Ya know some of us had to go back to a"real Job", and I'm still trying to get my head above water!
As already stated, I drew the Ressurection stand. After Uncle Barry had it the week before, I knew it had quite a reputation already. It surely did live up to it. I saw 2-3 bears every night, up until wednesday night the 5th day of hunting, they were all different bears. Since Doc Springer went and set the bar so high, then Bobby and Tom followed with really good bears, I knew I had my work cut out for me just to hang with those guys. All total I saw 11 different bears, with all of the real big ones being rubbed real bad.
Simon, from Montreal, had joined us for the first 3 days, and had mentioned that it was supposed to rain pretty good thursday. Combine that with the way my luck usually runs, I knew I was pushing it by not taking a bear yet. So Wednesday night, the third bear of the night came in and was a pretty good looking boar. I guessed about 130-140 lbs and not rubbed too bad. There was a 4 wheeler running up and down the road all night and had happened to go by once already while he was on the bait. Every time a wheeler or vehicle went down the road, every bear that was on the bait at the time would stop and watch until it had passed. This guy did the same the second time it went by and gave me my opportunity, broadside at 7 yards. Just as I released, the bear didn't like something with the wheeler and took a lunge forward. I knew I'd hit him back a little further than I would have liked, but he only ran a short distance and started walking, up over the ridge directly in front of me. I could tell by the way he walked, that he was a pretty sick boy. I waited about 30 min without hearing anything. Since I knew the shot was back more than I intended, I grabbed my stuff and eased out as quiet as I could, figuring to go back the next morning and track him.
When we went back the next morning we found him pretty easily. He'd only gone about 60 yards and layed down. That's were he stayed.
As soon as I can get my Photobucket password figured out I'll post some pictures.
But the night that made the whole hunt was Tuesday night. I'd had a small bear come in about 5:00 that night. He was a pretty bear, but smaller than what I was looking for at the time. He fiddled around for a little while, and as unobtrusively as possible, I convinced him he may want to come back someother time. I'd just looked at my watch, it was 6:55. As I was scanning the brush around me, I heard something walking through the brush, in front and to the right of the tree stand. I've never heard a bear make that much noise, and it was larger than the squirrels. I looked up the trail that was directly in front of me, that ran up the little ridge on that side, and saw something that looked kind of grey. Now I'd already seen the biggest ground hog I've ever seen in my life on this bait, but this was much bigger. As the forms materialized, the little patch of grey turned into grey, white and tan. Two wolves came down the trail and stopped on the edge of the bait site! Oh my goodness, were they magnificent! One of them stayed back in the brush while the other walked out to the crib around the bait. I've seen wolves before, in Alaska, but they were always at a distance of 200-300 yards. This guy was 15 yards away, and without a doubt, the biggest canine I've ever seen. He was huge! He grabbed a bone, that was laying on the ground and headed back to his partner.
I saw this as a chance to get my camera up. All of a sudden he came back out of the brush. Then his partner came out, right on his heels. They were both facing me and I'm slowly trying to get my camera up for a shot. One of them caught just the slightest of movement. We locked eyes, both of them starring at me. They had me cold. Like a flash, they were back in the brush and gone. I heard them circling around to the left of me and heading out towards the road. All of a sudden the brush, behind me aways, just erupted. I heard a bawl and here comes this little black bear, just as fast as he can. He races across the bait site and goes behind the crib, where he stops. He crawls up on the crib and looks back, in the direction that he just came. He, obviously, didn't appreciate the wolves as much as I did. He turns and wanders off into the brush and everything goes quiet again. About 15 minutes later I can hear water being lapped up, like a dog drinking. It dawns on me that I have to cross a little bit of water on my trail back out and start thinking that the walk out tonight could get real interesting. 9:15 rolled around and I made my walk back to the road. Arrow on the string, a little quicker than usual, but without incident.
This was, without a doubt, one of the best hunts I've ever been on. A great big thanks to Tom, Lloyd, Allen and Bowdoc for all of their hard work. There's no doubt in my mind, I'll be back next year. With or without a bear, this was one for the books.
LD
Topic: Bear Quest III >>---> Start Your Engines (Read 22647 times)
