The old man sat in a brand-new saddle in his living room and said, "I'd just once like to see an article written about the one that got away! It happens you know. I've seen it a lot. These big shot writers come out here to write an article, but if they don't get anything I never see the article, and when they get something, I never recognize the hunt!" I guess the old man isn't so old. I don’t know actually how old Billy is, but I do know he is in a whole bunch better shape than I am. It was 1992 and I was in the living room of Billy Stockton, one of the great names in guides and outfitters, as well as Rodeo. In the latter he placed eighth overall in the world last year at the Seniors National Finals Rodeo in Reno, NV. The saddle he was in is a brand new, custom made, hand carved floral pattern stock saddle. "I've wanted a saddle like this for nearly fifty years", he said as he sat there rubbing the horn. No doubt that saddle will see a whole lot of country this coming fall during elk season. But currently we were after Spring bear in the Big Hole country of Montana.
Billy Stockton has a unique way of hunting bears in the spring. He has spent his entire life in the Big Hole Mountain area. He grew up on a cattle ranch some thirty miles from where he currently lives. "I used to go for three weeks at a time hauling
salt to the cattle in the mountains, when I got back I'd pick up another load and head out again. Then they put roads in and I had to learn the country all over again. Now I've learned these mountains twice! Guess if I
don't know them by now I never will." And know them he does. He knows every square inch of the six million plus
acres he hunts, and all the animals
that
inhabit those acres, fish as well.
In the spring, when the bears come
out of their long winter hibernation, they are hungry.
Mostly
the bears up there eat grass and carrion. There are no berries at the high elevations where Billy hunts. Therefore,
the
bears are looking
for thawing and rotting winterkills they can feast upon. They know that their chances of taking
down a healthy animal are slim at best. A seven hundred pound cow elk can put up a pretty good fight against a two hundred pound hungry
bear. Currently the bears
are looking for dead or wounded animals. They are not only predators, but scavengers, much
like coyotes and bobcats.
All predatory animals look for the easy
meal, no more work than necessary. Billy utilizes this
knowledge.
Hunters of coyotes and bobcats know of the usefulness of predator calls. These
calls imitate wounded
animals. Why wouldn't
this work on bears you ask? The answer: it does.
Billy has been calling bears for
several years and has had a great deal of success with this method.
He uses a cow elk call, that imitates a cow in severe pain. If there is a hungry bear within earshot, get ready because
he may come full steam
ahead with his ‘jaws apopping!’ Billy claims that on more than one hunt bears
were shot in pure self-defense! He has had bears home in on his calling so intensely that they had to be shot before they
started feeding on him!
The afternoon we arrived it was raining.
Billy said something to the effect
that this would
be the first bear he'd ever seen shot in the
rain. He also stated that in the rain bears hole up and don't come out for nearly anything. As we loaded into his trusty rig, "This isn't my best outfit," he remarked, "my
best outfit doesn't run!" with this enlightening statement, we headed
out into the woods. Within two hundred
yards Billy stopped to let us look at a moose which lumbered
into a dense thicket along a creek. Minutes later we had to wait for a herd of elk to get out of the road so we could continue
up the mountain. Did I mention it was raining?
As we climbed up a mountain side with
the rig bouncing
unnervingly close to the edge of a pretty steep drop off Billy shouted,
"There goes a bear! Get your guns, I'm not kidding!
Nice Cinnamon too. We might be
able to get to the head of this canyon and catch him on his way out." We made tracks
for the head of the canyon and there we sat where we could glass
not only the canyon, but two other mountains as well. After a while of
sitting there and not seeing the bear Billy
said, "I've seen bears
do some stupid things, commit
suicide is what they done, but not often. I didn't really
think that would
happen today". He was right; it didn't. We piled
back into the rig and continued onward. We saw more elk and several mule deer, but no more bears. It was still raining.
The next morning
saw even more rain. There was no reason to head out early. Billy claimed, "I've never killed a bear in
the morning anyhow". We drove up a different
mountain and glassed
again. We moved to a new location
and Billy said,
"It looks like the weather might give us a
break, lets take a walk." As we got further from the truck, it became apparent that the weather
wasn't going to give us much of a break. Small ice balls began to lightly
fall forth from the darkening sky, and the wind to softly howl through the tall pines. Billy looked
up at the sky and exclaimed,
"It's going to clear up,...clear up to our butts!" But shortly the storm did abate and we came out from behind the giant pine which had shielded
us from the wind and ice and began
our trek once more. As we entered
a small clearing Billy
raised his left hand and motioned me to stop. "Smell them elk?"
he
whispered. Sniffing the air I had to admit I could smell
nothing, but took his word for it. We
crept forward cautiously
into a stand of
trees and soon came to the edge of a park. On the far side about
a hundred and fifty yards away were five elk, all
young bulls. We glassed
the bulls for a bit. Some showed good antler growth for this time of year. "Those are going to be good bulls." Billy observed, "We better
skirt around them, if they get boogered they'll take off and
booger everything in the country." We headed downwind
of the bulls and got a
couple hundred yards from them on a hill side where we could see quite a ways in all directions. Billy told me to sit by a tree
about four yards from him and watch. He pulled out a call from his shirt pocket and went to wailing
on the thing for about fifteen minutes. I'll
tell you I've never
heard a cow elk being tortured, but I'd be willing to bet it couldn't sound any more like the real thing than Billy himself. When he was done we sat in silence for another twenty or thirty minutes. The cold began to take its toll on me. Even with winter clothing, my teeth were starting to
chatter. Finally Billy said, "Lets
move on, even bears aren't interested in being
out in this weather." We started back to the rig. It seemed strange to me that
we went uphill to get to this point, and now we were going uphill to get back to the truck! Billy stopped
and waited for
me
to catch up, "if you run out
of
puff, just stop, I won't leave
you".
We got back to his house after dark and had
a hot cup of coffee and a marvelous dinner prepared by Billy’s ex-wife, Suzy Stockton (that’s a whole nother story!). Billy said, "It's strange
that when you leave
this house everything is uphill, and you make a big circle all
day long, and it's still uphill on
the way home!" We sat around
the wood stove for a few short hours and Billy told
stories of bear hunting and growing up on
the cattle ranch, and even entertained us with some of his cowboy poetry. As a poet
he has few equals. Sleep came easy that night for I was dog
tired after following
Billy up the mountains that never end.
When I
looked out the window in the morning, it was raining. That is why nobody woke
me to go hunting that early morning. Suzy said the dogs chased a small bear out of the pasture earlier. We had breakfast and headed out for new country! On the way Billy stopped in town and picked up some sodas
and candy bars, "It might be
a while before we get back" Billy also showed
us an Elk he had guided a client too that was hanging in the local saloon. It was a fantastic bull, scoring a cleaned 406! What a beauty.
We started
up a mountain again, only this time it was snowing, coming down
pretty good at times too. As we came around a bend in the slippery road a bear ran down one side of
the mountain, crossed the road and headed right up the other side. Billy
slammed on the brakes and shouted, "I'll be damned,
there is a bear stupid
enough to be out in this weather!" As I scrambled to get out of the truck the bear stopped once near the top
of the hill to look and see what we were, as if he
hadn't noticed us before. Then he turned
on his heels and took off again.
Billy said that if I wanted we could try to follow him, but the odds of
him stopping long enough
for us to find him were slim. I looked at the overly steep terrain
the bear had so agilely traversed, and then at the big fluffy
flakes of frozen HzO falling
from the sky, and
thought, "I'll never make it
up that mountain!" So we headed on to some different
country we could glass for a
while.
We headed
into more beautiful country and finally,
the snow and rain let up. It was starting
to look as if our luck might change. We topped out over a mountain
and a herd of fifteen mule deer trotted
off to the left. I was watching
them slowly move away when Billy said,
"Look over there,
I told you there were sheep up here. Off to our left about three hundred
yards were two full-curl bighorn
sheep. They were just walking
along feeding, not paying
any attention to us. We watched them for a while and then headed on up the next mountain. As we got nearer
to the top of the mountain the fog got lower
towards us. By the time we got to the top
we couldn't see thirty feet. We turned around after a while
and headed back to the big
horns. Billy stopped the truck behind a big pine tree from where
the sheep were and said if I wanted some pictures
we could get pretty close on foot if we were careful. So we got out and crept towards
the sheep. They were both laying down now. I managed
to get about a hundred
and fifty yards and got some good pictures before
they got up and walked
off. When I got back to the truck and Billy said, "It looks sunny on that other mountain, lets go over there. We got two bears
off that mountain last year."
It may have been sunny, but the wind sure was cold! We parked the rig near a good
overlook. We could see literally miles of country from this spot. We got out and sat on the side of
the mountain for a few minutes before we decided
that since nothing
was moving out there
it was too cold to watch trees! So
we went back to the truck and glassed from inside the protection of the windshield. We did
see some elk feeding. In fact we saw elk from as
close as three hundred yards
to distance so far they were mere dots at ten power!
Shortly before dark Billy decided we better find our way off the mountain. On our way out we saw another
couple hundred elk. They were
everywhere, but no bears.
We got back
to the house after dark and once again a fresh hot meal was awaiting us. Suzy
is one heck of a good
cook! Billy mentioned that he had other hunters coming in the next day
so he was no longer available, but that
he would get one of his local guides to take us
out if we wanted. Since the weather seemed to be our fault, we decided it was only fair to all others that
we head out and hope the rain would follow us. Billy again thrilled us with his stories of hunting, rodeo and ranching. He apologized for the lack of bears in our freezer, but we
reassured him that we were used it, and in fact had often been blamed for this type of thing. We told him we just hoped we hadn't jinxed
his entire season
by staying this long! And I offered
if he ever needed bad luck
for any reason, not to fear
calling me. Heck, I could
probably ruin the
fishing too if I tried. I did also reassure him that I had one of the best times I've ever had in the woods.
I wasn't kidding either. It was truly a joy to spend time with him. He is a woodsman
without equal, and it was a fun education to be around
him in his element.
The hunters that
were coming in were from the Marlin Corporation, makers of some fine
firearms. Billy carries a Marlin 444
that has claw marks in the stock from a bear that got a little too
aggressive. One of the young executives
seemed a little scared actually and asked me if Billy was a crazy as he had
heard. I said he isn’t crazy, but he is
a lot of fun! I also told him the claw
marks in the stock are as real as Billy,
and he is the real deal.
So this is
the story of the bear that got
away. Well, he didn't really get away,
he never stood still in the first
place! No fault of
Billy's though. I've seen the pictures
and spoken with many a famous hunter who have seen the success
of Billy's calling and hunting abilities, and I have no doubt
that when the weather cooperates the
bears'll come a'running!
Update. I was
in a hotel in Kaycee Wyoming on a Pronghorn Antelope hunt in October of 2021 when
I received a text message from Jim Zumbo, a mutual friend to mine and Billy. Billy had passed away earlier that day, he was 76. He had been blind since 2009 from a Rodeo wreck
in Drummond Montana. I had called and
spoken with him several times over the years after his accident, I listened to
his stories, and told him of my adventures, both wishing we could walk the
mountains again together. See you on the
mountain my friend.
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