If it's at nighttime, I really like to use glow sticks. I get a whole bunch of them at the dollar store really cheap. I keep them in my pack and I won't go very far. Like as soon as I'm starting to lose sight of one, I'll go ahead and hang another. And then that way I can look back and kind of get a really good idea through the woods of the path. So if I start losing blood, I can just kind of know maybe I lost blood here, but if I keep going this way for a little bit and start my search there before I branch off, you may get lucky and pick up some more blood. Also, bears love to make an arc, a circle, head back to where they were originally shot, especially if it's a bait area. Had them go 200 yards straight out. And then after all of our tracking, we find them 20 yards from where they originally shot. Bears are also notorious for just going through, under and over everything. Water is no barrier, down trees is no barrier, brush is no barrier. They will not necessarily always take the path of least resistance. And sometimes they take the path of most resistance. So as you're tracking your bear, no matter what the blood is like, I always tell my archers, I need you ready. I need you to have an arrow knocked. I need you to be ready for a follow-up shot just in case that bear hasn't expired. Especially after you've given the full night, if they have a gut shot or a high liver or far back liver shot, it hasn't really gotten a lot of vascular part of the liver, they may still be alive. And so your hunter's gonna need to make a quick follow-up shot. So same with rifle is the same possibility. If you got far back, that bear may still be alive. So one of the things that I learned to do early on, I had a great mentor and teacher guide bring me through the ranks when I first started. Terry would just say, there's the bear, stop and look at it. And this is at 20 yards away and we're all standing looking at the bear and well, let's go get the bear. And nope, watch the bear. And so pull up your binoculars, you look at the bear and the bear's still breathing. Looks dead, sprawled out, still breathing. This is your opportunity at that moment for your hunter to get a follow-up shot or for you to get a follow-up shot into that bear immediately before it decides it's gonna get up and keep going. Oftentimes a little rigor may have set in, they're stiff, they're feeling really sick on a gut shot and they're not too likely to go, but we've had it happen where they've gotten up and gone hundreds of more yards. So you wanna avoid that situation. You wanna make these recoveries as fast and as quick as possible in every sense. So be ready no matter what. The other thing that I'd like to say is when you're tracking and you're in a group where you have more than one people, if you are the lead on the hunt, whoever is up front is the guy that needs to have the firearm. I always feel that it's dangerous to have guys at the ready behind you with a firearm in case you get into a situation where that bear does jump up close. Sometimes people in the heat of the moment can make a bad decision. So I like to always make sure that up front, the lead guy is the only one with a firearm. Just another little safety tip to keep you out of trouble. So as you come upon your bear, again, examine them real close before you go running up to them. Just make sure that that bear has expired. Poking a bear is never a good idea alive or almost dead. So you wanna make sure that your first instinct is to run up and poke it to make sure that it's dead. Stay the distance, make sure your bear's expired and that way you've had a safe and full recovery on your black bear.