This past weekend, Pat and I camped along the Moose River near Old Forge. I hadn’t given it any thought, but the early bear season started Saturday in the Adirondacks. For something to do on a rainy day, we decided to drive over to Limekiln Lake and check out possible camping spots for the future.

The park was closed, but the parking lot was quite full. It seems a lot of people must have read my article last week about hunting bears around the state campgrounds. Actually, most of them weren’t hunting. They were walking the paved roads in the park, apparently hoping a big bear would happen to wander through, roaming from campsite to campsite.

The problem was the bears had departed as soon as the campers had left. With nothing to eat, why stay around? These hunters should have headed out in the swamps and onto the oak and beechnut ridges if they wanted to find a bear. A bear is spending every wa[an error occurred while processing this directive]king hour searching for food, packing on the fat, and getting ready for his winter’s hibernation. With no campers, he has moved on to better feeding grounds.

When I asked if anyone had seen anything, the typical response was negative. One hunter claimed that he had seen a huge bear there the year before. But you know what, most of the hunters wouldn’t have been able to tell a huge bear from a cub.

When a bear silently appears in the woods, a little bear looks mighty big. A few years ago, we were hunting bears out of the Double Buck Lodge in New Brunswick, Canada. One of the guys in our group had taken a 125-pounder the evening before, so he wanted to sit in a nearby tree to film a bear that had been coming into Pat’s bait. She sat there quietly in her blind, and the bear came in right on schedule.

As the bear dined on stale donuts and smelly meat, Mark kept dropping sticks down on my wife, trying to get her attention. "Shoot him. He’s a good one," he kept whispering. Pat ignored his advice, and soon the bear wandered off.

Later he asked my wife why she didn’t shoot the bear. She explained that she wouldn’t take a bear unless it weighed at least 200 pounds. He insisted that the bear was at least that size, until we all looked at the video. The outfitter, guides and I agreed the bear would never have made the 100-pound mark on the scales. Pat made the right choice.

A little bear has long legs, a thin neck and ears that look like satellite dishes. A big bear has a large chest and belly carried around on short-looking legs. Their broad head seems to blend into their shoulders, much like a football lineman. There doesn’t seem to be much of a neck. Their ears are small, round protrusions that seem to set on the sides of their heads.

When you see a really big bear, you will know it. But all bears look bigger in the woods than they actually are. They sneak around all fluffed up and glisten like a shiny piece of coal. All of a sudden, they seem to appear without a sound, just an apparition in the forest.

Big or small, they are magnificent creatures, and I’m glad that they are starting to make their homes in our back yards.

The National Hunting and Fishing Day event will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at the Walton Fair Grounds. Displays and demonstrations covering all areas of outdoor sports and recreation will be featured.

The Sidney Center Rod and Gun Club is playing host to a series of 3D Archery Shoots on at 7 a.m. Sept. 24, Oct. 1 and Oct. 8. Trap shooting will be held at 9 a.m. Sept. 25. For more information call 369-7597.

Rick Brockway writes a weekly outdoors column for The Daily Star. E-mail him at brockway@dmcom.net.