By Joe Woody
My next-door neighbor, Dylan had a bear encounter the other morning. Not a terrifying encounter but a bear encounter nonetheless… most are at least a little pucker inducing.
He walked out of his front door smack dead into a three or four hundred pound bear casually munching on his daughters pink cupcakes. Apparently, there had been a birthday party during the week and the leftovers were placed in the trash for pickup… it was a Tuesday. The bear was not startled and continued his breakfast. He continued to pilfer through a few other garbage cans that morning. I managed to pick up most of the trash before the trucks came.
I’m telling this story to highlight the preponderance of bear interactions we are having around the mountains lately. There are bears downtown. There are bears at the mall. There are bears at the hospital… bears everywhere. I would imagine if a bear could write an article for a fishing magazine, he would be wondering, “Why are all these people in my backyard?” He might even write a story about leaving his den one morning and running smack dead into a three or four hundred pound man eating all his blueberries.
With all these bears venturing into civilization, just imagine how many bears there are out in the wilderness. Personally, I’m running into them everywhere, I’m sure other adventure anglers are doing the same. The bear sitting at the end of Dylan’s driveway eating pink cupcakes is a little surreal and a perfect segway into a recent “near” encounter I had. I say “near” because I actually didn’t see the bear but I’m quite sure he played a trick on me.
My buddy, Barry, and I recently completed a “Hazel Creek Walk”. If you are not familiar with the term, a “Hazel Creek Walk” consists of a trip of three to four days walking and fishing the Hazel Creek Watershed in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. This trip is usually completed one of two ways. You can start at Proctor on the North Side of Fontana Lake and fish upstream, or your can start at the top, like Barry and I did. Starting at the top eliminates the strenuous uphill climb coming out of the watershed. Either way, be prepared to walk twenty-five miles or more depending on your side fishing excursions up Walker or Proctor Creeks.
We started our trip from the Clingman’s Dome Parking Area. We walked up the steep Tower Trail for obligatory selfies at the top of the tower then struck out west on the AT toward Double Springs Gap and the trails intersection with Welch Ridge Trail. A mile into our walk, we started finding numerous, large piles of bear poop. When we turned south down Welch Ridge, the piles became larger and closer together. We passed large swaths of earth, recently rooted up by large bands of wild hogs found at high altitude during the summer. We passed a large grassy area recently pressed down by a large “Sounder” of hogs. We never saw the animals, but just out of sight we often heard large animals busting through the underbrush to avoid us. It was kind of unnerving.
This continued all the way down the valley… bear poop and boar root. Our fourth day before our last push out to Fontana, we decided to explore a seldom-fished area across Hazel Creek from the Sugar Fork Campground. Barry went ahead of me… I had some reel maintenance I had to take care of which put me about fifteen minutes behind him. I crossed the creek and immediately came across fresh bear tracks. What do you do when you come across fresh bear tracks… in the middle of the wilderness… by yourself… obviously you follow them. The bear was in a playful mode. He crisscrossed the little island five or six times. He walked through a little swampy area. He rubbed himself on a tree and scratched it up. I then followed him back to the creek where he jumped into the water about seventy-five yards from where Barry was fishing on a rock.
He left almost perfect tracks in a little sandy area next to the bank. I studied the tracks for a few minutes, almost mesmerized by them. I love tracks, they tell a story if you have the patience. I squatted down to get a closer look. I then noticed more tracks in the shallow water almost washed away. The bear was almost jumping up and down. I was trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Then off to my right, I noticed a grey cloth like substance. Before I fully recognized what it was, the hornets started swarming me. This bear had knocked a Bald Faced Hornet’s nest out of a tree almost as if he knew I was following him. He led me into a trap and I never saw it coming. Never saw the bear either.
I’m not saying this bear hatched a plan to get me stung by hornets. I’m saying that bears are curious and mischievous by nature and can, and will, create trouble wherever they wander. Whether it be eating pink cupcakes out of your garbage can or ripping down a hornet’s nest to set you up for a few stings.
All in all, I was lucky. I was only stung once but my whole left hand was swollen. Barry, oblivious to all I was doing because he was absolutely slaying fish, only saw me running toward him in a panic swatting at unseen bees. When I finally made it to safety, he simply asked… “You Ok”? I said yes and we both kept fishing like nothing had happened. We only spoke of it lightly on the way out when we high fived toward the end of our trip. My swollen hand reminding me of what just happened. I guess stories about bears, bees and pink cupcakes become more interesting over time.
Joe Woody is Co-Publisher of The Angler Magazine WNC with his wife Debra. He is an Army Veteran and a self proclaimed “Adventure Angler”. You can usually find him wandering around Western North Carolina telling fishing lies. He is also a baseball nut and a crazy FCS Football fan. He has a Bigfoot magnet on the back of his truck.