Love bear hunting, been at it for almost 40 years. Here's an excerpt from an email I sent Mickey this spring.
Bear huntin' was fun. Bugs were awesome in the woods and the walleyes were biting. Bears at all the stands, one blond (300+) and 2 cinnamons in the 200 range. Lots of newby bear hunters, so there were a number of small bears shot, 125-250 range, as well as several real nice ones. No other trad bow hunters.
I didn't make it in time to hunt Tues nite, tried... but got a speeding ticket about half way there so I figured I'd better slow down the rest of the way.
The first night I hunted was Tues. I was at the "Eagles Nest" stand, don't know if you were in that one or not. It's a 3' white pine, stand at about 20' and an easy 20 yard shot. Stormed most of the evening, high winds & rain and I didn't see a thing.
Wednesday I was at one of the stands south of Sprague, one of the ones I was in last year. The evening started out well, couple of 200 pounders came in (one maybe 225) and tore everything up, few others came in...about the same size. The first bear in appeared to be dominate over all of the others, he kept coming back and driving them off. About an hour before dark he sauntered down the trail past my tree, looked up at me with his beady little eyes, clacked his teeth a few times and came chargin' up my tree....woofin' and growlin', mad as hell at me. I haven't used my pepper spray for about 4 years and was sure glad when it worked...heh heh. He just jumped down on the ground, ran about 30 yards, in plain sight, moaned, rubbed his face and rolled around until the stuff wore off then went right back to the bait and started eating just like nothing ever happened.
Ok, so now it's getting dark and I gotta go home and all so I rattled an arrow on the metal stand hoping it would scare him off. He ambled slowly back into the woods. I get down, gather my stuff and start down the trail through the spruce.....that little devil is now about 25 yards behind keeping pace. It's too dark to shoot in the spruce, all I can see is a black blob walkin' behind me on the trail so I just keep going. When I finally got to the logging road it opened up and became lighter, he was still there and coming on strong. I walked to where Larry was going to pick me up at, put my gear down, nocked an arrow and started walking back towards him hoping to get a shot. He took off when I got 20 yards or so from him....then Larry came and we left.
Went back to the same place the next night. Li'l Nasty was back and just ignored me. I had a real nice one come in on the trail, 8 yards out on my open side, spotted me as I started draw on him and left fast. I figure he was an easy 350+....too bad, guess that's why they call it "hunting" and not "catching" huh?
![smile :)](https://www.tradgang.com/tgsmf/Smileys/tg/smiley.gif)