North Carolina Swamp Bear

January 06, 2023

North Carolina Swamp Bear

North eastern North Carolina swamp bear 575#'s

I've hunted Black Bear all over this beautiful country from Alaska to Maine and I have never seen larger bears than in North Carolina.

Houndsman & Black Water Bears

The morning sun had just broke through the tree tops shooting rays on my face, it’s cold for a North Carolina fall morning and the sun’s warmth is a preamble for how hot it’s about to get. An earlier check of the game cams confirmed there’s a good bear in this block. I’m posted in a specific spot; one picked by Doug Temple the lead houndsman. He doesn’t talk much, but when he does in a low southern grumble that’s the law for that moment. He’s driven away to take the lead while whoever’s left scrambles to a position along the long dirt road forming a line the bears are not to cross.

You can feel the fever building and to the uninformed it appears to be pure chaos. Guns emerge from every truck and there’s the unmistakable sound of steel while shells are racked in the chamber. Dogs left in truck boxes in reserve are no less tuned in and whimpers turn to howls.

This scene has been played out time and again for generations but it never gets old. It’s orchestrated by the one man who knows the bear so well its been said he could be one. That man is the ultimate houndsman, a man whose run these swamps like his family has for four generations. That man is Pasquotank North Carolina’s Doug Temple.

In my opinion when newcomers find themselves immersed in the action for a single hunt they will instantly develop a love for the dogs and the sport. You can’t help but to drawn into the sounds and smells of the swamp and the thrill of the chase. To leave the dirt road and dive into the black water swamp you feel as if you are entering a different world. These dogs and men literally put their lives and that of their dogs in pursuit of tradition. It’s a combination of human instinct, tradition and pride. It’s what they live for.

The Great Dismal Swamp

The 113,000-acre refuge has allowed deer hunting since 1979 and bear hunting since 2006. The majority of the wild lands are found in Virginia but a reasonably sized portion sweeps south into North Carolina. At one time this land mass was covered by the sea, it emerged from its depths after the last ice age.

Folklore tells us that the black waters contain healing powers. It has been said that passing ships would make an intentional stop to stock up on its natural medicine waters. The water is high in natural acids leached from the detritus of the Cypress, Gum and Juniper trees. The science behind it shows us that the high acid content inhibits the growth of bacteria and was used not only for medicine but to help prolong spoilage on a short journey.

The swamps reputation is that of an impenetrable bug infested wasteland with an exception to the locals who grew to appreciate its beauty and the boundless wildlife. It held to help sustain them. I have walked a mere pittance and was constantly forced to my knees, deep in mud, vine tangles and thorns that pulled off clothing and cut my skin. Without a machete it is almost impossible to make headway. As I clawed and cursed my way through it, it would seem that nothing could survive here. When you stop for a minute and allow the silence to return, it then comes back to life with the sounds of birds, squirrel and other signs of wildlife under foot.

Historical accounts tell of people taking refuge from whatever bad deed society claimed on them counting on the swamps reputation to discourage pursuit. Least not forget the times where the Underground Railroad was formed by large colonies of free blacks coming to the aid of runaway slaves who found sanctuary in the swamps impenetrable depths. Eventually some would emerge to assimilate into communities finding working in local lumbering operations in exchange for silence about their whereabouts.

The Temple family tree

The Temple family history running hounds on all accounts goes back at least to the twenties and thirties and four generations. Originally the Temples scratched a living from the soil farming fifteen thousand acres of soybeans and corn. They supplemented their food stocks with wild meat found in the swamp. In the case of the Temple’s it was usually swamp bear.

In the beginning a team of one hound per man is all that was needed. Having too many dogs was simply too many mouths to feed. Although hunting was more for subsistence than sport in that era, as time progressed and the need to supplement food with wild game became more of a bonus, the love for running hounds became as much a part of them as the family name. Today Doug Temple and his son Wade have a dog breeding program where they take the best their pack has to offer to work towards the perfect hound dog.

The houndsman lifestyle

Doug Temple’s father was a second-generation dirt farmer until the mid seventies where the family started into logging. Around the mid 90’s they gave up dirt farming altogether for logging full time. Today the Temple’s privately own about two thousand acres, some of which borders the Great Dismal Swamp that they utilize for logging and hunting.

Even as they years are creeping up on Doug, the quiet modest man whose face and hands are scratched by thorns and brush has become a badge of honor and evidence that he is still in the game and the patriarch of the family.

Wade Temple, Doug’s son is following along in his father footsteps. He’s a chip off the ole block if I ever seen one. While I was in camp for two days it wasn’t often that you’d see him standing still. If he’s not helping coordinate the men on his father’s commands on a hunt, he’s tending game cameras, running bait to feed sites or tending to his camp guests. Like his father he isn’t much on idle chatter but when he speaks it’s obvious he’s a sincere man, he honors his family, the traditions of hound hunting and a true southern gentleman.

The Temples started their own version of a dog-breeding program by Wade’s grandfather, uncle and cousin John about 50 years ago. In the bear hunting game Plott hounds are technically considered the new world’s bear dog yet were first breed as Germany’s boar hunting dog. They were brought to the new colony of North Carolina and found to have just the right scent tracking skills and temperament to hunt bear. That versatility and toughness eventually had the breed named the North Carolina state dog.

Wade explains that he has a mix of dogs, Potts, Bluetick’s which is an American original and the American English coon hound, a mix breed of hounds brought to the south from abroad. Each has a skill and personality that helps formulate a pack worthy to hunt bear. Wade likes his pack to have a variety of skills, some need to be good scent trackers while others need to be good at bay.

The dogs seem to be wild once loose but in fact they are tuned into the houndsman. They feed off each others tracking ability and communicate in a howl that can be identified by his master. A good houndsman can read his dogs howl individually, “just like your own kids voices”, Wade tells me. “They tell me what they see and smell and I can tell them in my own voice what I see. If I get sight of a bear before they do I can change my call and they’ll come to me and I can direct them to a bear”.

Wade likes to have at least four pups in training at any one time. “They need to start young and train all year long”. Good habits are formed and exemplary traits are enhanced when the dogs learn from each other. Wade will train his pack in North Carolina in the off season but will follow the bear hunting seasons from Maine to Virginia whenever possible.

Maine and Virginia’s seasons are relatively short but come earlier in the year than North Carolina’s. Starting in Maine in September and working his way south with North Carolina’s split three week season that starts in November and ends in December lengthens the whole hunting experience for his dogs. When a bear is taken during a hunt as opposed to being treed and released in the off-season its safer for the dogs and men. Wade also explains that the only reward for the dog is to finally get their mouth on the bear and a dead bear all the better. “They need to know there’s something in it for them”.

Houndsman/Conservationist, One in the Same

“I help the farmers, by taking the bears before they can completely destroy corn fields.” Wade explains. Clearly this is a touchy subject as it is for almost any hunter. He tells me he is so disappointed to know that some folk just don’t accept that what he does is literally a service to the community and a testament to conservation. Hunting is necessary to keep balance, balance between a world that needs the farmer’s crop, the farmers who need an income and the world that is better off having bears in it.

The balance of nature has been thrown off kilter by human intervention. Wade feels that he would rather continue his family legacy and take a bear in a hunt to help sustain a healthy bear population, which in turn is working in concert with bear management practices. Wade also self regulates his own bear take and manages the bears to the best of his ability. During the season he will feed more than 4,000 pounds of shelled peanuts a week during the period crops are ready to be harvested. Bears if not re-directed to his stand sites would devastate local grown wheat, soybeans and peanuts indiscriminately causing serious problems to a farmers livelihood. For a bear to get the same quantity of food he supplies in one isolated spot a bear could devastate countless acres of farm field with much more spoiled. In many cases bears will come into a field while the crop is topping out with a flower or bud that will produce a bean or seed and they nip it off before it matures ruining the whole plant.

Release the hounds

In the distance the howls of the dogs is getting louder and making their way to my position. I think they are headed my way but I’m not sure, until a pick up truck flies by washing us back into the brush with a dust cloud as it tires hammer over a washboard dirt road. I can hear the CB radio blasting commands from within that sounds like another language that only “they” understand.

I’m standing two track dirt road raised from the black waters on both sides simply to make way through the divide of the Great Dismal Swamp and private land. The bear know no boundary, one side is sanctuary and a chance to overpopulate to become a farmers menace and the other a confrontation with a mass of teeth, fur and man. I was about confused as the bear frankly; houndsman yelping at dogs their own unique sound of encouragement while the dogs communicate with a voice only their owners are attuned too.

We are running a block, a piece of swamp confirmed to have a good bear on it from game cameras. When we pulled up with the trucks the dogs could scent a bear before we even get out of the truck. Eight to ten men gather around the hunt master for a quick plan and tear down the dirt road to take up a position “like they stole it’. When they stop GPS collars are buckled on and they are cut loose. The dogs dive into the tangled thorn infested swamp like a bullet. The houndsman confirms his GPS , “it’s on brother”.

They claim they can tell in individual dog and what he's doing by its howl. Within minutes all hell breaks loose as the hunt master claims he can tell from the dogs a bear has been treed. He quickly confirms so with the GPS.

Shots are ringing out by the blockers and men are yelling their own whoop commands at the dogs while trucks are flying down the dirt road sliding sideways to get a chance to release their dogs held in reserve. They call it controlled chaos and in spite of this not being my first time my temp went from simmer to boil in a microsecond.

The houndsman I was closest to whips his truck up beside me while the dogs held in reserve are clawing to get out of the truck box blasting howls in your face begging for action. I can hardly hear myself think as the driver whizzes by and barks, "Gitcha gun, follow me.". It's not a request, he's dead serious, if you falter and a dog or man is hurt I’m not so sure you could ever live that down.

A boar is treed and we had to get to the dogs as quickly as possible. Your heart is ponding in your ears so hard it almost drowns out the howls as you crawl, run or push your way under vines, water and thorn brush that’s pulling your clothes and gun off your back and ripping at your face and hands. You’re almost like a dog yourself, face down and head to the sound.

If that wasn't enough for a coronary, Chris Douglas of Carolina All Out Tv, a seasoned hound hunt veteran himself is pulling up the rear and turns up the temp a bit when we pull up on the bear with a, "Whew THAT's a nice one". All I could see is something bigger than two fifty five gallon drums hanging twenty five odd feet above our heads with dogs literally trying to climb the tree after it. As this brute looms above our heads the houndsman is right under the tree putting himself in the mix to make sure if the boar dives out and makes a break for it his beloved dogs aren't crushed or torn apart. From the words of our houndsman, "I don't care who you are, how famous or how important; You don't tell me, I'm right in there under that tree. No one gets between me and my dogs".

I had what I knew would do the job cleanly, a MERKEL MHR16 in 6.5x55 with a crystal clear MEOPTA scope on three power that I can say this bear’s head filled up completely. As I pulled the gun up I recalled the night before when I was having dinner with a father and son team from Maine keeping running dogs with the Temple's pack, "Take a head shot, it saves the dogs...and men". It seemed like slow motion, one minute I’m tearing through brush, dogs are climbing trees, men are yelling and then the slightest push of recoil. Frankly, I never heard the gun go off.

The bear rolls from the truck of the tree and belly flops arms stretched into the black water with a splash that literally rose ten feet in the air burring his head and half his body in thick black mud. The dogs that weren’t tied were on him in a flash getting thier due. Among the back slaps, high fives, knuckles and everything else I can think as the group made their way to us in the brush all I could do is stare at the bear and the dogs. When we finally drag the bear back to the truck with a log winch it takes more than six men to get it in the truck. Later on the scales it weighs in at 570 pounds. The meat is divided among the men and nothing was wasted.

In retrospect this wasn’t really my hunt, it was theirs. About three or four days later I hear one of Wades prize eight year old dogs Smoke, a dog who was right there with me the whole time leading the pack, died of Kidney failure. Never a phone call or a note in text, Wade quietly posts it on Facebook for anyone who would have any interest, anyone who had hunted with ole Smoke.

“R.I.P Smoke the bluetic was 8 years old died of kidney failure. Was my GPS before they came out. Was a truck to tree dog and fast. All you had to do was listen to him and know who was in front. Could take a 8 hr old track and trail faster than most dogs could run.” Wade Temple

Thanks Smoke