Thursday, Jul. 07, 2011
Once in a lifetime
Freeman girl shoots down black bear in Canada
Stephanie Yeagle
Rachel Eason, 14 of Freeman, shot this black bear on the Mastigouche Wildlife Reserve in Quebec, Canada recently.
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closeRachel Eason, 14, wanted one thing as a reward for getting straight-A’s on her eighth grade report card at Midway. She wanted to go bear-hunting.
So, her father Randy, honored his promise and drove Rachel from Freeman over the 800-some miles to the Mastigouche Wildlife Reserve in Quebec, Canada last month.
“When I was little, I had my dad promise me, when I was four-years-old, that he would take me bear hunting and I reminded him last year,” Rachel said. “. . .It’s a bear. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to kill something that big.”
Randy said that he was tipped to the place by a gentleman that buys some of Randy’s homemade stone arrows, saying that it was the highest concentration of black bears in that area.
The hunt is headed by Claude Turcotte, the only person allowed to control the black bear population in the area. Turcotte runs a camp on the reserve, with cabins that have gas lamp lights and wood stoves.
“It was an experience,” Randy said. “I have tent camped doing do-it-yourself hunts, but this was something totally different, going that far and being out of the country.”
Turcotte also told Randy that he was sure Rachel would get a bear, especially since in 2008, she shot and killed an antelope at 128 yards.
“Claude stayed with Rachel the whole time to make sure I felt comfortable and she felt safe,” Randy said. “He promised me that if she didn’t get a chance to shoot a bear, he would give me back what it cost. . .It’s really evident when you meet the guy that this is what he has loved to do. He worked so well with Rachel. He was patient and made her hold off and not shoot the first thing that came in and get a nice bear.”
On one night of the hunt, a female bear, about 8- or 9-years-old was attracted to the bait trap near where Turcotte and Rachel were hiding in the blind.
“It was really aggressive and protecting its food source and running off other bears,” Rachel said. “It was maybe two feet away from me at one point in time and my heart was racing and I was freaking out.”
She said that it was time to leave the blind, but the bear was still hanging around, so Turcotte distracted the bear so that he and Rachel could make a run for the truck, but the bear followed them out onto the road.
“I went back to the camp telling the story about what happened and saying I was going to kill that bear,” Rachel said.
The next day, the bear was waiting for the bait. Turcotte drove the truck between the bear and the bait so Rachel could safely get into the blind. She loaded her gun, a 30-30 level action rifle, and waited.
Turcotte joined her and the bear started eating the bait, but also walking around, looking “nervous” as Rachel put it.
“Then the bear laid down and I shot it in the neck,” she said. “I loaded it again and shot it again to make sure it was dead.”
“I was so happy and I was jumping around and freaking out,” she said.
Rachel said she and her guide got back to camp just half an hour after they left, registered it and weighed in the female bear at around 200 pounds.
“The teeth on the bear are amazing,” Rachel said. “They are really big and really white. It’s like the bear brushes its teeth.”
Since Rachel already shot her bear, and Randy wasn’t having as much luck, the next day at camp, she just hung around the other guys, who showed her how to tell how big animals are from their tracks and where to put bait, which is usually popcorn with extra butter.
“I was the only girl there,” she said. “It was a little weird at first but guys are my best friends all the time, so it was nothing new.”
Randy, who was shooting with a bow and arrow, wasn’t able to bring home a bear. The first night, he had the opportunity to shoot one, but the bear left before he could draw the bow.
“When you first sight a bear, your heart is beating a bit harder than it is when you see a deer at home,” he said.
The next night, it poured down rain on him and the third night all he saw was a bear cub. The last morning of the hunt, Randy had another opportunity, but at the last second, the bear turned away again.
“All I had to do is draw the bow and it turned as soon as I did that,” he said. “It was like it read my mind.”
The Easons brought the meat from Rachel’s bear back to the states and are having a rug made out of the hide and a European-style mount made from the skull.
Rachel is undecided where she wants the rug to go in the house, either the living room so people can see it when they come visit, or her room, to keep it protected from spills or messes.
“I can’t wait to see how big it’s going to be when it is flattened out,” she said. “The hair on it is so long and nice and soft.”
A hunter from the beginning
Randy started taking Rachel hunting with him when she was just four-years-old. Her younger sister, Autumn, 10, also hunts, but usually with a crossbow because she doesn’t like loud noises. Plus, Randy and Autumn just returned from a trip in southern Missouri, learning how to fly fish.
“When I had girls, I expected my outdoor heritage to end with me,” Randy said. “It was something that was really important to my grandfather and I never got to hunt with him because he died when I was 10-years-old. . .As far as girls go, I did not expect our lives to go down the roads they have.”
Randy started hunting at age 12, even though now most states allow youth permits for hunters younger than that. And in the early 1990s, he learned how to make his own flint arrowheads and bows.
“I had been successful as a gun hunter and a bowhunter,” he said. “My natural progression was to continue on backward and when I started making pieces that were functional, I started hunting with them.”
Both compound bows and long bows have sight pins to help the hunter shoot their target. But on a primitive bow like Randy uses, the target has to be shot with skill.
“You program it by shooting thousands of arrows over time,” Randy said.
He explained that it is like throwing a baseball to another player. After so many times, your body and mind automatically understand how hard to throw and where to aim.
“It’s instinctive archery,” he said. “You shoot arrows to the point where you can pick a small spot on the side of the animal and hit it.”
Just last deer season, in November 2010, Randy took down a huge buck in Bates County using one of his homemade bows and arrows.
“But the thought of taking a buck of this magnitude with it, truly never entered my mind,” he said. “I’m told that if I were to have his rack scored, he would be the largest typical whitetail ever taken in Bates County with any kind of archery equipment. But I don’t care anything about record books.”
Randy also has published three books on the outdoors and just finished his fourth. His stories are faith-based, about finding God in the outdoors, and are all on his own experiences in hunting by himself and with his daughters.
Randy is extremely proud of Rachel’s accomplishments.
“It’s a great feeling,” he said. “My biggest accomplishments are when she is successful, like a couple of years ago when we went antelope hunting.”
Rachel had just had emergency appendix surgery a few weeks before and Randy was recovering from neck surgery. Rachel still had the stitches in her stomach when she shot the antelope.
“But if we hadn’t gone, we always would have wondered if we could have and we came back successful,” Randy said.
Rachel shoots with the rifle that was passed down from Randy’s father, and the Easons always eat everything they kill.
“It’s all in how you take care of them, from the field to the table,” Randy said. “It starts when the animal hits the ground. You have to know what you are doing and take care of it. . .We don’t waste anything.”
Rachel especially enjoys spending time with her father out hunting.
“He’s like my best friend,” she said. “Just spending the quiet time out there and watching each other smile and looking out at the woods. And when one of us kills an animal, the looks on each other’s face and the excitement.”
“I love the quietness and the beauty of the woods,” Rachel added. “And I love enjoying the animals and watching them move around. . .Everything is just so pretty then.”
