After the first night's action and some much needed sleep, Sunday morning broke clear and cool. Coffee, breakfast and morning socializing soon led to checking and topping the baits.
Thomas "Hogdancer" Burns, Grant Young and I were hunting the water stands. Thomas is right at home with the water and a boat and the BQ Crew let us handle the baits on our own. I really appreciated that, too, as working it adds so much to the hunt. The Raptor stand had been hit a bit after I left the evening before, Blowdown and Cove stands looked quiet and the Moose Tower had been wiped out. We freshened them all and headed back to the lodge for lunch and more relaxation and fun.
After lunch and a nap, it was time to get going again. Having seen three bears the first night, I was really excited as I slipped up the hill to the Raptor Stand. And I was carrying something special with me, too. I had brought some "expired" fried chicken and sweet breads with me from home. I added these to the barrel and climbed into the stand. It only took a couple of minutes to to get my video camera set up, and I was hunting again.
Tonight's action was slow and I'm sure I nodded off a couple of times until just before 7:00 when I heard a stick snap somewhere up the hill from me. My pulse kicked up a couple of notches and I was awake now with my eyes WIDE open. There could only be two things up there to snap a stick, and neither of them spoke French.
It was a short ten minutes or so when I spotted something black moving down the hill toward me. I got my first good look at its head at about forty yards out and I knew it wasn't BooBoo. I got my camera turned on and slowly stood up. He came in slowly, but without any question and stopped when he hit the grease line in the dirt. He dug at the dirt, sniffed some more and then started eating it. Yeah, he was eating the greasy dirt!. After a few minutes of that, he came around to the side of the crib, munched some bone pieces, grabbed a hunk of fat, turned and went back up the hill. He didn't go far and I could still see him through the trees and brush. Within a few minutes, he was on his way back down.
This was my first bear hunt and my fourth bear seen from the stand. Although far from being a judge of bears, I was comfortable that this was one that I didn't want to pass on. Many friends had told me to be patient and wait for the bear and the shot that I wanted. That bear was here, now I just had to wait out the shot.
He passed on the dirt this time and came right around to the bait. It was amazing just having him in front of me. His coat was beautiful, his head large and round, and just a small flash of white on his chest. I was in awe and for now anyway, just watching him was more than enough. He came around and ate a little meat and moved in front of the barrel. Then, he found the chicken. He must have some relatives down south, because he really liked that fried chicken and cleaned up every last morsel before laying down at the Hostess bucket for dessert. Even though he seemed very confident at the bait, his head was constantly coming up, looking, listening and sniffing for dangers.
After about twenty minutes of total visit time, the tape in my camera came to it's end. I hadn't thought about the forty minutes I had taken the night before and now I was on my own. That was just as well though, as now there was only one thing for me to concentrate on. It was another five minutes or so when he backed up from the barrel, turned to the left and stood straight up on all fours, looking down to the lake, slightly past broadside. In the words of an old Florida fishing guide, "If you believe in the hereafter, this is what you're here after."
Topic: BEAR QUEST II Spring BEAR HUNT 2 Openings (Read 40463 times)
