Stories
The Cade’s Cove Conundrum
There I was, stuck between the thoughts of a hunt and the realities of a possible fender-bender. On one side was the colossal result of 15 years of raw meat, nature’s sustenance and the dwelling hunger of a long hibernation. Just behind me was about a buck-2 of long blonde braids, saturated in hair spray, with a lingering hint of herbal essence. She had a soda pop in one cup holder and nail polish remover in the other, and here she is trying to tell me to get back in my car.
I looked at her with squinted eyes, not because I was trying to scold her for yelling at me, I was simply trying to make out where this shrill little voice was coming from.
“Get back in the car!” she screamed, and then persisted in telling me how dangerous black bears can be.
“Well she needs to talk to me a little nicer,” I said calmly as I turned around. It was a park ranger! Is she actually worried about what the bear would do to me? She wouldn’t know what to do with a bear; she doesn’t even have a gun.
“Woman, I tackle bears,” I thought as her face continued to get as white as my knuckles when I clench the 10-inch knife my dad made from a deer antler. “Doesn’t she have some traffic to conduct or something?” I thought.
I’d be the one taking care of her if things went south. Best to play nice with the tourist loving fancy-pants park rangers they got out here these days. Besides, I’ve seen a bear in action. I’ve left bloody and left them bloodier. I’ll see this beast another day.
“Woman! I tackle bears”
“Here is this little 102-pound chic smart-mouthing me. I think she needs to talk to me a little nicer. She doesn’t even have a gun. I’d be the one taking care of her.”
The Story of Pebo Ridge
Some say Pebo Ridge was named after a hideout, when the U.S. Marshalls came looking for the “Wild Man” up on Rocky Top. The Elders say it is sacred ground – the last place where the Cherokee preformed their ceremonial Eagle Dance for returning warriors. And still others say it was named because it was the place where Pebo Wilson got the better of nearly a half-dozen black bears in a single hunt.
Stories get exaggerated over the years, but one thing is certain. If you have the wits to enter the battlefield of nature, and the stealth to maneuver its treacherous terrain unseen, then on quiet nights, up on Pebo Ridge, you can still hear the mysterious, slow-rising roar of the battle cry of victory.
Dogs panting and barking… Muscles drenched in sweat and pumping testosterone… A beast is in the midst… In a full sprint, Pebo Wilson charges the sound of his hounds. Vines with thorns, and cedar saplings snap sideways in the run. In a blast as violent as the struggle up the hill, Pebo comes to a halting stop. He holds his breath and closes his eyes and imagines. There is a perfect clarity and harmony that exists in the moments that lead up to the kill. His senses are fixed, his mind at peace. Where is the bear going? He’s coming around the ridge… Pebo Ridge…
Eyes open, Pebo bolts for a ledge he knows the bear is going to run under. Standing silently above the bear, Pebo gets ready to drop, knife in hand, on top of the beast and end the battle. It tears at the dogs and struggles with their relentless attacks. The back of its neck is exposed. Aim for the spine he says to himself as a foot gives way under loose rocks.
Pebo falls back, and in an unexpected frenzy, the bear launches itself up the ledge over the top of Pebo…
Razor sharp claws dig feverishly… a wrist whips ‘round like a high-noon standoff… The beast is done…
Then a sound seldom spoke of is heard echoing. It carries on long after the cannon of Pebo’s sidearm is holstered. Now, Pebo Wilson may not have preformed an Eagle Dance, but he is part Cherokee. He may not have dug any intricate tunnels to a secret hideout, but he’s had to dodge a few trouble-making Marshalls. And it’s YouTube-provable that he’s killed at least one bear on Pebo Ridge…
So whose triumphant vigor is eternally stamped upon the land they call Pebo Ridge? Whose roar is it, heard echoing victoriously down valleys, over creeks and up to the stars in the crisp air of a winter night?
You’ll just have to venture up to the hills of Rocky Top and listen for yourself.
“When you learn how a bear behaves, you out-think him. You can cut ‘em off at the pass. “
Blue Ticks and Hunting Tips
There is a reason I do the things I do. For instance, I always keep me a flask of Gatorade on hand to stay hydrated. Another bit of advice: if you’re on the hunt, work with the nose. Stay downwind. Circling around is better than running up another mountain. This brings me to my next point – mountain running.
There are two factors in getting around – tennis shoes and conditioning. For starters I take Judo and I am a black belt in Shorin-Ryu. Keyword: black belt. Translation: don’t question my authority on stamina, endurance and precision… Next factor… Running shoes…
A lot of these other guys I go hunting with have their nice big hiking boots – ideal in certain situations, but they slow me down. Hell, I got talked into running a five-mile Navy Seal course through the mountains and I lost my shoes in the first mud pit I came to. Still, I was passing up Army Rangers like doe in hunting season. I don’t even really need the shoes. Give me a t-shirt, tear the sleeves off it, and I’ll run a bear ‘til it whoops every single one of my dogs and has to answer to my knife.
I take that back; it’s part of my job to keep the dogs alive. Not only do they have the heart and grit I like in a fight, a bear won’t climb a tree with dogs on it. It’ll just slap their heads off. One hunt I had 7 dogs killed. I gave $3,000 for one dog and he got his neck broke on the first hunt.
But that’s the cost of the rush. I once had a bear that wouldn’t give up. The dogs were on him, they were getting hurt. 400 pounds of an angry and dying animal can do a lot of damage. That’s when something happens that can’t be taught, and it happens fast. My main concern is don’t let the dogs get hurt, but when I charge in on a bear, I don’t think about what I’m doing when I go to the old razor knife and finish it off.
You ask me why I kill bears?
Well it’s not like any drug you could ever take. It’s like playing my music in front of thousands of people. It’s something primal and yet sacred. Nothing goes to waste. You respect the animal, and even though you conquer it, it humbles you.
Now, you ask me how I kill a bear?
I can’t tell you. Maybe it’s the years of martial arts training. Perhaps it’s from trying to keep my dogs alive. Or maybe it’s cause I stay hungry, and I always try and wear my running shoes.
“Bear hunting…Once you get into your first hunt and something is trying to tear your leg off. I’ve never had a drug that put a fire in you like that…It’s like souped-up coon hunting, magnified a hundred times.”
“I don’t care to get bit and bleed.”
Steve Irwin and Crocodile Dundee Ain’t Got Nothin’ On Me
Ever since the first time “Wild Man” Pebo Wilson got bored and decided to catch an alligator, he’s been itching to taste the tail of a giant, wild lizard – the last remnants of an untamable race – the dinosaurs.
Down in the reservation of South Florida, in a 100-mile strip of land they call Alligator Alley, Pebo came face to face with his first gator. He had one unstable friend, a claw hammer, some bungee cords and a few Ritz crackers. “You use what you got,” the words of Pebo Wilson ring on to this day.
“I’m gonna catch me an alligator, put it in my pond and keep it to eat it later,” Pebo announces to his friend.
It’s not long before they’re beating on the water. All of a sudden, the eyes pop up. Pebo starts pitching the crackers out to the gator. It’s working. They’re leading it in.
There is a two-foot drop to the water from the bank. “Keep pitching them Ritz crackers,” Pebo tells his buddy. And then fearlessly and excited, in the spirit of Steve Irwin, Pebo lies on his belly, claw hammer in hand – head over water. It’s getting closer.
Pebo had an idea from a time when he was younger. He would go commercial fishing out at Douglas Lake, catching fish twice his size. They would use a pole to stun the fish in order to scoop them out of the water. “I always liked that Steve Irwin,” Pebo says as he reconciles his own tactics for besting the miniature dinosaur. “My idea was to hit this gator with my claw hammer, and stun him long enough to wrap his mouth with that bungee cord.”
As the gator gets within striking distance, a flutter in the water, about seven feet behind the gator’s eyes catches their attention. In a violent flash, this 3-foot lizard morphs into a colossal mammoth of about nine feet in length. In that moment, there was no doubt in the mind of Pebo or his friend, that this organism must have been cryogenically frozen from the Jurassic period, and recently thawed out to wreak havoc among lesser evolved creatures.
“I almost got my arm ripped off,” says Pebo reminiscing about his battle.
“My buddy fell. He was screaming and couldn’t move…”
It was somewhere between Pebo almost trading his arm for a good meal, and his friend slamming on his rear end, that Pebo became obsessed with getting an alligator to eat.
To be continued. . .