Friday when I was checking my cameras, I was driving around this little turn in the road and a bear was coming down out of a tree below the road. It was coming down fast. I stopped as quick as I could and went around the truck, the windows were down so I grabbed my camera off of the seat. The bear was on the side of another tree, about 50 yards off, I got one crappy picture of it. Once it came down, I couldn't see it, so much brush and vines.
Anyway, I looked on down the ridge, off about 75 yards I could see 2 cubs and a bigger bear going up a tree. Now, my dog was there someplace, she hadn't barked yet. So I was going down the ridge straight to the tree, my dog was off to my left and moving pretty keen. About that time a cub bear came down a tree to my right. Like I do pretty regular, I yelled to my dog "Get him Baby." Or: Get him Babe. Don't remember?
Sundance perked up and was barking by then. The mommy bear came down the tree, bailed out and tore off around the side of the ridge. The dog didn't see any of them. She barked treed for a little bit and then took off on the sow's track. She was only gone for 15 minutes or so, and then came back and locked down treed. It was warm and she's 10 or 11 years old now.
The cubs were up 50 feet or better, kind of hard to see them up through the leaves and grape vines. I took about 30 mostly bad pictures, the one above is about the best one. The bugs were eating me, so I went out and checked camera #2, walked back and checked on the dog. She trees hard, I encouraged her a little bit more, then went on out and checked camera #3. Sundance came back to me just as I got finished, she stayed treed for better than an hour.
The bear were eating sassafras berries. Looks like there's going to be a lot of grapes on the mountain too. I'll try to find some more pictures.