Dale Thacker Aurthor

Tag: fishing

  • Putting on Weight

    Putting on the Weight

    With the end of chase season, we all decided to celebrate with a picnic around the pond. With farmer Brown being dead, we know we are safe around the pond. We all have a mutual agreement, that we want our resources of rainbow trout to never run out. So, we no longer will keep any trout we may catch. There are plenty of native trout in the streams, to keep us supplied in native trout to eat. We will save the rainbow trout to grow to mammoth size. Bud was happy to hear this. He likes catching the record trout more than anything else.

    Everybody brought different food items for the Picnic. Luna brought fried turkey and smoked turkey legs. Sophia made about 20 loaves of sourdough bread and deer ribs. She was out of hog ribs so Benjiman fixed 200 pounds of barbecue deer ribs. Lucy brought turnip greens with 25 pounds of bacon cooked in them. Angel fixed many different types of pies and cobblers, she also decided to try her hand at coconut cake. It is so snowy white and fluffy.

    We had our lines in the water for 2 hours, before it was time to get out all our picnic baskets. The fishing has really gotten better, with the average fish now 22 to 26 inches. But we are catching several now around 28 inches and even a 30 inch, 18-pound rainbow trout. It was bitter sweet though, I was still sad, what I had done to farmer Brown, and his wife. Bud still is patiently waiting on his record trout; big bait = big fish this is his motto. He doesn’t even care that everyone else catches many more fish than he does. The only one other than Bud; who can say they have caught a world record trout is Tom. How I miss Tom and Sue.

    We have a wonderful feast and everyone is stuffed. We decided it a beautiful evening, with a full moon coming up, we would just have a night under the stars tonight at the pond. The stars are so numerous tonight and air is beginning to have a slight nip to it, the trees are swaying. Bud said yes, I can fish all night long, all the other cubs was just as excited as Bud. Some of the cubs just wanted to play while others fished. All the grown bears just were glad to have a quite evening with friends and family. The quite was broken around 2am when Bud yelled, I have the world record trout on his line. With the quietness that night brings, you could hear that fish every time it broke water and leaped out of the water, with the full moon you could see the beautiful pink flash as he rolled out of the water. Bud was so excited having it on his line again. It took him almost 45 minutes before he had the trout up on land. It looks bigger than last time but we have nothing to weigh or measure him with. We know it’s a male due to the long hook jaw that only male trout have.

    We strolled on down to farmer Browns cornfield, a little before sunrise, knowing it was safe to enter, we just gouged ourselves. This year we have it made with all this free corn. We ate until we could eat no more, and took a bear nap in the corn field. When we woke in the middle of tall corn stalks, filled with large 14-inch ears of corn, it’s a bear’s paradise. We decided rather than the long trip back to Sophia’s, and Lucy’s den, that we would stay with Angel and Luna. Lucy said they would stay with Luna and Sophia and myself and cubs will be at Angels.

    We did this for the next 3 weeks, with Samuel now being the eldest of everyone, with the passing of Oliver, and Ceasar, Samuel said, he has never seen it this good for us bears before. We always were faced for possible being shot in the corn fields, but now they are safe. Our lives consisted to eating corn, and gorging on all the many acorns now littering the forest floor. Of course we would add in our normal meals, of back straps, turkey, greens and bacon, and sourdough bread, etc. I know we have put on much more weight faster this year, than we did last year.

    It is now only one week before the dreaded kill season, so we all decided to go back to our dens. Once back at my den, I told Sophia I was going to go to check on Ann. I wanted to make sure she was OK. At her house, her mom and dad said, she had moved out. That Ann and her best girlfriend from high school had moved in together at Lucifer’s. They said, that Lucifer’s Brother Dominick had come by. He gave Ann the deed to the farm, he said he doesn’t want it, so he wanted her to have it. He said that he was never a farmer, and has no desire to keep the farm. He knew that Ann always wanted her own farm.

    So, I headed to Anns new farm, I see a pile of ashes, where the old farm house was. But the mother-in-law’s suite, had smoke coming from the chimney. I walked down and knocked. A young woman dressed in pajama’s looked terrified, to see a bear at her door, as she screamed. Ann came to the door. and said this is Benjiman, that I had told you about. Ann introduced the young lady as her best friend, Alice; and told Alice this is Benjiman.  Alice said she wasn’t used to a bear being at her door. They welcomed me in. Ann told me that she has gotten very close, to her best friend from high school, after the Lucifer ordeal, Alice has been right by my side. I said, I see the old farmhouse must have burned. Ann said yes it did.

    The day I was given the deed, myself and Alice came over, with 10 gallons of diesel fuel. I couldn,t go in the house myself, but Alice did and she poured the diesel fuel throughout the house. Once it was saturated, I lit the match from just outside the door, as I lit some newspaper and threw it inside. We stepped back and watched it burn, until it was nothing left, but some smoldering areas. I had to finish the job of destroying anything, that reminded me of Lucifer. There were many different colors of smoke coming up from the living room area. There was a rainbow of color. We made sure that we were not in the path of the smoke. Ann says her and Alice, have lived here in the mother-in-law suite, for 2 weeks and they have been very happy being farm girls. They said come on out back on the patio, they have some ribs smoking, they asked that I to have supper with them tonight. After supper I had to get back to the den, as tomorrow is the first day of kill season. I’m concerned for Maverick, most of chase season was horrible for him and his family. Although he has stepped up his game towards the end of chase season. What will tomorrow hold for everyone? What kind of havoc will the next 5 weeks bring to my family and friends? Will all the dogs we killed during chase season, have that group of hunters, killing every bear they, see? I lost Oliver last year, I don’t want to lose any of my friends and family this year!

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  • The Great Flood

    The Great Flood

                Well, looks like we will be shut in for a while, the only way to go through this snow is to tunnel through it. The good news is the storm has stopped, and it’s a beautiful sunny day. It’s morning time, and the temperature is already 40 degrees out. With days like this, maybe in a few days, we will be able to get out of our den again. We have plenty of food to eat, good protein of deer, possums several turkeys and possums, also a lot of native trout and a few rainbow trout. Plenty of greens with bacon to go in the greens, and porridge. Best of all we have a lot of flour, and sourdough starter to make sourdough bread. A plenty of honey from the 7 buckets of honey, we had collected, and berries for Sophia’s famous berry cobbler. Our den couldn’t be doing better, except we all still miss Oliver.

                Being couped up, we will have to play many board games, to keep energized, and not wanting to go into early hibernation. If we were to go into hibernation too early, we would have an extended hibernation, which means we would lose more fat, and be skinnier come spring. Food is no problem so we can continue to fatten ourselves, for several more weeks, prior to go into hibernation. Speaking of hibernation, I can’t wait until we come out of hibernation, to see my brothers and sisters, and nieces and nephews bear cubs.

                We have now spent 4 days couped up inside and gouging ourselves putting on weight. I decided that I would venture outside. Over half of the snow has melted very quickly. I can hear the stream below it sounds like a huge river since the snow has melted so fast. I wanted to get out and venture a little, and walk down to the stream, oh I mean river. I have seen the stream flooded before but nothing like this.

                I wonder back to the den, and everyone is now awake and Sophia is fixing sourdough bread. She has already made porridge, fried turkey eggs and bacon. We have a feast, and everyone wanted to take a little bear nap. I woke up to a loud creaking sound, at first, I had no idea what I was hearing, then I saw a small stream of water and it is getting larger, coming from the back of the den. There was so much melting snow, that the water, it is breaking our den apart. I get everyone awake, and we all ran outside, just prior to the den being ripped apart. All our belongings, and food is being washed down the mountain, and into the raging river below.

                We are grateful for escaping with our lives. I grabbed the deer bag of marijuana, prior to escaping. We will need this now, while we try to relax, and figure out, what we could do. Everything is gone, I mean everything. Our whole lives washed away in a moment of time. We all roll us a cigar and are grateful of escaping the den, prior to it being ripped apart. As we are beginning to chill out. I think about Samuel and Angel, maybe we can share their den for a short period of time, until we can make it across the road, then we can use Lucy’s and James’s den, until next spring, then I can find a new den for Sophia and myself. Everyone is on board with this. But will Samuel and Angel, let us share their den?

                We decided on our way to Angel’s, we need to do a hunting expedition, to help pay our way, if they were to let us stay. There is only a foot of snow now, we probably won’t get any small game, but hopefully we can get some deer and turkeys. We see the biggest buck I have ever seen, the rack was thick and very wide over 24 inches wide and had 18 points best I could tell. I wanted to kill this deer, but I told Lucy it was hers to kill. She said she wouldn’t let me down. It will not be as easy as, the 5 deer I killed, in the heavy snow. Lucy stalks and gets below this huge buck, and then she sprints towards it. The deer did what she wanted it to do. It ran to the steepest part of the mountain, and into the rock bluffs. With a few swipes of her paw the deer was dead.

                We would get 2 more yearlings, and we ran into a flock of turkeys and harvested 6 turkeys. This should keep us in good graces with Angel, for a few days. We take all the game to Angel’s den; she was happy to see us. We didn’t see Samuel, I was were almost afraid to ask, but I did. Where is Samuel at, oh he went fishing down by the pond, said he was so bored, staying in their den all this time. We tell Angel about our den, and she immediately said y’all must stay with us, until you can get across the river and road to Lucy’s den. We also let her know about Oliver being killed. She was so sad for us, and gave all us a big bear hug.  She said looks like y’all brought some food, I said it is the least we could do, for the hospitality. Angel said that’s a hell of a buck you have there. I told her Lucy had killed it; the meat was theirs but for some odd reason that I don’t understand, Lucy wants the antlers to hang in her den. I have never been able to eat antlers, so I don’t understand why, she has a strange addiction to wanting them.

                Everyone decided to go to the pond, knowing with the weather, the likelihood that farmer Brown, would be out was very low. We grabbed the last 2 fishing poles, and all go to the pond. Samuel was happy to see us, and we let him know Angel had said we could stay, until we can get across the road to Lucy’s den. Samuel said yeah, this has been a crazy storm. He said we were welcome to stay as long as we wanted to. Samuel said with all us staying in the den, we needed to have a ton of fish. We love sitting here on the banks with fishing pole in hand. But let’s all get in the pond, and do fishing the old-fashioned bear way. Farmer Brown will restock in the spring. Let’s just catch every fish we can. The rich in protein will fatten us up well, and we will be ready for hibernation, here in a couple weeks. We were very happy getting in, and catching as many fish we could. We had to go back and get 10 more baskets. Oh, we going to be happy fat bears.

                We take all the fish back to the den, and we decided to give Angel the night off cooking. Sophia, Lucy, James and myself fried up 2 baskets full of rainbow trout, and made 50 pounds of French fries. Sophia saw where the freezer was full of strawberries and rhubarb. She decided to try Angel’s recipe for her famous strawberry rhubarb pie. Angel had shared this recipe also with Sue. Smelling this had me missing Tom and Sue, and hoping they were doing ok. I just feel at ease they in a county where there is no hunting. Maybe later in my life I will move out closer to them, but Sophia and Lucy and James need me now though.

                We hear snoring coming from the living room, boy could Samuel snore. Angel said yeah you should try sleeping with him. If I didn’t love him so much, I would move out. We tell Angel everything is ready, and to wake Samuel up and come have a feast. She wakes Samuel and they come in. I tell Samuel I heard him snoring, he denied being asleep and said he doesn’t snore. Angel just gives him that look, you know the look. After supper everyone was stuffed, and said it’s so nice of farmer Brown providing us with all the rainbow trout. We decide it was night time, and we all laid down for the night.

                The next morning, I wanted to go visit Luna and Maverick, I was the first one awake and I headed down to their den. She was so happy seeing me, she gave me a little nose rub. I’m not sure that was good thing, I mean it felt sooo goooodddd, but it gives me false hopes. We are friends that all that was, I must believe that. I know she loves Maverick, and I would never do anything to hurt Luna. Maverick said it’s so great seeing you Ben, it’s been a while. I first tell of the loss of Oliver, Then I tell how I helped Tom and Sue, to a different county, where no bear hunting is allowed. I then tell him about our den getting ripped apart, so we will be staying with Samuel and Angel, until the river goes down. I then said Well farmer Brown’s Pond is all but fished out. They invited me to stay the rest of the day, and have super with them this evening. After dinner Maverick said its late, so I might as well spend the night. The next morning Luna was up early, and I had breakfast before heading back to Angels.

                As I walked out the den, I noticed the sound down below. It didn’t sound like a raging river any more. I,m thinking we probably could make it across the creek now. Angel has breakfast fixed when I got back, and I said no, Luna had a good filling breakfast, before I left her den. There was sourdough bread so I said yes, he would partake in a loaf of sourdough bread. That when it hits me of the 6 buckets of honey that was left, was washed away from our den. I was very saddened. There is no honey to be found this time of the year.

                After breakfast we headed on towards Lucy’s Den. The road is washed out badly, I don’t know if it would get fixed, before the end of kill season. We may be safe from hunters’ for rest of this season. Is that a blue bucket that I see, that was caught by some brush, could it be some of our honey. I walked down to it; it was still sealed, and we now have 5 gallons of honey. That made all of us happy.

                We headed on up to Lucy den we are hoping it is still in good shape, and not ripped apart. It is in very good shape. Sophia said she would clean some, while Lucy and myself try to get some food. We are starting all over, kind of like Tom, except we have each other. Lucy said she noticed that the stream had washed several deep pools, and we could try to get some native trout. I was all in for that. We dive in the first pool; it was loaded with trout, 2 baskets full. We go down to the next pool, as we walking, I see something blue, several hundred yards down the stream, could it be more honey. I tell Lucy for her to fish, while I walk down to see what the blue was. It was another 5-gallon bucket of honey. We are now in good shape on honey. By the time I’m back to Lucy, she had filled the last 2 baskets with trout. We take them back to the den. Sophia was happy get the trout and honey. James and Sophia fixed supper for us, and we all had a big day. We now have a den that Lucy and Sophia can have their cubs in, later this winter.

                The next morning, we hear something we wasn’t happy to hear. There were dogs running a bear, on top of the mountain. They must have come in, from the other side of the mountain. Now with less than 2 weeks of the season, would we be safe until the end of the season. My anxiety was beginning to get to me. I rolled me a Cigar to calm down, it’s stressful being the boar of the den. How did Oliver do it, and he never seemed to be stressed at all, after all those years? Will I ever be the boar bear that Oliver was? Will we survive rest of this Season?

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  • Lost without Lucy

    Lost Without Lucy

    Oliver and Sophia have never been happier back at our den. They were just glowing, knowing that Lucy are going to be making them grandparents. Sophia is just humming and singing, with all the house work, as she cleans the den. Oliver can’t stop talking about Lucy and James, and how he loves helping them, how he had so much fun with James, while they were hunting. I’m just feeling very down right now, without Lucy, being here in our den, the den seems empty. I’m also missing Luna now more than ever, knowing her and Maverick are starting their own family. I’m beating myself up; by not making a move on Luna, she is such a good bear. I also feeling left out here, with Oliver and Sophia. It seems like everything is Lucy and James.  Sophia sees me setting here in the floor, and not my usual very energetic self. She asks me if everything is ok, she knows I’m missing Lucy and rest of the cubs, since they all are starting their own lives together. I said yes, but I feel hopeless right now. Maverick is over with my best friend, that I now know now, that I was falling in love with. Sophia gives me a big bear hug, and says, there is a young sow looking for you right now. Y’all will meet one day and you will be so very happy. Thanks mom I feel better, I’m going for a walk now. I truly wasn’t feeling better, but I didn’t want mommy worrying about me.

    When leaving the den, I didn’t want Oliver and Sophia know where I was going. I’m going over to Ceasars den, I believe a little marijuana, is what I need to help me feel better. I’m so depressed I almost didn’t even see a deer, that almost ran me over. It would have been an easy kill, but my depression is real, I have no interest in anything. When you are this depressed, you don’t want to do much of anything. I hate this feeling; I have always been a very happy bear. I hope Ceasar can help me with this feeling, I believe he can.

    Off in the distance I hear a very familiar and happy voice; it’s luna and Maverick having a picnic lunch under the tree. I tried to slip away without them seeing me. Then I hear Luna say, “hey Ben come on over here and join us for a picnic.” I wanted to pretend I didn’t hear her call for me, but I said Hey Luna I’ll be right there. I must put on my happy face so, they don’t realize just how depressed I am right now. I go over and set down with them under the dark lush green laurel bush.

    The food smells delicious I said Maverick tells me there is plenty and to dig in. Lucy tells me that I’m looking good. All the time I’m thinking that I’m not feeling that well. Luna asked how things are going, I said just great. I then started to tell her about Lucy and her new den, about how we all helped them to clean and tidy up the den. How Oliver had helped James to get some wild game, for the new family and that myself and Lucy had a great time fishing, and just talking about our lives. Then when we all were back at the den, how James and Oliver had brought the deer and turkeys in, and how Sophia had given them hell, and made them to clean up the mess they made. I’m actually feeling better right now, as I’m telling this to Luna and Maverick, but I’m thinking, damn you are so beautiful Luna, and I can’t even tell you this. I then talk about how Lucy had told James she going to cut him off, if he wasn’t more respectful to her family. Luna let a big chuckle when I told her this, and that made me smile seeing her laugh.

    We all had a great lunch together and was so fulfilling. We can hear all the birds chirping and singing, there was a squirrel barking off in the distance and a buck grunting. For once today I’m feeling happy, but I know this feeling might not last. I know I was able to pull this one off this time, but can I next time. I tell Maverick and Luna goodbye, as I’m now headed towards Ceasar’s.

    As I’m walking, I’m not feeling so depressed but the further I[DT1]  walk, I begin to be getting back inside my head, and I’m feeling very depressed again. I continue towards Ceasars, and oh no I hear another voice, it’s Angel; she tells me to come on over. Angel and Samuel were down by a pond that I never even knew existed. Well, I must put back on my happy face as I headed down to the pond. I see something I’ve never seen a bear do before, I once saw a human with a fishing pole fishing. Both Angel and Samuel are setting there holding a fishing pole in their hands, about then her pole bends and she screams I have one, it feels like a big one. I am fascinated watching her reel in this fish. It’s a different fish than what I’m used to, its side is rosy pink its back is a dark olive green, with belly is white as snow. I tell Angel what a beautiful fish, and asked what kind of fish it is. She tells me that it is a rainbow trout, and that it was a male due to it’s elongated jaw. Samuel hands me the ruler to measure it, it’s so big it’s 26 inches I’ve never seen such a fish. Then he hands me the scales and I weigh the fish just under 9 pounds. Samuel says that this pond didn’t originally have trout in it, but farmer Brown had stocked the pond with rainbow trout. He says you got to be careful that he doesn’t catch you here fishing, he will fill your ass full of bird shot, with his 12-gauge automatic shotgun. Bird shot what’s that I asked. Samuel says it a fine small shot that humans use to hunt birds, and sometimes small game with. He said it won’t kill a bear, unless the human is really close to you, because at close range all the pellets are still in the wadding, and hasn’t spread so, it’s like a slug hitting you. He then said it will hurt, I know iv’e been shot twice now with bird shot, with the latest being last week while fishing in this pond, damn farmer Brown shot me at 25 yards away.

    About then Samuel’s pole doubles and Samuel said, hey Ben this one is yours. He said that I just need to hold on to the pole, and turn that handle to reel in the fish. Wow look at the acrobatics this fish is doing, jumping out of the water and turning flips. I’m having a blast right now. When I get the fish in on the bank, I said I got a nice rainbow trout with a huge grin, and Angel said yes you do Ben. Its 22 inches and weighs 6 and a half pounds, my largest fish ever. Today is turning out better than I thought. As I’m ready to leave Samuel says, he has another pole back at the den, and tells me to take this pole, I was happy with my new pole.

    I’m now close to Ceasar’s, I’m still fairly happy after my rainbow trout fishing expedition. Iv’e been introduced to the human way of fishing, I believe it’s more fun, than the bears way. Us bears have been shortchanged on this fishing method.

    Ok I’m at Ceasar’s den now and I tell him how depressed Iv’e been today, how I almost didn’t even see the deer, when it almost ran into me. I tell him about running into Luna and James, I felt better but then got back into my head and depressed again. Then I ran into Samuel and Angel and we had fun fishing so right now I don’t feel depressed. Ceasar tells me that with depression, it’s very normal to have highs and lows, that keeping myself busy, is really the best medication. Oh no he not going to give me any marijuana, since I told him I’m not depressed right now. Then Ceasar says to me, when you are down, I want you to first try some kind of fun activities, before using any of this turkey bag of marijuana that I’m giving you right now. How much do I owe you Ceasar. He said That I was a good bear, so this first bag is free. I assured Ceasar that I wouldn’t misuse any of the marijuana.

    On the way back to my den I begin to think about how Samuel and maverick, had started using Ceasar’s marijuana, and it had helped some. But then they had gotten messed up with the evil dealer, the marijuana they started using then, was laced with PCP, and how bad it was for the whole forest. He tells himself that he would never use anything except for Ceasar’s marijuana. He continues his walk back to the den and he then tells himself, he is now the marijuana bear.

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  • Chapter 2 / Introduction to Benjiman

    Introduction to Benjamin

     I’m Benjamin [Ben] I’m now a little over a year old and I have just come out of my den this morning.  The trees are swaying, it’s still over a foot of snow, here in Virginia. We have been denned up, now for over 3 months. I’m looking forward to adventures this year. Last year I was a young bear, I had to learn all things that bears do. I learned how to find food to eat, a lot of our diet is plant based. The black berries and raspberries were so delicious, as is the blue berries and strawberries. Acorns are a great food source in the fall and the white oak acorns are the best. Corn wherever we can find a large corn field, is so filling and delicious, but could be hazardous to our health, if a farmer sees us eating their corn. I also learned how to hunt and scavenge for food. During the fall it was so scary, when hunting season came in. I was hearing lots of bangs of deer hunters. We would wait at least an hour after the shots, we would then go to where we heard the shots. The deer hunters leave us bears, the gut piles, the hearts and liver are probably my favorite food. Then came bear season, the hound hunters hunting for bear. I’ve never been so scared in my life. One time the hounds almost caught me, before I was able to scamper up a tree, where I was out of reach of the hounds. My dad Oliver, then showed up, and smacked the dogs a few times, they left with tails tucked.

    My Mom Sophia, was excellent at catching small game, with rabbits being her preferred game. The rabbits taste so delicious, they just do not go far for a family of four. Other game she captures are possums, they are so easy to catch when they are scared they just play dead, such easy pickings. I got pretty good at capturing possums myself. She would also capture some raccoons which are pretty good eating with lots of fat, us bears loves fat. One fun fact most people think, that bears eat their pray raw, we cook our food, just like people do. The streams around here, are loaded with native brook trout. They are also delicious, but they are more of an appetizer, due to our average size we catch is seven inches, our largest last year was a whopping 13 inches. Well Sophia is still sleeping in the den, with my dad [Oliver] and my sweet little sister [Lucy]. Lucy and myself are inseparable, we have so much fun together. We would play fight, and sometimes I would even let Lucy win. I can say that because she is still sleeping. We are very evenly matched at the wins.

    I hear someone stirring in the den, let’s see who is now awake. Lucy is coming out of the den; we both are very happy seeing each other again. Lucy is so excited, seeing the snow, it was just beginning to snow when we went to den up. We decided that we were going on an adventure. We start walking down the hill as we were walking on top of the snow, it has frozen over with a hard crust. Oh, wow look at Lucy go, she is sliding so fast. I decided to join into the fun. This is like sledding with no sled. We were lucky as we missed all the trees, but we found the deep pool in the stream below. Fortunately bears don’t feel the cold very much. Oh, I just got an appetizer, a nice nine-inch native trout. It was so yummy sushi is very good. I didn’t realize just how hungry I was, until just now. My waist has gotten skinny after a 3-month hibernation. I’m now laughing at Lucy; she is going from one side of the pool to the other trying to get her appetizer. Wow I’m impressed well, maybe a little jealous she has caught the biggest native trout, I have ever seen. It’s at least 18 inches long, she has caught a meal. I was happy with my nine incher it was larger than the average size last year. Ok I’m hungry so I dive in and catch two more seven-inch trout. Well, it’s time to go back to the den and see if Sophia and Oliver are awake yet.

    Oliver is now coming out of the den, he looks so thin, last fall he weighed over five hundred pounds, when we denned up, but be it be lucky, if he weighs four hundred pounds now. First words out of Lucy’s mouth were dad, I wished you saw the native trout I caught, it was huge, it was over 18 inches, she was just gawking as she was looking at me, telling our dad. I was so mad as she was telling it, I started a fight with Lucy, this was a serious fight, last year we never had a real fight, we always were just playing. Oliver had to step in and break this fight up. Oliver asked that we both apologize to each other. We really love each other, it felt good telling her, that I was sorry. I then said that I was proud of her, catching such a large native trout. But I was also thinking that someday, I plan on catching a fish larger than hers. Our dad was proud that we had made up to each other. I told Oliver how hungry I was, that the trout tasted so good. He said welcome to the life of bears. When we go into our den’s, we are fat and happy, but we come out hungry enough we could eat a moose. My dad last year was the big game hunter, he would go out hunting by himself, he would mostly bring back does, and fawns for us to eat. On occasion he would bring back a buck, he would say you can’t eat those antlers.

    Sophia is now stirring and coming out of the den. She says I hope y’all have been behaving. I speak up and tell her how we had gone sledding down to the stream, and how proud I was of the 18-inch native trout, that Lucy had caught. I then tell her how I was mad and jealous over this, but that Oliver had us to apologize to each other. I tell her how much better I feel now, that we made up to each other. I didn’t tell her, that I know at some point, I’ll catch a bigger fish than Lucy’s. My mom also looks thinner, she was at 250 pounds when we denned up and now maybe 200 pounds. We decided we will make our way down to the stream, and find different pools to fish in, we will try to get a good meal. I go the farthest up stream; I catch several six-to-eight-inch trout. I see a huge one and I dive in, I come out with a 20 inch beautifully colored, it such a delicious native trout. It was at this point, I decided to be humble, I had decided no one needs to know of this beautiful catch, the sushi was delicious. We all met back up with a full stomach, we decided it was time to go back to our den for a short snooze. What will we get into next?

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