Here’s a memory test for you. Do you remember reading “Moby Dick” in high school? Or maybe you recall the movie version with Gregory Peck that came out in 1956? If you can remember that far back, you’ll recall that Captain Ahab was obsessed with finding and killing his nemesis, the great white whale.

While I hope I’m not quite as fanatical as Captain Ahab, I, too, have a nemesis that haunts me, the blond bear. I don’t know if you were aware of it or not, but our American black bears aren’t always black. Ursus Americanus, which is native to almost all of our 50 states, comes in a variety of color phases from coal black to snow white, and every variation in between. Probably the rarest color is white, and there is a subvariety of black bear that frequents the glaciers of the Northwest Pacific known as the blue glacier bear. The emblem of California, the California grizzly, is sometimes referred to as the California golden bear.

Several years ago while deer hunting in the Sierra Nevada, I spotted a very large blond bear. When hunting, I almost always use a rifle sling and this particular year, I was too slow getting my rifle off my shoulder. By the time I was ready to shoot, the blond bear had vanished behind a large boulder. Closer investigation revealed a perfect den site where several large boulders had fallen together to form a protected cavity just the right size to shelter a bear for the winter. Although I hunted that mountainside heavily that fall, I never caught sight of the blond bear. In the wild, the average black bear lives about three or four years, although under the right conditions, they can reach the ripe old age of 10 to 12. Genetics being what they are, even if my blond bear has gone on to that big berry patch in the sky, I still hold out hope that his offspring are out there prowling his old mountain. Several years have now passed and I still haven’t gotten him, but every fall I’ll be back on the mountain looking for him.

Albinos in nature are not really that unusual. I have seen albino foxes, deer and even snakes. Legend has it that the Plains Indians revered the white buffalo as having mystical powers. The opposite of an albino is an even rarer anomaly due to melanism, which causes animals to be jet black. Although I have never knowingly seen one in the wild, I have seen an all-black mule deer in a museum in Nevada. Whatever his attributes, the blond bear has drawn me back to his territory time after time. Like Captain Ahab, I’m going to get that blond bear if it kills me.

Until next week, Tight Lines.

• To comment on this week’s Tight Lines, forward messages to Sports Editor Ike Dodson at 239-6351, ext. 306, or e-mail ike@sunpost.net.