Before I go any further, I wanted thank the guys from here that responded graciously to my questions. I wanted to be successful on this trip, so I wanted to do everything I could the right way.
I talked with Herdbull, SteveO, Ryan Derlago, Mike Vines, little Big Man, Ryan Sanpei, hope I havnt missed anyone because they were all helpful.
The first afternoon in camp Ryan asked if I was ok in a ground blind. I thought that was a good idea as I had little opportunity to shoot from an elevated position.
When we got to "too close" stand, Ryan re-baited and showed me where I was to sit. I thought Ryan was bringing a stool and as I had told him I had a stool, we both forgot to bring one. No problem, Ryan said I could sit on a partially filled sack of bait. Huh? Ryan said "are you ok with this?". I said "Yes".
Ryan then showed me where a bear trail came right behind the blind. He said "are you sure you are ok with this?" I said yes. Then he told me about another hunter who had been in this setup and had a bear approach within touching distance before he saw him.
I llooked at Ryan and he said "are you sure you are ok with this? It is supposed to be fun". I thought a minute, and replied " well for the first night perhaps a tree stand might be better." Ryan said no problem, and took me to another stand where I did see a couple of bear that night.
The next night Ryan asked where I wantd to go for the evening, and I replied that I would like to go back to the Too Close stand as my comfort level was much higher after I had my first encounter with Canadian bear under my belt. I saw about ten bear thst night, one very nice one but with a rubbed rear end . I did not take any shot.
However, one of the other hunters had shot a really nice big bear the night before and I when I saw him up close, I wondered about my arrow selection. I did actually switch to the carbons for a night or so, but when Ryan told me he shot basically the same weight bow and wood arrow, and said "if you hit the bear where you are supposed to you will have no problem with your setup.
One day during the week, I came back to camp to find Ryan had moved in an elevated platform that we could practice from. Man, that guy works hard for his customers!
I took advantage of the elevated platform and was feeling pretty good about my shooting.
Every day I saw bear that I could have shot, but I was getting picky I guess. Besides, there was a lot of time left.
Topic: Stickflingers (Read 6760 times)
