Hey, bear!
Woo!
Harry, you see him in the creek right there?
He's got a hold of Mort, Kidd.
Go up a tree.
Woo!
NARRATOR: In the cliffs rising from Idaho's Boise River--
Let's climb out of here.
NARRATOR: Brothers Kidd and Harry Youren
are on the hunt for greener pastures.
Let's see if we can get up high,
get out of this river bottom through these rocks up there.
I think we can get up to that last little bit of rocks
and get on that big ridge and see all of it.
This is some big damn country here.
Very big.
You don't realize how big it is
when you're down on the river.
Yeah.
NARRATOR: But if they find suitable grassland, bringing
cattle in later through the steep mountain pass
will be worth the time and effort.
This area we're going to look at is National Forest land.
So if it all works out, we'll start the permit process
and hopefully get some cows up here
and graze them for the summertime.
Big.
Damn, that's a big drainage out there.
There's a really big valley up to the north here.
You can run cows in here for two or three months.
NARRATOR: 1,000 head of cattle need at least 2,000 acres
to feed on, and this open country may be just what
the brothers are looking for.
These dogs are splitting and kind of going both ways.
They're moving something going that way.
Whatever it is is hot.
Yeah.
Right here's where they come through.
Oh yeah.
You see they came right off this ridge here.
Hey.
Look at that right there.
Oh, that's a bear track.
They're definitely running a bear.
Let's hustle up to the top.
Right behind you.
We know it's a black bear because there are
no grizzly bears in this area.
It looks like we're going to go bear hunting.
Black bears can be any color from blond to cinnamon
to chocolate.
Hell, there's even been white ones.
I can't see anything.
There he is.
Oh, damn.
It's a big old bear.
Any time your dog takes off on a bear track,
you've got to hustle.
That's the time to get going.
NARRATOR: The hunting pack is trained to stay on a target
until they're released by Harry or Kidd.
He's going underneath those trees
on the far side of the creek.
NARRATOR: But if they try to face off with a bear this size,
it could be deadly.
If we drop down as fast as we possibly can,
we can do a little ambush on him.
And we can be on one side.
Dogs can be on the other.
That's when he'll pop up a tree.
Woo!
But we need to haul ass and catch up.
Hey, Har.
Harry.
He's coming right down that creek right there.
Yeah, yeah. What did you see?
I'll drop right in the bottom.
You see if you can get ahead of him right there.
Yeah, yeah.
NARRATOR: Now the brothers are racing
to intercept him and call off the pack before one of the dogs
gets injured or worse.
That bear's headed down the creek right here.
Kiddo's in the bottom.
Hopefully I can down here at the same time as Harry.
He should be able to catch him from there,
but if he comes up the side at all
trying to go back where he came from,
I'll be up here waiting for him.
Put that bear in a pincer movement.
We can make him go up a tree if we can both get
there at the same time.
NARRATOR: If they can get the bear to climb a tree,
it will end the chase and give them a chance
to get the dogs to safety.
I can hear the dogs.
They're not very far in front of me.
Running down this creek bottom, it's hard to keep
going fast through here.
It's really thick and brushy, but I can see Harry.
He's up above the bear right now.
I'm right down below it.
It looks like our plan's all coming together.
Hey, bear.
Woo!
Hey!
Woo!
Hey!
In these high-adrenaline situations,
it's really hard to stick to a plan,
but generally me and Kiddo's go-to move is trying to pinch
them in between you, and usually those
bears will pop up a tree when you're on each side of them.
Come on.
Woo!
The only problem with this plan
is the bear does not want to climb a tree.
NARRATOR: Though the dogs outnumber the bear,
if a predator this powerful turns to strike,
it could be game over.
Harry, you see him in the creek right there.
Yeah.
He's got a hold of Mort, Kidd.
Go up a tree.
Woo!
I seen him turn around and smack my dog
right on top of the head.
I mean, it hit him hard.
And this bear will not go up the tree.
Our dogs, they aren't going to quit.
They're just going to go until they get beat up
and can't move no more.
NARRATOR: If the bear won't back off now,
there may be only one way to end this
and extract the dog safely.
For some reason, this bear swims across the creek
and is coming right back down the drainage towards us.
The dogs haven't made it across yet.
If we're going to shoot him, this is the time.
Go for it then.
You got him?
Yeah.
These bears, they're creatures of habit.
When you get one that starts slapping dogs,
he's going to keep doing it.
That's a good chance that someone or our dogs
can get hurt.
NARRATOR: The brothers didn't come here
expecting to take home a fur, but they've
turned a bad situation into an opportunity.
This bear's going to give us, oh, at least 250 to 300 pounds
of meat we can use, plus we can sell this
hide for, like, $500, $600.
There we go.
We definitely don't go around just shooting bears
for no reason, but now that we're
going to be running cattle, you really don't want to have
an aggressive bear out here.
If there's one thing you can say about our lifestyle,
it's certainly not predictable, and
there's never a dull moment.