Larry A. Smail's Blog

Armstrong County had snow for the first day of the 2022 Pennsylvania Black Bear season. That is a rare thing! I decided to hunt an area with a mile long hollow with clear cut acreage. My plan was simple enough. get in the area and before daylight and search for bear tracks in the hollow or crossing the hollow. Unfortunately, the plan didn’t work for no tracks were observed.

I pondered the bear season this year. I have been seeing very little mast crops in the woodlands. That fact often, instinctively, makes bear “hole up” early. The lone bear hunter has bear hunting tough enough and this situation may make the hunting harder.

One of three flocks of swans I heard and viewed flying over.

I ended up tramping ninety-eight percent of the seven hours in the woods. I never found a track.

I did see some deer and pheasants.

I didn’t hunt Sunday and Monday of the bear season. However, Tuesday had me fighting an urge to go out again.

I was surprised upon seeing snow on northern slopes. Anyplace shielded from the sun held some snow pockets. I found rather fresh bear tracks and began to employ strategies hoping to find it. I had major issues due to the lack of snow on easterly and southern slopes. I still hunted the woods watching below and ahead. This wasn’t easy for the infamous Multiflora Roses brambles were very common. being quiet was not going to happen anytime I was in the masses.

Although indistinct this is a bear track.

Eventually I circled across the hollow back to a northern slope. I found the bear’s tracks again. the bruin was heading low along the creek bottom. What a tangled mess!

As you might expect the tracks left the snow area while the last tracks were heading onto the southern and snowless slope, My bear hunt ended.

The snow was gone to the left of the photo. This is the creek bottom where the tracks were lost.

I saw some deer and found turkey tracks…approximately ten birds.

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Thursday mornings traditional is breakfast at my mother’s place. Today, I called and said I would be hunting bear. She was disappointed, but she knows my hunting heritage is strong and she, also, knows I will be out more.

Thursday Morning: I entered the woods with a hint of light as I traveled down some sort of access road. I heard some turkey yelps and instinctively responded as I continued on. Shortly, I left the road and began a slight climb to get to the ridgeline. I was glad I did for I saw the fog over the Allegheny River again. North of my position the fog was dense appearing like cotton candy. Also, seeing the fog from a high vantage point helped to make the sight extremely soothing. I sat down on a log and watched for a time.

I still-hunted the ridge hoping to see a bear feeding on the acorns, but it was not to be this morning. The very open woodlands at this particular site is not the best habitat for bear, but with fall coming on and the bear’s need to eat encouraged me to attempt this hunt. Later I would be an old clear-cut. It, too, is growing up past the best habitat. I would see some deer and squirrels and I quit the hunt around noon due to the warming temperatures.

Friday morning I was at it again. This morning was different for the sky was cloudy and sprinkling. The temperatures were cooler, as well. I walked a township road until close to eight o’clock for the gloom of the morning made seeing in the woods difficult. Once I did enter I would be seeing some deer and more squirrels.

Eventually, I crossed back the road and began a trek towards an area I needed to check out. There is a strip of Autumn Olives along the hill. Bear habitat indeed. However, it was extremely dense and one couldn’t even crawl through. I decided to abort and circumvent.

I noticed a ladder stand near the edge of the dense mesh. I was in awe when I saw it. I nice buck was dead and only about twenty or so yards from the stand. I looked at the deer and could see nothing to indicate a shot and lost deer. the buck was an eight-point.

Although saddened to see such a nice buck dead, I moved on only to find some piles of bear fecal matter. The droppings were fairly fresh for last night we experienced heavy and hard rains. This scat was still firm proving it had to have been made since the rains.

I walked to my left and didn’t go far when I saw the woods were posted. I reversed and moved along the Autumn Olive and sat for time while the rains fell. Movement caught my eye and a deer of the year walked past me at about twelve steps. My camera was in my shoulder bag due to the rain and I missed some great woodland shots. I left the woods about eleven to go home and dry out. Tomorrow I am hunting deer with the flintlock.

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I was blessed with a beautiful sunrise this morning. I was happy to have been already on the top of the hill in time to see such splendor. This was my first morning out for the early muzzleloading season in Pennsylvania. I have tags to take either a Black Bear or antlerless Whitetail Deer.

The morning was young when a nice doe walked from the woods into a field of high grass. I stopped and maneuvered to exchange the muzzleloader for the camera. She stopped and looked away at first and eventually looked upon me with a penetrating stare. I took several shots before she ran away. The distance was around thirty-five yards. A shot would have been very easy, but I had made up my mind I wasn’t going to use my doe tag this morning. I would have fourteen deer sightings throughout the morning hours. I found one sizable pile of bear droppings, but they were not fresh.

A chipmunk moved to my right climbing a vine offering a photo. Once I saw the Chipmunk on the computer I noticed the Deer Tick on the cheek.

DAY 2: I tramped around until noon and quit for several reasons. I was getting warm. My knees were hurting enough and I was to play music at the God’s Choice event beginning at five. God’s Choice is a weekly event held at the local Kittanning Free Methodist Church. Individuals with special needs attend where they have a meal, sing and act and here a Bible story. they all love this evening every week. I reached the jeep at noon after being over the hills for five hours.

My second morning out was another beautiful morning. I chose a place, but some was disappointed. There was no food normally needed to hold bear. I checked two ridge areas with mature Oak trees and never found an acorn. There were no squirrels scampering about either. Most of the area had extremely abundant Autumn Olive trees around and not a single berry could be found and I covered much ground. I reached the jeep close to 11:00 deciding to head home.

I saw five deer.

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This second day of the 2018 Pennsylvania bear season proved to be another interesting day. My friend, Terry and I went to another area to check out  for bear.

A light rain could be viewed on the windshield between wiper blade activity However, rain was even lighter as I we traveled through the wee moments of the morning towards a clear-cut destination. I need to change the terminology to “old clear cut” for the trees have grown much since I first began hunting this area over twenty years ago.

Interestingly, the highest point of this area still had some snow cover in the woodlands. Enough snow was present to help with seeing, but not enough to effectively track any bear if we would have seen any bear. Approximately at seven thirty in the morning the snow began to fall. The white stuff fell all morning.

Also, dense fog was common for much of the morning. Between the fog and heavy falling snow we found visibility was greatly lessened.

At one pint I was moving down over a steep highwall to gain access to a big timber area with plenty of logs. I found out I wished I hadn’t made the decision to go down for a leaf-covered flat rock with wet slushy snow sent me off like a sled. My left knee caught on a tree trunk to stop me. Needless to say I had some pain issues.

  I eventually worked along the side of the hill and met up with Terry. We were ready to call the hunt a day. I was very wet and I didn’t realize how wet I was until I returned home. As I removed my coat and clothing I felt the heavy weight of water-logged attire.

I saw one deer and two ringneck pheasants throughout the morning.

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The mile long walk to where we were going was done in mostly dark moments. My friend, Terry Williams and I decided to hunt this area after finding plenty of bear sign last Monday. This morning was much different than Monday with snow cover. One might think having snow cover was a good thing and mostly that would be true. However, this morning found everything covered with a layer of ice with snow on top. Visibility in many areas was ten or twelve feet so, unless one was in big timber areas minus a lot of low canopy trees.

  Trees were down everywhere within the area we were hunting. Gas well roads had numerous trees across the roads. Trees of many sizes were

Hard to see!

uprooted or broken from the weight of heavy snow and ice adding strong recent winds.  Trees and honeysuckle and Autumn Olive bent to the ground with heavy snow.

We heard trees cracking all morning. We saw limbs crashing to the forest floor. We saw trees coming down. Several times I took evasive actions upon hearing the snaps and crash of limbs. I was not in immediate danger for the closest limbs were twenty feet or so away.

I, personally, saw five deer. Most fresh deer sign was of beds with the deer sneaking out ahead of me. I saw one turkey and a rabbit.

Around 7:30 or so I head three distant shots. The shots were several hills over, but I wondered if Terry had shot. I was about a mile away and the shots seemed to be in his direction. I moved towards him.

We found where two bear had walked around, probably, sometime in the wee hours of Friday morning. We decided to follow them for the bear may be in brush close by. We, both, felt the shots may have been directed at the bear. I followed the tracks to a predicted corn field. We did not have access of this property. We soon saw a hunter watching the corn fields and we circled back around the hunter. I found additional old tracks and tried to unravel them, however, I believed the tracks were those of the same two bear. The tracks had melted, by this time, to hard to distinguish wet and gray slush areas. One needs to study many tracks to find the toe marks.

Bear track

Conditions had worsened with rising temperatures and the tress were raining water and snow all over us soaking into our clothes. By the time we   reached the entrance road we were getting wet and tired. We quit around one in the afternoon.

Bittersweet berries

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