As Danielle mentioned in the last post, we decided to try
our luck at baiting bears this year. Now one would think… baiting bears, that’s
like fishing in a barrel! But it’s not. Bear baiting is actually a lot more
work than one would expect. Probably the most difficult part about bear baiting
is finding a good place to put a bait station. Well I’m a map geek and after
studying multiple maps, terrain, hunting regulations, and everything else, we
decided to put our faith in a spot 2.5 miles in just off an old, closed logging
road (pictures in last post). We set the station up April 12th. You
are allowed to set up stations after April 10th. We had plans to
check and hunt the station every weekend. There was just one problem… no bears
were finding it. Every weekend we went down (which was a 3 hour drive one way),
we would see no change in our bait and show no bears on the motion camera. With
the weather getting nicer, we were sure the bears were out, just not finding
their way to our station.
The weekend of May 3-4 came around, and we were not able to
hunt the station because we had to go to Iowa for a small get together.
Actually, my sister got married and I performed the ceremony J Because of that, we
were unable to hunt that weekend. Of course, I got word from a buddy that has a
station about 40 miles away from ours, that his bait was hit for the first time
that weekend. So my mind starts going crazy wondering what may have been visiting
our station. As a result, I got bear fever and requested Thursday and Friday
off so I could take a 4-day weekend to hunt. Luckily I have a very flexible and
good boss, so that request was granted!
I spend the week packing my gear for a 4 day hunt. The plan was
to go down Wednesday night and have Danielle come down and meet me after she
got done with work on Friday. As it turns out, I was a little behind on things
from the weekend prior, so I didn’t head out until Thursday morning. I get to
the parking area around 8AM. By 9AM I am at the stand, disappointed to see that
the bait barrel looks completely untouched. I checked the trail cam and my disappointment
was confirmed… nothing (Of note, later in the season I find out that my game
cam performs extremely bad as I physically have seen a couple bears walk in
front of the camera and later check it only to see that it didn’t take a
picture). With nothing on the camera, there is no real point of sticking around
and waiting for a bear to come in if a pattern or viewing has not been
established. I then decide I will spend the day exploring the surrounding area,
and that is what I did. I hiked many miles that day looking around for another “better”
potential spot in the future. I didn’t find one, but I did find many old bait
station sites (I’m talking 1980s when a road back there was open for driving).
I also found some good game trails that appeared to be heavily traveled in the
past. On that same trail, I saw my first
bear sign, some fresh scat! This told me they were in the area, but they haven’t
found my station yet.
The area I was hiking in appeared to be fairly easy hiking
with good access to a mountain and valley above me. When I looked up at the
mountain, I noticed dozens of white dots. It wasn’t snow, it was sheep and
goat. That mountain is closed to hunting those animals there, but they were
cool to see. When I was taking a break and looking at these white specs, I also
noticed a black blob below them. Yep… it was a black bear. A BIG ONE too. This
guy was easily within a 2 mile hike and sitting in an area that would have set
me up for a simple shot, however, I chose to just watch him as I was not
looking to pursue a black bear this year, I was looking for a different color…
brown. We needed black bear meat for the freezer, but Danielle has not shot a
black bear yet, so I decided to let it go being so early in the season.
Probably the most important thing I found that day was
another active bait station. I had hunch
there was another one in the area, and that hunch became reality when I accidentally ended up walking right through it. Turns out, there are only two
registered bait stations in that area, and they just so happen to be 300 yards
apart! When I found that out, I was immediately upset and frustrated. We busted
our butts to scout out this area last year and get everything in this far only
to find out that someone came in and put up a stand that close to us after ours
was already there. Great… now we will be competing for the same bears.
Instead of wasting time until Friday night waiting for
Danielle, I decided to head home Thursday night, and work Friday so I could
save a day vacation. Fast forward to after work…
We left immediately after work for our hunting spot. We were
a little anxious when we arrived because it’s a big surprise if there is going
to be anything on the trail cam or not… you hope there will be something, and
there will be eventually, it’s just a matter of when. We were hoping that
something showed up on the camera in the last 24 hours (but it was unlikely
since nothing was on the camera from the last month).
When we arrive, we see two vehicles in the parking area
before the trail to our station. We assume this is the hunters of the bait
station next to ours. We then head in to our station and at the start of the
trail that dives in to the thick woods toward our station, we see that someone
has written on our WARNING, BEAR STATION AHEAD sign. Someone put their name and
their phone number on the sign that said to call them. I could only assume it
was the owners of the nearby bait station. I recorded their number in my phone
to call later because service back there was horrible. Danielle and I made a
plan before we went in, I would drop the pack at the ladder stand and head over
to the trail cam to check if there was any action yet. She would then take what
she needed up the ladder stand and wait for me to join her. As we get in to our
area, I drop the pack and then begin to walk over to the trail cam. After 3
steps, I notice a black object to my left, Holy Moley it was a black bear! I
have no idea how we didn’t spook it when we were arriving to the stand. I
quickly back track to Danielle who hasn’t even gone up the ladder or seen it
yet. I share what I saw and she is confused, but knows I wouldn’t joke about
this. We then crouch right there as I tell her to find a secure rest to shoot
off of. Unfortunately, the bear was in a hurry and didn’t give Danielle time to
find a good shooting place. We were stuck in our spots with the bear at the
bait about 20 yards away. We couldn’t move because he would see our movement
and hear any steps we took. To make it worse, we hadn’t put our bug spray on,
and we were getting eaten alive! Next time you’re in Alaska, try finding a
swamp, squat in one spot, and don’t move for 10 minutes even when the mosquitos
start to swarm and feast on you!!!
The immediate goal was to determine if the bear had cubs
with it. We had to watch it for a little while to determine nothing was
following it or it was not looking to protect something with it. We then decide
that the size/shape of the bear paired with the solo nature of its actions
meant that it was a boar. We knew then that we were going to harvest this bear.
I told Danielle to get ready. At this time, there was absolutely no good place
to shoot from with many bushes and brush between us and the bear. Danielle
decided that she should shoot the bear by resting the rifle on the ladder of
the stand, so she could shoot from a standing, rest position. We then proceeded
to slowly switch spots without much noise. The little noise part didn’t work
too well, but lucky for us, the bear was more interested in eating. We switched
spots after the bear looked in our direction and freezing us in place multiple
times. Finally, Danielle stood up to rest the gun on the ladder… CLANK! She
struck the rifle barrel hard against the ladder. Metal on metal is one of nature’s
most unnatural sounds and will scare anything off in a heartbeat. The bear got
scared and ran 20 yards to the right and about halfway up a tree. Lucky for us,
he leave. We then proceeded to wait to see if he would return. After about 10
more minutes, he decided to cautiously return. Seeing that he was thinking
about coming back, Danielle picked out a spot the bear’s path would cross, and
waited for him. She was now standing and had nothing to rest her gun on. As the
bear walked back to the bait, he crossed Danielle’s sites…. BOOM. She drilled
him exactly where she needed to. Danielle had bagged her first black bear.
I’m not a guy to hide details, as I like to share
experiences. I say this because this paragraph may be disturbing for some
people… Black bears when they are shot exhibit a behavior that is called the
Death Call. They only Death Call after they have stopped running post impact. They
have a growl/cry that the let out at a constant rate indicating their known
demise. It isn’t as frightening as a dying rabbet, but similar. It is a sad
thing to hear for sure. When this cry is over (which only lasted for about 15
seconds with this bear), you know that they have most likely passed on.
The bear only ran 15 yards or so away after being shot. He
stopped in a good area that allowed for quick and easy cleaning. As we do with
all harvested animals, Danielle took some time to thank the bear for the
purpose it has served….I did the skinning and cutting while Danielle held limbs
and pulled hide, as well as keeping a look out for other bears. In the middle
of cleaning the bear, another large black bear appeared in the distance. He ran
off after seeing us, and we were glad it wasn’t a curious brown bear. We also
had another visitor check on us while we were cleaning the bear, a hunter from
the other bait station. I thought the encounter was going to be awkward, but it
turned out to be just the opposite. This guy was a class A gentlemen. He was
almost as excited as me for Danielle dropping her first black bear. We chatted
for quite some time and determined that both bait stations were facing in
opposite directions, so there was no chance of shooting at each other. We also
discussed each other’s plans for the season and determine that we pretty much
had opposite goals and opposite hunting schedules. (This friendly exchange with
the hunter turned out to be extremely beneficial for both of us, we now text
and share information nonstop about bears on each other’s cameras and amount of
action… seeing that we are there at different times and the status of one
station is reflective of the other).
Unfortunately for us, we weren’t convinced that we were
going to see a bear that night. This assumption led us to leave our means of
transporting the bear hide and meat at the truck. Because of this, I got a
chance to test out the capabilities of my new hunting pack by putting the
entire bear in my backpack and Danielle carrying a bag of the original contents
in her hands. THAT THING WAS HEAVY!!!! It took me a long time to hike the 2.5
miles back to the truck. At about a ½ mile in Danielle decided to leave me and
run back to the truck to get the cart. She was fast and ended up meeting me
halfway. We then pushed the bear back the rest of the way.
We got back to the truck at 11ish. Danielle joked that her
hunts keep getting shorter and shorter (when she shoots something). She shot her
caribou on opening day within 3 hours after sitting on a ridge, she shot her
moose at 7:30AM on opening day, and she dropped her black bear after 15 minutes
of arriving to the bear stand. I will put money on her “quicker streak” ending
next time.
We headed home and arrived in our drive at 3AM. We quickly
unpacked and went to bed. The next day we were busy with meat preparation and
hide care. We ended up putting about 50 pounds of bear meat in the freezer. It
took us the next couple days to get the hide completely ready to salt. Danielle
fleshed the entire bear herself and learned a lot in the process. I did the
face and feet… which she will eventually learn to do as well. Due to past
experiences with hides at taxidermists in Alaska, we ship all of our rugs out
to Ohio. The rugs are done quicker, done better, and done cheaper… can’t beat
that. Her bear is in the mail to Ohio right now :)
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