Bear baiting wasn't right for me, but don't assume it's unethical

The weekend after my first duck-hunting trip, I found myself at a gun store looking at shotguns. Afterward, as if led by blind ambition, I spent every free day in the field and Sundays at the gun range.

It wasn't just the quarry I was after, as there weren't many ducks around that season. Learning to hunt as an adult brought with it a feeling of being late to an important subject and a desire to catch up quickly.

My first hunt allowed me to experience the outdoors as a participant rather than an observer. My initial assessment of my instincts and abilities revealed a low score — I walked heavy and talked loudly. Nothing about me demonstrated a primitive knowledge of the outdoors. It would take years to unlearn a preference for comfort and small talk and replace it with a thrill for an early morning walk in the mountains.

As often happens for beginners, my membership in various outdoor-affiliated organizations grew with my collection of literature on duck hunting's storied past and the current year's migration numbers. My fascination with all things hunting expanded my outdoor kit and gun collection. Bird dogs followed, as did conservation efforts.

As my house morphed into a shrine to bird dogs and the winged game we pursued together, my vocabulary about the outdoors began changing. The new words included decoys, blinds, divers and puddlers — and other shortened terms that hunters used.

‘Lake’ or ‘fishery’?

Other additions to my vocabulary were more bureaucratic, terms I learned from reading the hunting regulations and attending fish and game advisory meetings.

I noticed the first such word on the way home from a mountain hunt when my hunting partner, also an avid fisherman, brought up the decline of lake trout in a nearby lake. He was up on his current events and discussed the issues articulately.

"It is the only fishery of its kind," he said, speaking as a conservationist about an overfished lake.

"Since when did a 'lake' become a 'fishery?' " I asked.

I knew he meant the lake and the fish in it, but the word came from the same regulatory vocabulary that called fish and game "the resource" and hunters and fishermen "user groups."

The lake my hunting partner mentioned was not a fish factory — a place where lots of fish are bred or caught. So the term "fishery" didn't fit my experience of the outdoors.

The lake my hunting partner mentioned was not a hatchery — a place where fish are bred commercially — and those who "used" the lake were not doing so for work. They were regular fishermen, like me, looking for sport and solace.

"When did a 'fisherman' become a 'fishery man?'" I asked (I was on a rhetorical roll). Would I next be told there was something called "hunteries?"

No matter the escape they provide from civilization, hunting and fishing are permitted activities, and hunters must abide by the laws and regulations. The language aficionados use often sounds as brutish as the tax code — and following the rules and recording a harvest does not tell the whole story.

Not as easy as some suggest

Several years ago, I attended a course on bear baiting. Completing an online clinic or attending one presented by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game before passing a test is required to hunt black bear over bait.

Near my home on the Kenai Peninsula, baiting is one of two methods of hunting spring black bear that offers a reasonable measure of success; the other is hunting in open country above treeline.

Before taking the course, I looked up "bear baiting." The dictionary defined it as the setting of dogs on a bear chained to a stake by the neck or leg. The arcane and inhumane spectacle ranks with dog fighting and cock fighting and has nothing to do with hunting a bear over bait, a practice many states prohibit.

Although a substantial percentage of hunters oppose bear baiting, the method is allowed in Alaska — with strong arguments on both sides of the issue. These include food-conditioning and safety concerns versus an effective method of harvest and "fair chase" versus a better opportunity for selective harvest and shot placement.

To the uninitiated, baiting may sound easy — throw out some bait, and wait to shoot a bear. The work of finding a legal spot, marking the location, setting it up, hauling in the container and bait and sitting for hours as mosquitoes swarm is more difficult than it sounds. It isn't easy, and the clinics give an excellent overview of the effort required.

Baiting season opened April 15 here, but despite my interest in black bear meat — one of my favorite game meats — I never followed through on the often more-successful option of hunting over bait. It simply didn't fit what hunting means to me or my desire to hunt an animal in the high country.

However, the clinic did contribute to a greater understanding of another hunting opportunity. Much like a fly fisherman may avoid the crowds at the Russian River, there are many choices hunters make about the means and methods of harvest — whether we use a rifle or a bow, set up a camp in the mountains or hunt over bait. The choices develop over time and are a result of what we've tried and learned.

Hunters don't often talk about our doubts or the times we don't take a shot, but these stories often reveal (and betray) what drives us — and it's not always just meat. Most of the hunters I know who hunt over bait talk more about the animal behaviors they observe as a result of baiting than anything else, and I've learned a lot from them.

However, the clinic did contribute to a greater understanding of my hunting activities.

How we hunt involves a decision as emotional as logical. When we kill an animal, we will have to care for the meat and ensure it reaches the table. In those hours outside, we feel as free as a person can feel — able to provide for ourselves at our own expense.

These past few weeks I've been hiking into the mountains with a heavier and heavier pack, attempting to prepare to pack in my camp and pack out a bear.

There isn't a day that goes by I don't question everything that goes into a hunt.

While many of my friends have become mothers, it didn't happen for me. I live with two chocolate Labradors and a pack of English setters who act as though life is about athleticism and breakfast, and I tend to agree. A hunt in the mountains is my connection to the life cycle.

Hunting is a personal matter even though hunters must abide by laws and do our best to reconcile the personal freedom to hunt and eat wild game with the understanding that wildlife is held in the public trust.

Whether we hunt bears over bait or in the mountains, whether we kill bears with bullets or our collective civilizing of the backcountry, one responsibility hunters have is to be aware of our impact on public opinion. Bear baiting is an often-misunderstood activity that contributes to healthy game populations — and there's a lot to learn behind the label.

Christine Cunningham of Soldotna is a lifelong Alaskan and avid hunter. On alternate weeks, she writes about Alaska hunting. Contact Christine at cunningham@yogaforduckhunters.com