With every good hunter there are many stories to tell about the good, the bad and the funny moments while hunting in the great outdoors. As the rookie that I am to hunting, I would like to share with you one of my "Heidi" moments.

On a mild October afternoon, my boyfriend Brent and I headed out into the woods of his family land in Western Wisconsin. It was my first bow hunting season and Brent and I had spent a few weekends up in our stands and on this day we chose to sit on the ground.

We sat half way up a ridge with a valley to the north of us and we had been sitting for a few hours, watching the squirrels and moving our heads on a swivel slowly scanning the woods for movement and or any approaching deer. This is a technique that I definitely would need to continue to work on as I have a habit of turning my attention and my head quickly when I hear a suspecting sound.

As we talked about continuing to sit for another hour and a half or so our attention quickly was directed across the valley to the opposing ridge line were we heard a lot of movement. To our surprise we saw not a deer but a rather large black bear moving along the upper ridge at a good pace. As we booth stood to better see the movement of the bear, it started down the ridgeline towards the valley we were just above.

Brent started to yell, holler and alert the bear of our presence. Brent yelled, "Hey, get out-of-here bear, Go away, Get". I stood in shock and awe as the bear continued, took notice, and stopped in his tracks and just stared in our direction about 70 yards away. Brent continued to yell and direct the bear away, and said to me, "Heidi say something…"

In my head I thought about how to use my voice to sound loud and direct the bear away. I thought about saying ‘go away’ and ‘get’ and instead I yelled, "Grrrrrr….." Brent whipped his head around and gave me a bewildered face saying, "No Heidi, anything but that!" Man, did I feel silly, I surely didn’t mean to yell out Grrr, all I wanted to do was sound bigger than the bear so he would not approach us any closer.

That night back at the house, Brent retold the story of our bear encounter. It seems that I will never live that one down; I have continued to be pestered and joked about because of my "Grrr" approach during the bear encounter.

As I remember back to the day of the encounter, after we stopped the bear from continuing to approach us by yelling and hollering, the bear never did move as we left the woods under his watchful eye. I can only wonder if he sat there in confusion wondering what kind of a "Grrr" was that?