OK folks, first let me apologize for the huge delay in writing this years account of bear camp. I returned to Georgia and had to prepare for a big Independence weekend trad archery gathering. We had about 90 people attend and that was a blast. Following that, I recently leased several additional properties in Georgia for bear hunting and have spent every spare moment working there....OK, enough excuses, lol... here are some tales from bear camp.
The 2016 bear camp started pretty tough in our area of Canada. Cold, rain and wind met us for the first several days of camp and as the hunters started to arrive I worried how it would impact the numbers of bears we would see. We met our first group of hunters (Tradganger Shane H and his dad. We planned to get them in the woods right away and it did not take long to realize that the Mastigouche Wilderness would not let us down. Shane's dad hunted the "Tickle Fight" stand and would shoot the second bear that rolled in after the first climbed his tree to say hello. Shane would score the next night after hunting the #12 or "Bloody Nose" stand from the ground at 6 yards. And a nice boar at that.
Another hunter (Illinois Doug) would also score from a ground blind at 7 yards. and his son would pass on several bears and get some awesome ground blind video.
This year we continued to encourage hunters, that are willing, to hunt our ground set-ups. While we have tree stands at nearly all our baits we have found that the experience is GREATLY enhanced from the ground and that the wound rate plummets from these shot angles. As a matter of fact the last 3 years we have recovered every single bear that has been shot.
Speaking of wounded bear recovery, I have to give a massive amount of credit to my blood tracking hound "Bear Dog" This was his 3 year working in my camp and once again he has a rock star with amazing recoveries. We had fantastic shooting in our camp with most of the bears traveling just 30-150 yards but we also tracked for our camp 2 located some distance away. Often times we would be called for tracking assistance the following afternoon putting these tracks at between 20-24 hours old. This is where bear dog proved the true worth of a skilled tracking dog.
He had the following tracks with distances recorded with his GPS collar.
1,050 yards- 13 hours old
1,100 yards- 14 hours old
950 yards- 22 hours old
1.86 MILES- 24 hours old
All of these tracks had been abandon by sight trackers after exhaustive efforts had failed.
The fishing was great and Shane H. and his dad tearing up the brook trout each days they fished. Dang those trout were good fried in butter!
Half way through the first hunt week the weather started to stabilize and the rut really started to kick in and the number of big boars exploded. LOTS of chasing was witnessed and hunters were reporting multiple bears visiting each night. Josh W. would be next to score from a ground blind at the Skelator bait but not before watching and filming his beautiful bear for more than an hour.
We had some awesome encounters with a number of moose this year and Bear Dog tried to get through the windshield on a couple of them, lol.
Tradganger Doug 77 was on the prowl for a monster bear and while he did see a couple bruisers, they just would not commit. He passed on several mature bears that did not meet his goals.
Tradganger JR had hunted with us for several years in a row and was determined to kill a monster. He would get his chance the very fist night but things went sideways at 10 yards and the arrow sailed over the monster boars back. The next night he passed on some smaller bears. The following night he would get another chance at a monster boar but a shot never presented itself as the bear fed at just 10 yards. He would only have four nights to hunt so on his last night I put him at Bloody Nose bait. This is a special bait in that we have never placed a hunter there without having a mature bear present for the hunter at 10 yards or less. The stand did not let us down as JR got to witness several boars chasing sows but the chaos never allowed for a standing shot.
These are just a few stories from the hunt. It was great fun for sure with one MAJOR exception... the loss of my beloved Black Widow bow. We were at the skinning shed working on bears when my assistant guide went to the back of the truck to retrieve some equipment. My beautiful PSAX was in the way of his gear so he removed it. Without thinking, he placed the bow on the top of the camper shell. Later, we drove the 13 miles back to camp #1 but the bow decided to leave the roof somewhere along that 13 mile dirt road drive.
This bow was a bow that I bought two years ago to replace a Black Widow that I had shot for more than 19 years. I have decided that as a replacement, I will resurrect my old Widow by getting a new set of limbs for the old girl. It will feel good to have her back in my hands.
2016 was a bit tougher year due to the terrible weather at the start but we are proud of the fact that we have been 100% on shot opportunity (mature bear at 10 yards) for the last 5 years. under normal weather conditions a hunter can expect to see multiple bears at each sitting. We have some monster bear roaming that Mastigouche reserve and your simply will never find a more beautiful and wild place. We look forward to Tradgang bear camp 2017. We run very small groups on our hunts and will only hunt the pre-rut and rut so as to prevent the chance of hunters arriving to a hunt with snow on the ground. Simply put, if you are wanting a great wilderness adventure with very hard working guides at a place where you WILL get your chance at your bear-give us a look and then give me a call to discuss.
We will only have two small groups for 2017 and plan to make an announcement of a very special tradgang bear adventure in the next couple weeks. Thanks again to the Trad Gang members that made the trip up with us.
P.S. I promise to try and get a 2016 video out ASAP. I have many thousands of pictures to work through along with some great video...
Topic: Russell Outdoor Guides 2016 Bear camp report (Read 659 times)
