After waking up Monday morning from a near sleepless night Stephen (my 16yr old son) and I headed to Pete and Brian's (our bear Guide's) shop down the road. Upon meeting up with everyone, gathering gear and figuring out who was riding in who's vehicle, we headed down the road to our stand sites past Caribou Maine close to Van Buren Maine I think. The first guy out was Kevin fron Texas, next was me and then Stephen. We were all about a little more than a mile apart from one another. Getting into my blind Pete and Brian went over some last minute advice and words of wisdom from a couple of very experienced bear hunters. The minute they left (approx. 1:30pm in the afternoon) I proceed to get set up and while doing so I look through the 8" X 8" shooting hole in the self made blind from logs, fern, sticks, and leaves and what do I see? A bear (150lb'er) staring right at me from 15yds away.....it's been less than 5 minutes!!!! Wow!! My adrenaline is rushing already!!!
Well, he has busted me and slowly turns and heads down the trail which Pete and Brian had mentioned they have been coming to the bait on. No biggie, I would have definitely passed on him anyway, I want a bigger bear! The temperature is only a high of 60 degrees and sitting in the dense forest is making me wish I had brang my hooded sweatshirt because by 3:30 I'm freezing my arse off, not much sun today and when it did come out it didn't break into the thick woods I'm sitting in to warm me much anyway. Approximately 4:00pm I have a nice shooter bear come into my bait and steal a donut and take two steps back and run off into the woods to eat it. Ok, no big deal. Two minutes later the bear had circled around and came back in from the same direction to yet repeat the same as the last visit, this time I draw my bow, but no shot given so when it runs off I let down my bow and wait. This repeated two more times and I drew back to full draw both times but since no good shot was made present I didn't want to rush the shot and make a bad one. I'll add that each time the bear came into the bait from the same trail and it paused and looked over at me everytime....it knew I was there in my opinion and later I'll find that I'm 100% correct on that assumption!!! Time goes by and no bear. At approximately 5:04pm I hear a distant "Boom", a sound I know all too well, and I know my son has just plugged a bear with my Marlin .45-70 Guide Gun.... I check my phone for the time and within a minute I have a text message (phone was silenced of course) that read "Dad, I got him, I killed him!" One of the proudest moments in my time spent in the field so far!! He showed courage to sit out there on the ground and bear hunt.... he's earned his rite of passage!
Now, back to my hunt, at approximately 6:30 I again hear the same bear walking around snapping a few twigs and making low huffing sounds with a low pitched but short "Woooof" sound every now and then. I have no idea where the bear actually as I can see nothing around me except out of the 8 inch by 8 inch square hole in the blind cloth in front of me and there's a 2 foot by 2 foot square hole right next to where I'm sitting which is used to enter and exit the blind crib ( very well constructed I might add). This is where it gets good, within a few minutes I hear snapping twigs directly behind me and then a "wooooof".....holy moly! From my pereferial vision (I didn't move a hair!) I can see a big black bear standing 6 inches outside the 2 foot by 2 foot window, used to enter and exit the blind, and it's sniffing me almost putting his nose on me......yeah my rear end puckered up and the hair on my neck was standing straight up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My heart was pounding so fast that I was afraid it could hear me beating......yeah baby this is what I paid for right? (LOL) While sitting still as a statue not wanting to provoke the bear to feel the need to defend itself I then hear it take a piss next to me and then nothing for a few minutes.....but I can't bring myself to move!!! After a few minutes with no noise I gain some composure back and work up the courage to turn my head very slowly and slightly to my right to see if the bear is still there....nothing, whew!!! That was an adrenilin rush!!! Will I do it again? You bet your life I will, I'm getting my money's worth for sure!! So focusing back to the bait this damn bear comes back in to the bait about 7pm and again plays the cat and mouse game that was frustating me earlier. Finally approximately 7:15pm (1/2 hour before legal shooting time ends and the sun goes down) it comes back to my bait and does something different. The bear turns to the same direction in which it came into the bait and gives me a perfect broadside shot......shwack!!! My broadhead hit dead center perfect making a clean pass through. It went about 60yds and crashed.
Never got the chance to film the hunt, the cold weather drained my camcorder batteries.... oh well, better luck next time.
As you can see in the first pic, that's the hole used to climb in and out of the crib and that's the seat where I sat as the beast stuck it's head in and sniffed me. I was so close I could have easily elbowed the bear's snout.
Here's our bears....Stephen's is on the left, he used my 1895GS with a 405gr hard cast bullet over 40grs of IMR 4198. My bear is on the right (bow kill)....
Up close of the entrance wound made by my G5 Montec broadhead.
Everyone in camp except two guys were bowhunters and everyone hunted from the ground.
We got to meet and hang out with Redhawk1, really a funny guy that had my son and me laughing everytime we were around him.
Anyone wanting an up close and personal bear hunt experience of a life time should check into Maine Wild Country Outfitters..... A1 guys that go out of their way to make your hunt an experience that you'll never forget. My boy and I both had an awesome time! Everyone including the other hunters were great people to be around. I was impressed and hopefully will be back next year for another bowhunt!
http://www.mainewildcountryoutfitters.com/index.html
