Catch me if you can

Editor's Note: The Montana Highway Patrol Trooper in Parker's column last week was not Malta's MHP Trooper Dan Ohl.

I thought grizzly bear encounters were a thing of my past. Now I’m not so sure.

A pheasant hunter killed one last weekend.

Since giving up hunting elk in the mountains around Yellowstone Park and devoting my time instead to chasing dogs across the prairie in pursuit of flying targets, I figured there was little chance the bears would finally get me.

Oh, they came close a few times. I’ve been woofed at, stared down, and treed, but never been caught and chewed on.

It’s been a long time since I hunted Rock Creek where a Billings man was mauled by a grizzly Sunday while trying to retrieve a bull elk he had shot the day before. Rock Creek was one on my favorite haunts. Over the years I killed half a dozen elk up there and spent days dragging out each one, usually in pieces.

It was also a very ‘beary’ place, but I didn’t mind. The specter of an animal that might just stalk and eat me always kept me on my toes. I expected the attack at any moment, consequently I paid very close attention to my surroundings. It was a good way to hunt elk.

However, it’s probably a bigger relief to no longer face the task of getting a large dead critter back to the truck than it is to no longer have bears to worry about.

Something’s eventually going to get me, but in the meantime, birds are much easier to pack out.

And bears, obviously, aren’t only found in the mountains. A 69-year-old Bozeman man was hunting pheasants on a farm near Pendroy when a grizzly sow charged his dog. He fired a warning shot, then fired two more times as the bear charged.

He was hunting a lot closer to mountains than I do anymore, but I’m sure the grizzly bear was unexpected nonetheless.

I don’t expect to run into moose out here on the prairie either, but I regularly do. Can grizzlies be far behind?

I’ll keep my eyes open.

Or at least I’ll try.

Chances I’ll run into a bear are slim, so it’s difficult to keep that edge I used to have in the mountains.

I’m old. My mind wanders. I’m often confused.

If there’s a grizzly out there, he’s got me if he wants me.

I’m much more concerned about stepping into a badger hole and wrenching my knee.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected]