Several years ago, after successfully tracking a wounded bear more than 400 yards without the benefit of a blood trail, guide Wade Kelly uttered the words his hunters still refuse to let him forget.

“If I can’t find it, it ain’t dead,” Kelly told the tracking party that day … only partly in jest.

In the ensuing years, those hunters have sent him T-shirts and other items designed to remind him of his semi-famous proclamation.

All of the trinkets bear the same phrase: If I can’t find it, it ain’t dead.

And then, when the hunters return – and when Kelly isn’t around to hear them say nice things about him – they all tell you the same thing.

If he can’t find it, it ain’t dead. No joke.

In every group of hunting pals, there are some who pride themselves on their tracking ability. But even the most veteran hunters who visit Kelly’s Camps in Allagash find out that when it comes to tracking … they’ve got a bit more to learn.

“I’ll tell you, one of the most phenomenal experiences I’ve ever had in hunting is watching Wade track something,” said hunter Bob Lindberg of Nescopeck, Pa. “The things he picks up on and can track a wounded bear on just astound me.”

Lindberg, an Episcopal priest who has been hunting for more than 30 years, said he frequently volunteers to go with Kelly when a bear needs to be found, just so he can watch the guide in action.

“Just watching the stuff that he can find is amazing,” Lindberg said. “He jokes about saying ‘If I can’t find it, it ain’t dead.’ But I believe that.”

Truth be told, Kelly does, too.

A soft-spoken man with a quick smile and sharp wit, Kelly is actually reluctant to blow his own horn.

But he admits he has learned quite a bit about tracking over the years.

The keys, according to Kelly: persistence, and making sure your hunters don’t trample your track before you get a chance to look at it.

“From my dad, I learned to put the effort in. And then I learned from doing,” Kelly said. “[With] every bear, not saying ‘You just missed.’ Never being too tired and saying, ‘I’ve been up for 36 hours, the heck with that bear.’ I don’t have that in me, and I’m gonna track until I can’t find a single thing.”

Kelly’s method is simple, even if it draws a few chuckles from first-time hunters: Think like a bear. Act like a bear. Look like a bear.

“I track on my hands and knees most of the time,” Kelly said. “People may laugh at it, but you’re on the same level as the bear. I see what the bear saw when he was running out.”

To many, the talk of “tracking” a wounded animal means looking for blood. For Kelly, that’s only part of the equation. He looks for tracks. He looks for broken branches. And sometimes, he simply hunkers down and tries to figure out what he would do if he were a bear.

“When you’ve got a hard track job, a lot of times you’re going on what you think, not what you see on the ground,” he said.

And Lindberg says watching Kelly at work is something he looks forward to.

“It’s an amazing experience just to be able to hunt with him,” Lindberg said. “The things he sees and knows about the woods just amaze me.”

More than a week ago, I headed north for my first true bear camp experience. The trip was a fact-finding mission of sorts; since much has been written and said about Maine’s upcoming bear-hunting referendum, I thought it was important to get as much first-hand information as I could.

And there was, I figured, no better place to get it than in the town of Allagash.

As it turned out, my assumption was right: Allagash was the perfect place to be.

Joining a well-established clique of bear-hunting pals for their yearly retreat was, as you can imagine, a bit of a concern.

For the first day or two, I know many referred to me as “The Reporter Guy.” That phrase, I was told, was uttered many times, mostly when hunters were about to say something they’d rather not read in the next day’s paper.

“Where’s The Reporter Guy?” they’d say.

Over the course of a memorable week at Kelly’s Camps, that eventually changed.

At some point, I stopped being “The Reporter Guy.” I became “John.”

Perhaps that moment came on Tuesday, when I shot my first bear. Perhaps it came afterward, when I stuck around and offered congratulations to other successful hunters over the ensuing days.

Perhaps it truly took place when hunters began to leave, one by one, after spending as much time as they could in the heart of the Maine woods.

Handshakes were traded, and we shared our hopes that there will still be a bear hunt next year … and that we’d meet again.

Over the course of a week, a group of veteran hunters took in an outsider and showed him what bear hunting is all about.

Our shared experiences over that time forged a bond that’s hard to describe.

That feeling, bear camp devotees everywhere will tell you, is what bear hunting is truly all about.

I’m glad I had the chance to be a part of it.

John Holyoke can be reached at jholyoke@bangordailynews.net or by calling 990-8214 or 1-800-310-8600.