Last year's bear season was a story of boom or bust for individual hunters. Most hunters either found sites where several bears were feeding on the spotty acorn crop, or they found nothing at all.

It was opening day of the still-hunt for bears, and things just could not have been better for this long-time bear hunter. I had scouted the entire mountain and could not find one single acorn of any kind, except for the little pocket right where I was sitting. In this little glade near the top of the mountain were four white oak trees that had dropped a fair crop of acorns on the ground. The bears had found them and it looked like at least three, maybe four or five, bears were habitually feeding in there.

The scat ranged from the size of a scoop of ice cream (cubs), to one about the size of a saucer (a yearling), to one as big as a dinner plate (a bragging-sized big bear). They appeared to cover the period of anywhere from one day old to about a week old. Few things in the sport of hunting are a sure thing, but this situation was about as good as it gets. I had not seen anything during the morning hunt, but I was confident that it was just a matter of time.

About 5 p.m., the squirrels started barking about 75 yards out and I knew somebody was heading my way. Shortly, two yearling bears, somewhere between 80 and 100 pounds, came strolling in. They seemed to be more interested in exploring the area than picking up acorns. One climbed a deadfall that was lodged up against another tree, apparently for no other reason than the fact that he thought he could do it.

He quickly climbed back down and the pair started sniffing the ground like two hounds trying to sort out a good track. After snacking on a few white acorns, one of the youngsters reached out and slapped the other on the backside of the head, which started a scuffle, and then they departed as quickly as they had arrived.

I just leaned back against the tree where I was sitting on the ground and thought, Wow! That's the kind of thing that most people would mortgage their house to see. If nothing else happens this evening, this will still be a day in the bear woods to remember.

And nothing else did happen until about 45 minutes later, during the bewitching hour, that time of the evening when the woods fall eerily silent and you can hear an acorn drop at 50 yards. I first noticed a patch of black in the brush out about 60 yards that seemed out of place. I was sure that it had not been there a few minutes earlier when I had carefully scanned the woods out in front of me. While I was trying to recall if I had seen a black stump or maybe a section of dark tree trunk in that direction, the bear came walking in.