birddog
Member
Tale of a Bear Hunt
My brother in law (Mantis, here on THR) and I got back last weekend from my sixth and his first bear hunt. Follow the link here for the whole story, and some pictures. I'll paste the text here also.
Since I didn't write this for THR, many gun details are omitted. I was shooting a Win Model 70 in 30-06 with 180 gr Remington Express Core Lokt Pointed Soft Points and carrying a S&W 629-2 as a sidearm. Mantis was also carrying a .30-06 with 180gr handloads and a 629. I did NOT feel over-gunned. Read the article, and you'll see what I mean.
Enjoy,
Joel
http://www.wildernesswanderer.com/WWBear%20Hunt.doc.htm
Bear country isn’t like most places, mostly because there aren’t bears in most places. My brother in law Steve and I set out for Maine a couple of weeks ago for his first, and my sixth, bear hunt. I’ve done the trip alone 4 times, and much prefer having someone to talk to on the 13-plus hour ride from Western New York, to Northeastern Maine. On the way, I promised Steve spectacular views of Mount Katahdin and the other high peaks in the region. But, after enduring the entire New York State Thruway, most of the Mass Pike, a little corner of New Hampshire, and one hell of a lot of Maine, we exited the four-lane Sunday evening only to find the mountains hidden in the gray clouds of an approaching rain storm.
Our guide and his wife were funny and smart and unique. Having only contacted them through emails, I wasn’t sure who to expect. And, as with everyone I’ve initially met through emails, they weren’t what I expected. They were even more fun. A trio of hunters from Ohio rounded out the camp. The cabins were roomy and comfortable and the absence of electricity and flush toilets was made up for by the call of loons and the sight of a bald eagle on the river. As for the monstrous spiders in the outhouse I found the next morning, Steve was glad he hadn’t turned his flashlight on in there the night before….
Monday was met with all the anticipation that comes with opening day of pheasant, and opening day of deer season. Only – here’s the thing – we were going bear hunting, and I’ve never experienced the same amount of excitement that I do before a bear hunt. It had been two years since my last hunt, and I my adrenaline level was dangerously high. During the first afternoon on stand, Steve had a bear come in and circle twice – or possibly two bears come in and circle once each. With the impossibly thick brush around the bait sites, he only got glimpses of black, but those glimpses were plenty to get his heart pumping. I had my own coronary issues to contend with when, just before dark a sow with three small cubs sauntered into view, walked downwind of me, and then walked back the way they came from, obviously noting something out of place. I had never seen cubs when hunting before, and would have been happy to call the afternoon a great experience all on its own. But that wasn’t it, of course.
Most bear hunters will tell you that walking out after dark can be the most…umm...exciting part of the hunt. There you are in the near-dark, in an area to which you hope multiple large carnivores have been frequenting. It can be intimidating. Working my way out from the dark, swamp-side depression in which I’d been hunting, the logging road ahead was still somewhat illuminated, by comparison. I didn’t feel the need to turn my flashlight on yet and, as is the law, unloaded my rifle shortly after climbing down from the stand. When I fought my way out through the last ten yards of zero-visibility cedar saplings to the logging road, I found myself face-to-face with the sow and three cubs. She was no more than ten or twelve paces from me, and the cubs were directly behind her, about 20 yards away. All 8 eyes were locked intently on me and the look of surprise on the sow’s face was easy to read. Instead of sending her cubs off, she remained with her eyes locked on me. Trying to move smoothly, and failing miserably, I started walking backward while drawing the large .44 magnum revolver on my hip. I was concerned at the lack of movement on the bears’ part and wondered for a moment if I was about to be charged. I kept the big gun’s muzzle pointed at the dirt, having no desire – despite my fear – to have to shoot the sow. A lot can go through your mind at a moment like that. In a matter of one bound, she would have been on me. When I widened the distance to fifty yards or so, I reluctantly turned my back on the bears and hastened my way down the logging road, resisting the overpowering urge to run that I knew could possibly have triggered the bear to chase. The .44 seemed like a lot of weight on my hip as I hiked in and hunted earlier in the day. With bears only a few feet away, it felt as light and menacing as a Wal-Mart slingshot.
Watching back over my shoulder more than the road in front of me, I retreated around the bend and out of sight. Once back at the intersection where my truck was waiting, I breathed a sigh of relief before shooting one more glance back over my shoulder to the now darkened logging road.
If I had been hunting for excitement, I think it was a successful trip as of that moment.
The evening was spent recounting the stories by the glow of the gas lamps in the cabin. I think the first night made a bear hunter out of Steve.
Tuesday was quiet and fruitless, with no one seeing bears. By Wednesday, we were starting to feel the pressure as I’m sure our guide was as well. It’s not that we were surprised that no one had a bear yet but, as is human nature, we were starting to think about the long trip home. After six or seven hours on stand with only squirrels and chipmunks around, it’s easy to think thoughts like, “I’m never going to see another bear again.”
Two more hours passed that evening, then three, then four. Being alone high in a treestand far, far away from the nearest civilization, I didn’t even try to hide my disappointment, letting my head sink into my left hand, an arboreal version of The Thinker. And for another hour, thinking was all I had.
And then there was a bear.
The woods, like the woods around Steve’s stand were supernaturally thick. Glimpses of shadows and hints of glimpses were all you could hope for. But, in the one foot wide lane from my stand down to the bear bait, an unmistakably bearish shape quickly passed ten or fifteen yards through the brush behind the bait. If I hadn’t been looking at that precise moment, I never would have seen him.
Suddenly sitting up, more alert than I’ve ever been in my life – or since the last time I was bear hunting anyway – I watched for the bear to circle into the bait. But he was gone. I shot X-Ray beams from my eyes into the woods all around me, looking so hard that it hurt, but could not spot the bear. I was almost ready to slump back into The Thinker when the bear was there again. Only, he wasn’t there…he was here. In the brush only twenty yards from me, the fluid black shape appeared in and out of the heavy undergrowth, following the tiny foot trail my guide used down to the bait. He was back-trailing him, and that back-trail would lead to my stand.
I took the rifle from its resting place in front of me and watched the woods around the bear, now only ten yards from me. I could see his sides heaving in and out. Looking harder than I’ve ever looked in my life – or since my last bear hunt – I saw that there were no cubs and decided that, if a shot presented itself, I would shoot this bear. It wasn’t a big one, but it was shootable as my guide would say. If this had been Monday or even Tuesday, I might have waited for a bigger one. But, after two years and two days, he was big enough. Definitely shootable.
When he reared up in the brush only four yards from my stand, he looked directly up at me, I leaned over the edge of the stand, holding the gun at an odd angle and one at which I’m unaccustomed to shooting. I found him in the scope – a monstrous blob of black at that distance – and pulled the trigger. The bear tumbled and for a moment, the world went fuzzy. Holding my gun at that extreme downward angle, the recoil had slammed the protective cover of the scope into my nose and left eye. I was aware of blood pouring down the left side of my face, but I didn’t take the scope off the bear. Good thing, too. After what seemed like a full minute, but may only have been a full three seconds, the bear righted itself and ran hard into the brush. A subsequent shot found its mark and the bear tumbled again, this time permanently as he piled up about twenty yards from my stand.
My heart pounded. Blood poured down my face and the first few inklings of what would be a day-long headache settled over the bruised side of my face. I walked out to my truck, more to burn off the fight-or-flight adrenaline rush than anything else. Our guide didn’t want us trying to gut or drag out our bears alone, so I dutifully called him on the radio. And called him again. And again. No answer. With the sun starting to fade behind the mountain range, I knew I could get this bear out alone and took my knife and rope down to the woods. Admiring the bear only momentarily, I got to work field dressing him, careful not to cut my fingers off this far back in the woods. The drag wasn’t easy, but wasn’t the worst I’ve ever done. Pulling him mostly uphill, toward the end I was happy the bear wasn’t any bigger. Carefully navigating my truck up the mostly impassable stretch of logging road, I was able to cut the distance I had to drag in half.
Waiting at the pre-arranged meeting place at the intersection of two non-descript logging roads, I talked with the Ohio guys, one of whom had also taken a bear. When Steve and the guide didn’t show up within a few minutes, we figured that they were either tracking a bear or had car trouble. We didn’t know it would be both.
Heading up the rode to find them, we hadn’t gone far when we spotted the two of them walking down the side of the road, looking glum. The guide had taken his camera to the stand where I hunted Monday night in hopes of seeing the sow and three cubs. He didn’t see the bears, and his truck broke down. He made the long walk from that stand to Steve’s, only to find that Steve had shot a bear. They began tracking it, but with darkness upon them, decided to give up the trail until morning.
From there, we made the long drive through the woods to the other hunter’s stand and attempted to track his bear. After a long slog up a muddy trail, we encountered the blood trail and, with everyone shining their lights this way and that, quickly came across the dead bear. The six of us carrying out his bear in the dark is an experience that is truly unique to bear hunting. With the litter the guide usually uses to carry out bears stuck back in his broken down truck, we each took a paw or a leg and slip-slid our way out of the woods, sticks and saplings whacking mercilessly at our faces. Back at camp, we hung the bears and retreated to our cabins for the night.
Steve paced restlessly, replaying the shot in his mind. I’ve left deer overnight in the woods to recover them in the morning, and it makes for a long night. He only slept two hours that night.
In the morning, everyone was up early, with the guys from Ohio eager to help us get Steve’s bear out as we had helped them. We baited two of the guys’ stands, then drove up to the broken-down truck for the litter. From there (I could see the look of finally on Steve’s face) it was off to trail Steve’s bear. Although the trail probably looked bleak in the dark, it was easily readable by daylight and in only a few minutes, we had Steve’s bear. It was a sow, and by far the biggest of our three bears. Carrying it out was rewarding in its own strange ways as we all laughed and talked and tripped and swore. The litter made the carry easier but not “easy” by any stretch of the imagination. Bears are hard to move anyway, and this was a big bear.
Finally back at the truck, Steve’s sleepless exhaustion was as apparent as his relief.
The rest of the trip was a blur. We stayed another night, waiting for the skinner to arrive the next morning. As if on cue, the sun broke out and the mountains finally showed themselves after days of hiding in the clouds. It seemed fitting. After the skinning was done, and the cabin was cleaned out and the truck was packed, it was off to the check station to have the bears officially “sealed” and then it was the short drive to Millinocket to drop them off at a taxidermist I know. I hadn’t seen her in two years, and we stayed to visit for a while. With fourteen hours of driving ahead of us, though, we couldn’t stay long.
The drive home was not (and never is) as exciting as the drive out. I was looking forward to seeing my family but also lamenting the fact that it will be another year or more before I would be hunting in Maine bear country again. There are no bears around my house, unfortunately. That’s the thing that makes bear country so much fun, you know: That’s where the bears are.
Joel Spring. September 7, 2006
My brother in law (Mantis, here on THR) and I got back last weekend from my sixth and his first bear hunt. Follow the link here for the whole story, and some pictures. I'll paste the text here also.
Since I didn't write this for THR, many gun details are omitted. I was shooting a Win Model 70 in 30-06 with 180 gr Remington Express Core Lokt Pointed Soft Points and carrying a S&W 629-2 as a sidearm. Mantis was also carrying a .30-06 with 180gr handloads and a 629. I did NOT feel over-gunned. Read the article, and you'll see what I mean.
Enjoy,
Joel
http://www.wildernesswanderer.com/WWBear%20Hunt.doc.htm
A Week in Bear Country
Bear country isn’t like most places, mostly because there aren’t bears in most places. My brother in law Steve and I set out for Maine a couple of weeks ago for his first, and my sixth, bear hunt. I’ve done the trip alone 4 times, and much prefer having someone to talk to on the 13-plus hour ride from Western New York, to Northeastern Maine. On the way, I promised Steve spectacular views of Mount Katahdin and the other high peaks in the region. But, after enduring the entire New York State Thruway, most of the Mass Pike, a little corner of New Hampshire, and one hell of a lot of Maine, we exited the four-lane Sunday evening only to find the mountains hidden in the gray clouds of an approaching rain storm.
Our guide and his wife were funny and smart and unique. Having only contacted them through emails, I wasn’t sure who to expect. And, as with everyone I’ve initially met through emails, they weren’t what I expected. They were even more fun. A trio of hunters from Ohio rounded out the camp. The cabins were roomy and comfortable and the absence of electricity and flush toilets was made up for by the call of loons and the sight of a bald eagle on the river. As for the monstrous spiders in the outhouse I found the next morning, Steve was glad he hadn’t turned his flashlight on in there the night before….
Monday was met with all the anticipation that comes with opening day of pheasant, and opening day of deer season. Only – here’s the thing – we were going bear hunting, and I’ve never experienced the same amount of excitement that I do before a bear hunt. It had been two years since my last hunt, and I my adrenaline level was dangerously high. During the first afternoon on stand, Steve had a bear come in and circle twice – or possibly two bears come in and circle once each. With the impossibly thick brush around the bait sites, he only got glimpses of black, but those glimpses were plenty to get his heart pumping. I had my own coronary issues to contend with when, just before dark a sow with three small cubs sauntered into view, walked downwind of me, and then walked back the way they came from, obviously noting something out of place. I had never seen cubs when hunting before, and would have been happy to call the afternoon a great experience all on its own. But that wasn’t it, of course.
Most bear hunters will tell you that walking out after dark can be the most…umm...exciting part of the hunt. There you are in the near-dark, in an area to which you hope multiple large carnivores have been frequenting. It can be intimidating. Working my way out from the dark, swamp-side depression in which I’d been hunting, the logging road ahead was still somewhat illuminated, by comparison. I didn’t feel the need to turn my flashlight on yet and, as is the law, unloaded my rifle shortly after climbing down from the stand. When I fought my way out through the last ten yards of zero-visibility cedar saplings to the logging road, I found myself face-to-face with the sow and three cubs. She was no more than ten or twelve paces from me, and the cubs were directly behind her, about 20 yards away. All 8 eyes were locked intently on me and the look of surprise on the sow’s face was easy to read. Instead of sending her cubs off, she remained with her eyes locked on me. Trying to move smoothly, and failing miserably, I started walking backward while drawing the large .44 magnum revolver on my hip. I was concerned at the lack of movement on the bears’ part and wondered for a moment if I was about to be charged. I kept the big gun’s muzzle pointed at the dirt, having no desire – despite my fear – to have to shoot the sow. A lot can go through your mind at a moment like that. In a matter of one bound, she would have been on me. When I widened the distance to fifty yards or so, I reluctantly turned my back on the bears and hastened my way down the logging road, resisting the overpowering urge to run that I knew could possibly have triggered the bear to chase. The .44 seemed like a lot of weight on my hip as I hiked in and hunted earlier in the day. With bears only a few feet away, it felt as light and menacing as a Wal-Mart slingshot.
Watching back over my shoulder more than the road in front of me, I retreated around the bend and out of sight. Once back at the intersection where my truck was waiting, I breathed a sigh of relief before shooting one more glance back over my shoulder to the now darkened logging road.
If I had been hunting for excitement, I think it was a successful trip as of that moment.
The evening was spent recounting the stories by the glow of the gas lamps in the cabin. I think the first night made a bear hunter out of Steve.
Tuesday was quiet and fruitless, with no one seeing bears. By Wednesday, we were starting to feel the pressure as I’m sure our guide was as well. It’s not that we were surprised that no one had a bear yet but, as is human nature, we were starting to think about the long trip home. After six or seven hours on stand with only squirrels and chipmunks around, it’s easy to think thoughts like, “I’m never going to see another bear again.”
Two more hours passed that evening, then three, then four. Being alone high in a treestand far, far away from the nearest civilization, I didn’t even try to hide my disappointment, letting my head sink into my left hand, an arboreal version of The Thinker. And for another hour, thinking was all I had.
And then there was a bear.
The woods, like the woods around Steve’s stand were supernaturally thick. Glimpses of shadows and hints of glimpses were all you could hope for. But, in the one foot wide lane from my stand down to the bear bait, an unmistakably bearish shape quickly passed ten or fifteen yards through the brush behind the bait. If I hadn’t been looking at that precise moment, I never would have seen him.
Suddenly sitting up, more alert than I’ve ever been in my life – or since the last time I was bear hunting anyway – I watched for the bear to circle into the bait. But he was gone. I shot X-Ray beams from my eyes into the woods all around me, looking so hard that it hurt, but could not spot the bear. I was almost ready to slump back into The Thinker when the bear was there again. Only, he wasn’t there…he was here. In the brush only twenty yards from me, the fluid black shape appeared in and out of the heavy undergrowth, following the tiny foot trail my guide used down to the bait. He was back-trailing him, and that back-trail would lead to my stand.
I took the rifle from its resting place in front of me and watched the woods around the bear, now only ten yards from me. I could see his sides heaving in and out. Looking harder than I’ve ever looked in my life – or since my last bear hunt – I saw that there were no cubs and decided that, if a shot presented itself, I would shoot this bear. It wasn’t a big one, but it was shootable as my guide would say. If this had been Monday or even Tuesday, I might have waited for a bigger one. But, after two years and two days, he was big enough. Definitely shootable.
When he reared up in the brush only four yards from my stand, he looked directly up at me, I leaned over the edge of the stand, holding the gun at an odd angle and one at which I’m unaccustomed to shooting. I found him in the scope – a monstrous blob of black at that distance – and pulled the trigger. The bear tumbled and for a moment, the world went fuzzy. Holding my gun at that extreme downward angle, the recoil had slammed the protective cover of the scope into my nose and left eye. I was aware of blood pouring down the left side of my face, but I didn’t take the scope off the bear. Good thing, too. After what seemed like a full minute, but may only have been a full three seconds, the bear righted itself and ran hard into the brush. A subsequent shot found its mark and the bear tumbled again, this time permanently as he piled up about twenty yards from my stand.
My heart pounded. Blood poured down my face and the first few inklings of what would be a day-long headache settled over the bruised side of my face. I walked out to my truck, more to burn off the fight-or-flight adrenaline rush than anything else. Our guide didn’t want us trying to gut or drag out our bears alone, so I dutifully called him on the radio. And called him again. And again. No answer. With the sun starting to fade behind the mountain range, I knew I could get this bear out alone and took my knife and rope down to the woods. Admiring the bear only momentarily, I got to work field dressing him, careful not to cut my fingers off this far back in the woods. The drag wasn’t easy, but wasn’t the worst I’ve ever done. Pulling him mostly uphill, toward the end I was happy the bear wasn’t any bigger. Carefully navigating my truck up the mostly impassable stretch of logging road, I was able to cut the distance I had to drag in half.
Waiting at the pre-arranged meeting place at the intersection of two non-descript logging roads, I talked with the Ohio guys, one of whom had also taken a bear. When Steve and the guide didn’t show up within a few minutes, we figured that they were either tracking a bear or had car trouble. We didn’t know it would be both.
Heading up the rode to find them, we hadn’t gone far when we spotted the two of them walking down the side of the road, looking glum. The guide had taken his camera to the stand where I hunted Monday night in hopes of seeing the sow and three cubs. He didn’t see the bears, and his truck broke down. He made the long walk from that stand to Steve’s, only to find that Steve had shot a bear. They began tracking it, but with darkness upon them, decided to give up the trail until morning.
From there, we made the long drive through the woods to the other hunter’s stand and attempted to track his bear. After a long slog up a muddy trail, we encountered the blood trail and, with everyone shining their lights this way and that, quickly came across the dead bear. The six of us carrying out his bear in the dark is an experience that is truly unique to bear hunting. With the litter the guide usually uses to carry out bears stuck back in his broken down truck, we each took a paw or a leg and slip-slid our way out of the woods, sticks and saplings whacking mercilessly at our faces. Back at camp, we hung the bears and retreated to our cabins for the night.
Steve paced restlessly, replaying the shot in his mind. I’ve left deer overnight in the woods to recover them in the morning, and it makes for a long night. He only slept two hours that night.
In the morning, everyone was up early, with the guys from Ohio eager to help us get Steve’s bear out as we had helped them. We baited two of the guys’ stands, then drove up to the broken-down truck for the litter. From there (I could see the look of finally on Steve’s face) it was off to trail Steve’s bear. Although the trail probably looked bleak in the dark, it was easily readable by daylight and in only a few minutes, we had Steve’s bear. It was a sow, and by far the biggest of our three bears. Carrying it out was rewarding in its own strange ways as we all laughed and talked and tripped and swore. The litter made the carry easier but not “easy” by any stretch of the imagination. Bears are hard to move anyway, and this was a big bear.
Finally back at the truck, Steve’s sleepless exhaustion was as apparent as his relief.
The rest of the trip was a blur. We stayed another night, waiting for the skinner to arrive the next morning. As if on cue, the sun broke out and the mountains finally showed themselves after days of hiding in the clouds. It seemed fitting. After the skinning was done, and the cabin was cleaned out and the truck was packed, it was off to the check station to have the bears officially “sealed” and then it was the short drive to Millinocket to drop them off at a taxidermist I know. I hadn’t seen her in two years, and we stayed to visit for a while. With fourteen hours of driving ahead of us, though, we couldn’t stay long.
The drive home was not (and never is) as exciting as the drive out. I was looking forward to seeing my family but also lamenting the fact that it will be another year or more before I would be hunting in Maine bear country again. There are no bears around my house, unfortunately. That’s the thing that makes bear country so much fun, you know: That’s where the bears are.
Joel Spring. September 7, 2006
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