By Christi Holmes

“Tell them how much we love our dogs,” Matt said in his slight Downeast accent, one hand on the steering wheel, truck kicking up dirt on the Wyman’s blueberry land roads.

 

I was bear hunting with Matt Tenan and his hounds and I told him I planned to write about the experience. I was unsure about the practice. I have taken a bear over bait, but hunting bears with hounds sounds barbaric, unsporting, and dangerous. But I am an experience hunter. I like the meat, and I like the antlers, but I like the experience of the hunt the most.  Going places I wouldn’t, waking earlier than I wanted, seeing new things, and trying things I would never do if I didn’t hunt.  

 

I met Matt in high school and he and his friend Jason Strout balance lobstering with running Wildest Dreams Outfitters in Cherryfield.  

 

We pulled up to his first bait site and saw Jason and his father. “Checked the camera, just a sow with cubs last night,” Jason reported. Though legal, no one hunts a sow with cubs. On the back of Jason’s truck, six hounds stuck their heads out separate holes in a metal dog box. They yipped with anticipation. They knew what we were up to.

 

Matt’s father’s voice came over the radio, “No bears at this site last night.” It was a slow year for bear baiting due to all the natural food in the woods.

 

We drove to another bait site and suddenly, like a light switch, the hounds started howling.  Matt slammed on the brakes and quickly shifted into reverse. “Do they smell a bear?” I asked Matt. “Yeah one must have crossed this road,” his voice trailed off as he jumped out of the truck.

 

“I can’t find any tracks. We could let the dogs out,” Matt explained, bent low, still searching, “but we have no idea what type of bear we would be running. It could be a sow with cubs or a small bear.” We returned to the truck and drove on.

 

The camera at the next site showed a nice bear at about 11pm, around 200lbs Matt estimated. It was now 8am, so the track was nine hours old, pretty old, but we did not have much choice.  

 

Matt let two dogs out of the box and put bulky GPS collars on them. The dogs remaining in the box voiced their anguish. They cried with jealousy, with fear of missing out on the race. The two dogs, Mandy and Timber, were tall and athletic brindle plott hounds. They got to work quickly, running and sweeping through the thick forest near the bait site. They were doing what they love, what centuries of breeding had instilled deep in their DNA, what they were literally born to do. It resembled a dance, the dogs trotting and turning, heads bent, noses to the ground, processing scent - discard or follow? They choose the scent of padded paws and black hair and followed it like a magnet.  

 

Within minutes, the two dogs were out of sight, yipping and howling. This was an indication that they were on the track. Matt let out another four dogs, “younger and less experienced but very fast with great noses,” Matt smirked proudly.  

Matt showed me his GPS screen which showed each dog’s location. The collars not only monitor their locations, but their bark per minute and what direction they are facing. We watched their symbols approach the Narraguagus River and stop, hesitant to swim across the cool water. Eventually they crossed and then we received a notification that Sherman, who had not barked all morning, was barking at 40 barks per minute. “I think they jumped the bear, see how tight they are?” Matt pointed out how close together their symbols were.

 

Matt started his truck and we drove toward the area the dogs were heading. Then Norman’s collar registered “treed.” The collar can tell that he was looking up. His barks per minute were also above 40. Then Timber’s collar registered treed, then Sherman’s, and the other three dogs. The bear was treed.

 

We parked the truck as close as we could, loaded our firearms and discussed the plan. “Christi- you stay with me and don’t shoot until I tell you to. Even though the dogs started on the bear track we saw on the camera, they often cross a fresher track and end up treeing a different bear and we want to make sure it’s a shooter,” Jason explained.  “Sometimes bears don’t like people and they’ll come down out of the tree. I’ll leash the dogs,” Matt chimed in. “Dad, you get right under that tree and you poke that bear in the butt if he starts to come down,” Jason ordered. Then we started bushwhacking toward the icons on the GPS.

 

We hiked until we could hear a faint howling in the distance. As it grew louder, my heart raced. “There!” Jason whispered excitedly. The black shape was not very high up a tree, and she saw us and came down, running right past Jason’s dad. The dogs were on her heels and quickly treed her again, but this time she was much, much higher.

 

Anxious energy filled the air. This was not the quiet, peaceful tree stand hunting I was used to. Six hounds were barking and howling, and a dangerous, agitated animal looked down on us. Jason helped me steady my .308 against a tree, I exhaled a deep breath and pulled the trigger. Blood sprayed the leaves, but the bear did not fall. She was slumped over and stuck in the crotch of the tree.

 

“I heard about this happening and wondered when it would happen to us,” Jason chuckled. He and Matt discussed whether to hike back out and get a chainsaw. “It’s too far, it will take too long. I’ll climb up there,” Jason volunteered. And he did.

 

After some time to digest and reflect upon the experience, I concluded that I was not the hunter. Though I pulled the trigger and tagged the bear, the hounds were the hunters. The hunt was small dogs vs. large bear, and life was on the line for all of them. The hounds love it, live for it and die for it. Today, all that is left for dogs are lap dogs. Is a german shepherd that goes on two twenty-minute walks per day a happier dog? Imagine refusing to play fetch with a lab, that is what it would be like for hounds to not run bears.

 

It speaks to the senses and skills of a black bear that it requires multiple dogs and hunters to kill one. Hunters use all sorts of tools while hunting- bait, scents, decoys, camo, calls, guns and bows. Hounds use nothing but their legs and nose. They smell a half-day-old bear track and follow that old track until they find the bear, then wait. Two equally matched competitors. There is no braver, intelligent, and driven hunter than a hound dog and I have the utmost admiration for them and the handlers that make them part of their family.