Thank you very much guys for the nice words. I appreciate it a lot. He is a brief summary of my hunt for those who might be interested.
Through force of habit and the love of doing it, I run a few baits for my family and I just south of where I live. Since I was a little short of bear food this year, I narrowed it down to only two sites.
Not all sites are conducive for hunting from a ground blind but the two spots I kept are. Several factors must be taken into consideration, not the least of which are "dead ground" (a small area near the bait that bears don't seem to be traveling through), natural cover, both your and the bears access, wind direction, etc.
I had hunted a couple of days the week before when we got hit with an unseasonal heat wave. According to my calculations the big bear I was hunting was not in the area and because of the heat I figured that it would take him a while to circuit back to the bait so I went home to wait for normal weather.
I usually like hunting a little later in the season but there's a good chance I'll be leaving in June for a polar bear monitoring job north of here.
The day I returned to hunt, I didn't...I just rebaited and read sign.
The next morning I awoke to a miserable, all day, steady rain. At the last moment it looked like it might clear up enough to hunt so I went.
Sure enough, the bears were waiting for the same thing and within an hour, a soggy 200 # boar came in to eat. When he finally left he crossed my scent stream and began to approach my blind from the side. From his demeanor I suspected that he was worried of a bigger boar so I imitated another bear and managed to convince him to leave although reluctantly, huffing and chomping.
Only minutes later I spotted the boss coming in with a sow (for Quebec that is early for rutting behavior). He was selfish and not in full rut because he went straight to the barrel and plopped down without giving me a shot. When the sow approached for a possible tidbit, he growled at her. She pitifully scrounged for scraps while she waited.
When the other boar circled to check things out, the boss spotted him and took off after him. The sow took the opportunity to set herself up at the barrel and when he returned, he left her alone and ambled my way.
Because it had been raining, I chose to use a bow quiver to avoid getting my blades wet and I hadn't taken an arrow out. I carefully took one out without being detected as he approached when I realized that the hot melt glue had come apart and the broadhead had stayed in the foam cover. Cooly keeping my eyes on the bear to read him, I managed to lay that shaft on the ground and to nock another arrow.
Earlier I had put my pack and bow in the blind from the front wall to avoid stepping on them when I entered by stepping over the lower side wall. He was coming straight on, head to the ground so I still didn't have a shot when at 3-4 yards he picked up my tracks and then got within a couple of feet of my balsam bough blind.
He was associating my familiar tracks to a food source at the end of the line.
I was in full "kill" mode, alert, fingers on the tight string and bow ready. That's all I could do. When he turned towards my side wall I had a brief opportunity and don't remember drawing. At about 6 feet the arrow blew through his lungs and exited through the meat of his opposite shoulder, into a tree. That stopped the arrow and the fletching end broke off in his lungs when he exploded out of there.
At about 40 yards I heard a couple of raspy exhales and then all was still. I got my things today and stepped out to start work. The sow was wondering why he left so fast and looked surprised at my appearing suddenly at 12 yards and she took off. The other boar must have been paying attention because he was already on his way back to the bait as I made my way towards my downed bear.
I didn't weigh him but he must have weighed a true 375# + spring weight. I shot him at 8:15 and by the time I got to where I was staying for the night it was past 1:00 a.m. I was completely soaked with sweat and exhausted...but a good exhaustion.
Topic: Black bears and natural ground blinds (Read 1213 times)
