June 12th, 2025
Six days of no bears makes a hound man a bit crazy. So much so, that you start to wonder if there is in fact any bears in the woods that you’re hunting in. As my dad, Andy Rasmussen, declared after six days of no bears, “There ain’t no bears in these woods!”
There Ain’t No Bears In These Woods
After a day of no bear tracks, races, or any hard strikes, Dad, my brothers, AJ and Adam, and I cruised our way down to the hot springs twenty minutes away from camp.
Clouds rolled in while we wrapped up our soak in the springs, and with it came Dad’s renewed hope.
“The bears got be moving now.” Dad said, taking in the clouds looming above.
“You’ve been saying that the last six days, Dad.” Aj replied, hands on hips, a cowboy boot casually propped on top of a river rock.
“Well, one of these times it’ll be true.” Dad smirked.
The guys had scoured the loops around camp several times a day trying to run some bears. But the little buggers were being tricky, crossing at night, or not crossing the roads at all. It got to the point that Dad considered cutting his losses and going home early. However, the refreshing natural occurring hot springs, and his own determination, kept him from leaving the area.
So, after I arrived six days into their trip, fresh to go, the guys on the other hand, were dragging. As six days of no bears, makes a person a bit crazy. I just hoped I’d be the their lucky charm and we’d end the bear drought with our evening hunt, despite our lack of luck earlier that morning.
Did You Guys See A Bear?
A quick change of clothes, some dinner, and load up of the dogs later, and we were once again making the loop around Four Corners. AJ, the designated chauffeur for the evening, drove us along to the thump and beat of rock music, Dad taking the evening off after having to drive from 3:30am to 1pm.
Adam and I, on the other hand, chilled in the back, both lost to our devices.
About a mile in to our hunt, indistinct words came from the front of the truck before suddenly, AJ gunned it down the road.
The hounds broke out into a ruckus of a strike. Gravel crunched. Indistinct words came from the cab of the truck again, and then AJ slammed into park, jerking us all around like bobble heads. Doors left ajar, Dad and AJ scurried to the tailgate, leaving Adam and me confused, and a bit concussed.
The dogs were dumped loose, screaming up the sandy mountain and around the soaring Ponderosa Pines that made up the area’s landscape.
Adam and I looked to each other, then back outside. Scurrying out, we hastened to see what was going on.
The dogs came back around a minute later, the dust and excitement of the race throwing them off the track. Dad hollered them back up the steep incline, and for the second go around, the hounds screamed up it.
Striding over to Dad propped against the truck on his hand-held Garmin, I asked, “What happened? Did a bear cross or something?”
Looking up from his GPS, he quirked a brow. “Yeah, a yearling crossed right in front of us. You’d know that if you’d been paying attention.”
I mean he wasn’t wrong, but did he have to call me out like that?
A Running Bear
AJ cruised us down the road until we were able to flip around and head back towards the dogs, who were now paralleling the road behind us. It took about a minute, and then we were within hearing range once again.
The truck jerked to a stop, but the radio played on, overshadowing the dogs barking two hundred yards up the mountain from us.
“Turn that off!” I whisper-yelled, half hanging out the window, phone in hand.
The truck rattled for a moment, and then there was silence. The hounds’ barks doubled in volume. But to my chagrin, they kept side-hilling along the mountain, leaving us in their dust. Rather than crossing down in front of us, where I could’ve gotten a video.
We hit Four Corners again, taking the middle split, but we only got about a half mile down it before Dad directed AJ to turn around again, the bear having decided to turn and head straight for the road we had just left.
We bumped, shook, and rattled our way to the dogs, until we screeched to a halt fifty yards short of the race. Doors slammed and we all went to running. Dad, the only one without a phone, caught the bear crossing, but the rest of us missed it. The little bugger quick as it lopped across the road into the bushes to the right, crossing the creek a second later.
Thankfully, it only went about another seven hundred yards or so and treed. So, after some painstaking efforts to park the truck, AJ still a rookie driver at the age of sixteen, we hiked in to see the first bear ran and caught over the last six days.
A Little Morale Booster
Seven hundred yards of being raked across by trees and bushes, landed us at what we assumed was a treed bear.
The dogs’ barks echoed around us, the sound music to our ears. No more drought. No more wondering whether there were bears in these woods or not. Because we did it. We’d caught a bear. It just may have taken us six grueling days to do so, was all.
To the right of the skid road we’d walked out on, the hounds circled a pile of boulders. Chewy, Rocky, and Ace’s heads were deep into the rocks, the rest of the hounds standing around them, heads up to the sky barking their hearts out.
Crawling down to them, we peeked in and saw the light brown snout of the yearling we’d caught. Body tucked underneath a boulder, the little feller stayed out of reach of both the dogs and us.
Patting the dogs’ heads, we said our ‘good jobs’ and rounded everything up, ready to go.
The thick overgrowth of the skid road once again raked over us, sweat dripping down our foreheads, the dogs panting and trotting along with us.
“Welp. That was a nice little morale booster. Let’s go find us another.” Dad said, his long legs striding through the growth, his head held a little higher.
He was right, we did in fact have more bears to catch, now that the bear drought was over, we were ready to get ‘er done. We had AJ and I’s tags to fill after all. There was no more time for messing around.
If you want to watch this hunt in video format, check out the link below!
Tell Me About Your Story
Have you ever went through a bear drought? Or maybe some other game drought?
Well that is all she adventured, live life to the fullest and get out and hunt!!
Araya Rasmussen
July 6th, 2025