In my younger days I use to bear hunt a lot. We trained our dogs year round and had more fun training dogs that we did in kill season. The coolest thing to do is go down to the nearest bar and find the biggest, ugliest, and meanest fellar in the place and invite him to go bear hunting with ya. Make sure you ask him in front of his buddies so he cant back out. Then when everyone is ready to go and all loaded up on Saturday morning with the perspective recruit on board you head out with the rig dog on the box and start driving and wait for the strike. Once the dogs have got him treed make sure you tie the dogs back and find a club about 3 to 4 feet long and about as thick as a man's wrist. Now this is where the fun part begins. Remember the big bad dude and his buddies that you invited down at the bar, yep its time for them to take part. Hand the big bad ugly dude the club and instruct him to just stand at the base of the tree and tell him thats how you build the dogs anticipation...LOL... When he starts pounding on the tree and the bear starts down and trust me he will reguardless of the dogs. tell him not to stop. This would be the point you see his big yellow streak, well maybe brown it really depends if he's dumb enough to stand there while the bear comes down...I know yall think I am joking but honestly this is the way its done. The bear will generally jump out on the lower side of the tree providing you have the dogs tied back on the upper side. Once the bear jumps out turn the dogs loose and the chase is on and the big bad ugly dude well his reputation will be described as chicken dung, but man its fun.

V/R
Mike