Several months ago, Hyde, a 68-year-old retired teacher who owns and operates Treasures on the Corner in downtown Evergreen, won a bear-hunting trip to Montana during a drawing held at an Outdoor Women Unlimited event in Alabama.
Hyde, her husband, local attorney David Hyde, and Hunter Education Instructor Leisha Martin of Honoraville left for Montana on Wed., May 2, arriving by plane in Missoula. From there, the couple drove about 150 miles northwest to a hunting lodge near Heron, Mont., population 200.
“This was my first trip like this, and the lodge was really nice,” Hyde said in an interview at her store last Thursday. “It’s run by Elk Creek Outfitting, and they were absolutely the best guides and hosts we could have asked for.”
Hyde sighted in her rifle, a 7mm-08 Remington, on Thursday and scouted the area for bear with guide Mike “Stitch” Hatchel on Friday. Montana’s bear-hunting season runs from mid-April to mid-May, and Elk Creek Outfitting is permitted to conduct hunts in the Cabinet Mountains of Kootenai National Forest, not far from Montana’s border with Idaho. Hunters are only allowed to kill one bear per season and must have a government-issued hunting tag to do so.
“It rained on Friday and some on Saturday,” Hyde said. “Then a cold front moved in and it snowed on Sunday. We didn’t see anything on those days, and I learned that bears are a lot like people in that they don’t get out in just any kind of weather.”
Monday started out in the low thirties and eventually warmed up into the fifties, Hyde said. Toting her rifle and loaded down with a 30-pound pack, which included bear spray, Hyde and her husband followed Hatchel up the steep side of a canyon, where they set up on a cliff overlooking a wooded canyon.
About 2 p.m., the group spotted a black bear and watched it for a long time to make sure it wasn’t accompanied by any cubs.
“It’s against the law to shoot them if they’ve got cubs with them,” Hyde said. “At that distance, you can’t tell if they’re male or female, but either way, if they’ve got cubs with them, they’re off limits to hunters.”
In what Hyde described as the longest shot she’s ever made, she aimed and fired twice at the bear.
“I hit him the first time, but the second shot was the kill shot,” Hyde said. “David was sitting up higher on the hill from me, and I think he and the guide were more excited by it than I was. That was the best and most exciting part about it. David was with me, and I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”
Hyde brought the bear down from 240 yards away, and it took some time for the party to climb down into the canyon and follow a creek to the downed bear, Hyde said. The bear, which was not long out of hibernation, was four to five years old and weighed 130 pounds. It was five-feet long from nose to tail, Hyde said. Hyde plans to have the bear’s hide tanned and then shipped home to Alabama, where she’ll either hang it or turn it into a rug, she said.
In all, there were seven hunters staying at the lodge while the Hydes were there, including hunters from Pennsylvania, California and Oregon. Harriet Hyde and a 75-year-old man from California were the only two to kill a bear during the trip.
When asked what big game she’d like to try next, Hyde was quick to answer.
“Elk. No doubt. I’d like to try that next.”
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