My first night in the woods was nothing short of amazing. Ryan asked each hunter what they were looking for out of there hunt. He and David then tried their best to match up each hunter with a location that would likely produce the type of shot at the type of bear the hunter was hoping for.
As Mike explained earlier, Ryan firmly believes in hunting the wind for bear. While he admits it is not always necessary, it could mean the difference b/w success and failure when that big ol’ boar comes calling.
My first night was at the stand they call “The Ladder” and latter dubbed Tall Tines after Brian Wessel took his fine bear there two weeks earlier. This bait was being hit regularly and hard. Ryan explained there was still lots of bear here and at least one more big one.
I told Ryan my only hope was for a nice bear, a “confidence bear”, my first bear. Ryan knew this stand would offer what I was looking for, a shot 10 yards or less and a low stand location for a flatter trajectory shot. With the abundant pines surrounding the “Ladder” we were able to hang a Lone Wolf stand at 5 feet high and down wind of the bait.
He told me bears typically come into the stand from the east or west paralleling the creek that ran by south of the stand. A nice ridge north of the stand put the entire bait area on a shelf. The wind was blowing from the north west over the bait barrel and into my nose. Five bears visited that barrel that night. Four approaching from the east, walking past my stand from over my right shoulder down a trail 5 yards away. Out of my right eye my peripheral vision caught the black silhouettes and followed their sluggish approach to the barrel. As they passed my stand their heads frequently swung my way to check out that blob in the tree that was not there before.
Being bears, I guess their hunger outweighed their skeptical memory about blobs in trees, because as long as I remained still, they kept marching on toward the barrel. None were bad bears, none were great bears. I knew I needed a day or two more to look around before I ended my hunt, so none of these bears were subject to my arrow flying through (or past) them. Besides, I left my camera in the cabin that first night and who would want to shoot a bear and not have a camera with him. That would be like taking a video camera and forgetting to press "record". Very dissapointing.
Around 6:30pm up on the ridge I heard a good bit of rustling trees and snapping branches. As I slowly turned my head to find any movement which might indicate a source for the sound, I saw a horse. A real fat horse, with incredibly long and lanky legs. Then the horse moved along the ridge to eating leaves and walking with a 6 foot stride. When I saw a waddle hanging below the unusually long head of the horse a light bulb finally went off. I was watching the first wild moose I have ever seen. Actually, I think it was the first live moose I had ever seen. Funny how long it takes my brain to click over from what it thinks it sees to realize what it is really looking at.
The highlight of my hunt that evening was when one of the bears, with an unusually dark snout decided he had eaten enough oats and corn and he needed to find out once and for all what was hanging onto that tree over there. As he skulked over to my stand in no hurry, I thought about the bear repellant in my right cargo pocket and my Ka-Bar hanging on my hip. This was my first trip into the woods with the repellant but that Ka-Bar has been on my side since ‘87.
The bear weaved his way tree to tree smelling the sow in heat gel I dipped branch twigs in surrounding the bait barrel. I was giving that some second thoughts at this point. When he passed the last of the scent I could tell his full attention was fixed on the blob in the tree (me). Closer he came. Snout out front testing the air. When he was directly under my stand he placed his left paw on the tree and propped his nose up under my stand to sniff my boot.
Well I figured these were his woods and I was the visitor. He had a right to give me a sniff or two so I let ot pass without offense. When he appeared satisfied with his sniff, he must have thought that rubber boot smells good enough to eat so he swung his right paw up onto the platform of my stand. Not wanting to see how much further this “scratch-and-sniff” was going to go I decided to tap the stand with my boot like someone had earlier suggested, but I guess my hackles were up a bit too and the tap turned into a stomp… on top of his paw. When he withdrew his paw, as would any one who got a finger stepped on by a mysterious rubber smelling blob, I realized I had just tapped a bear, a wild bear, a big-enough-to-kick-my-a$$ bear.
As darkness fell on the evening three bears, I think one or two I had seen earlier, and one real small nasty little she-witch all converged on the barrel. When three bear meet at one food source, I witnessed, $hit happens. The two bigger bears woofed the smaller bear up a tree on the other side of the barrel (ding ding) and after a tiny spat b/w the bigger two one stayed at the barrel and one circle the area. The little she-witch stayed up in the tree woofing and popping jaws, trying to sneak back down. One woof from the bigger bear and up she went again.
I didn’t remember a lot of what Ryan said to me before the hunt, but I remembered him saying I should stay in the stand after dark and let him come down with a light to scare off any critters and get me out. Well after toe stomping one bear, having one circle the baits, one hanging in a tree waiting to pounce on something just out of spite, and one protecting it’s food… I was happy to let Ryan feel needed and come get me.
Topic: Stickflingers, last week...rookies, big bears, and bloody arras. (Read 5596 times)
