“You packed and ready to go?” asked Sean Lingl. I was, but I really didn’t want to drag my Boyt travel bag and gun case down stairs to head to the airport and begin the long flight back to Texas.

The hunt had been a fun one. For several days Sean, a long-time friend and ace black bear guide, Jamie Romeril, the blacktail deer hunter extraordinaire, my cameraman and I had been hunting on Vancouver Island. What started out as a blacktail deer hunt soon turned into a black bear hunt. I had dearly hoped to take what some biologists, such as Valerius Geist, describe as the only true Columbian blacktail deer — those uninfluenced by mule deer or whitetail blood, as those on the continent can be.

I learned much about blacktail deer found on Vancouver during our hunt. Primarily they are tough to find when the weather is not “nasty”, meaning rain and fog. If the weather turns fair and sunny, deer have a way of disappearing and for the first three days of my hunt that’s what we encountered, blue-bird, chamber of commerce weather. We hunted hard in prime areas, spending much time glassing, covering huge areas of country and all we managed to see were two blacktail deer, both does. Admittedly, we did see deer in the headlights each morning right in front of Sean’s home lodge, while on the way to the lake to board his boat and make our way out to the deer hunting areas.

I had hunted Columbia blacktail deer in the past in northern California, in Humboldt County. I managed to take an extremely nice 5x5 that just missed the all-time Boone and Crockett record book. I also hunted them farther south in California, where I took a couple of good representative bucks.

Farther north of Vancouver Island, south-west of Juneau, Alaska, I had previously taken Sitka blacktail deer, which are to me the most beautiful native deer in North America. While they produce relatively small antlers, their capes are strikingly handsome.

On our third morning of the nine-day hunt, before breakfast, Sean announced: “I got you a black bear tag. We’re switching to bear hunting, but if we see a buck we’ll go after him. I want you to use my 375 Ruger topped with Trijicon scope. I’ve got a box of Hornady 300 grain DGX for you to use.” I had brought my Ruger American 30–06 and was using American Whitetail ammo, so it sounded good to me.

I dearly love hunting black bear!

That first afternoon bear hunting we spotted what we all agreed was a monster black bear. We thought the old boar would likely square eight feet or better. We watched him for 30 minutes as he fed on spawning salmon. The problem was, we were in Sean’s big boat and couldn’t get within a mile of where the bear was.

The next morning, we towed a small skiff with us to the back of the lake where we had seen the big boar and we started seeing bear immediately.

It took some doing but we eased the skiff in between logs and over sand bars, where we could watch the spot we had seen the big bear the evening before. Two streams loaded with spawning salmon flowed into the lake near where we had beached the boat.

We sat quietly watching a big bear start making his way toward us, crawling on nearby logs and then diving into the water after salmon. After feeding, he shook himself down from the tip of his nose all the way to his tail. The boar, which would square over seven feet, initially got within 20 feet of where we were sitting. When he came closer I bolted a round into the chamber. The boar finally sidled less than 12 feet before turning and walking away. I suspect he heard me sigh when I finally started breathing regularly again.

We saw more bears that afternoon, two as big as the one we nearly had in our lap. Just before we needed to leave to get across 20 plus miles of lake, fraught with an occasional log that would do considerable damage to our boat should we strike one, we spotted the monster from the day before. He was back almost exactly where we had seen him the day previous. I looked at Sean and then at my cameraman. “There’s not enough light!” I looked at Sean. He shrugged his shoulders. I dearly hated walking away from that bear.

The next morning motoring our way to the back of the lake, Sean commented: “He was there the last two days, surely he’ll be back again this afternoon.”

“I sure hope so!” I added.

On our way we spotted a bear walking the shoreline. We beached the skiff, got out ahead of the bear and there we waited. Onward came the bear getting ever closer. I sat quietly, not moving, right on the shoreline. The bear came closer, and closer and closer when it got to within touching distance. With my rifle I stood up and the bear simply backed up, then walked around me back to the shoreline and continued on its mission. It was great fun, but also a bit concerning!

While waiting for the big bear, we looked over eight other bears. The biggest would have squared at least seven feet.

Late in the afternoon Sean said: “Larry, we’ve got to get back to the big boat if we hope to get back to the lodge tonight. It doesn’t look like he’s coming out this evening.” I hated to leave, but I understood.

The next days we continued hunting black bear both on the lake and on salmon streams. We saw lots of black bear, including several I well may have shot hunting elsewhere, but the vision of the eight-footer kept coming back to me. I had taken many black bears in the past and I wanted the next one to be very special, so I left Vancouver Island without a bear but with fabulous memories.

Was it an unsuccessful hunt? No way! To me the hunt had been tremendously successful. I got to spend time watching and learning about bears, learned about the region we hunted, and spent time with several truly special people, in some of the most beautiful country in the world. In every way the hunt was hugely successful.