Well I am back home from a successful and fun black bear hunt in Canada. We left on Monday the 13th of September and I drove 12 hours the first day and had a 5 hour drive the next day. We arrived in Cochrane Ontario Canada and pick up our licenses. We headed to the Outfitters called Zaverucha Outfitters. There we met our guide Eddie Zaverucha and got our cabin and did some paper work. The next day we met with the guide and got the agenda for the day.
I was taken in the bush about a mile out of camp on a 4 wheeler and was instructed to come back on the trail I was taken in on if I did not get a bear that night. I was thinking that is a long haul back to camp in the bush, but hay that's bear hunting. Well I got in my stand about 1:30 PM and was sitting about 40 yards from the bait site. I had my Marlin Guide gun in 45-70 with 405 gr. hard cast bullets. I watch the red squirrels jumping in and out of the 55 gallon drum and was amused at the smaller squirrels that kept trying to get up the barrel but kept falling back off. At about 3:40 PM I saw the bear come into the bait site, I hit my video recorder on and took aim at the bear, I noticed the bear had a very large white patch on it's chest when he jumped up to knock the barrel over, at that time I decided I was going to take that bear. That white patch sold me on the bear. I took my shot at which time the bear hunched up and ran into the bush to my left. I only heard it go a short distance and then it got quit.
I sat on the stand about 10 minuets and decided to get out of the stand and go over to where I had shot. I found blood with bubbles in it, so I knew I had a good lung shot on the bear, I followed the blood trail for about 25 yards and there was my bear dead. I got on the radio and called back to camp and told them I had a bear down. They told me someone was still in camp and they would come back with the four wheeler and get me and the bear. So I filled out my tag and tagged my bear. I drug the bear to a clearing and waited. I reset the bait barrel while I was waiting. When the guide got there we loaded the bear and headed back to camp. At that time I checked my shot location and I hit the bear right behind the shoulder, the bullet came out the other side of the bear and hit the leg right above the knee joint. So the shot was a double lung and took out one leg. The bear weighed 175 LB, but the sad thing was, there was not an once of fat on the bear. The blue berry crop was destroyed by an early frost in July and the bears up there are hungry and not building fat reserve. That bear should of weighted 250 to 275 LB. It was a large framed bear with a big head and feet. The weather was cold for this time of year, it was in the 40's at night and rainy and 50's during the day.
My buddy did not see a bear on the first night, so the next day I was going to follow the trucks out of camp and wait for my buddy in the bush while the guide took other hunter out as well, but there was a change of plains as we were told by our guide. We found out a big bear came into camp early that morning and was going through empty coolers in front of the cabins, we also found out that the bait that I took my bear on and were I had set up the bait site before I left was hit again that night. So my buddy was asked if he wanted to go into the stand I was in the night before. He said sure and at 1:30 off they went. I stayed in camp with my radio and was given guide duty, LOL. I was in the cabin putting away stuff and I hear the radio go off. My buddy asked if I was there, I asked him if he was OK because it was only 3:00 PM and he said he had shot a bear but it jumped back into the bush and he did not know if it was dead. I told him I was on the way. When I got to the bait site the bear and my buddy were there and the bear was dead. It just leaped right into the bush about 5 yards and died. We took pictures of the bear and my buddy and we loaded it up and headed back to camp. We skinned out the bear and gutted it. He did a perfect shot also, right in the shoulder and it took out both lungs and the opposite side shoulder. His bear was in the same condition as mine, very large bear but no fat, his weighed 180 LB and the hide were both in prime condition, they will make some great full body mounts. We hung it up for about 2 hours and then loaded it up and took it to the butchers. We loaded up Thursday night and left Friday afternoon after we got out bears registered and got the paperwork for transporting the bear back to the good old US of A. We got back today Saturday after a long drive back home.
I would highly recommend Zaverucha Outfitters, they are a class act and guide service.
http://www.blackbearhunt.ca/indexx.html The guide was telling us the bears are starving up there, there is a major bear problem in the upper part of Ontario, one town had a report of well over 700 nuisance bear problems and had to kill 18 of them. The locals up there were telling us that bear are coming into town all the time. Many of the locals are fighting to reopen the spring bear season in Ontario, but they feel that it will take someone to get killed before the government will act on it.
