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Hunting & Fishing With Grey Owl Outfitters
The bear hunting this year has a lot of interesting stories to go with it and there was a fair bit of excitement with a lot of aggressive bears on some of the baits. Not only did Dale Hartman start off with a bang catching big fish but continued on with the bear by killing the biggest bear taken in the first week. He shot a big boar on the 2nd night of the hunt measuring 6'11" nose to tail. It was in the 375 to 400 lb. range. The bear hadn't gone a great distance from the bait and I was able to get the quad right to the bear. It was all Dale and I could do to slide that big boy up and onto the back rack of the bike. In getting the bear out to the bait site I had locked the bike up in all 4 wheel drive and was almost back to the bait site, when as I maneuvered between two little spruce trees my right front tire started to climb one of the little trees and quicker than it takes to write about it the bike came over backwards on top of me and pinned me under the bike. Fortunately Dale was there to give me a hand to get the bike off of me or I would still be out in the bush playing "turtle". With gas running in my face from the overflow tube on the gas tank I can tell you being under that bike wasn't a pleasant experience and to top everything off we had to load that bear back on the bike a second time. Dale's bear was the first bear of the season and had been quite event full but there was a lot more action to come. Such was the case with Wayne Hart & Nancy Tralmer from WI who were hunting together from a ground blind. Wayne had decided to hunt with Nancy until she had shot here bear and was running the video camera. The bait site that they were hunting had several bear on it and they were waiting for the "right" bear to come in before Nancy pulled the trigger. What appeared to be a young boar had been eating at the bait drum and Nancy had decided to pass on him but Wayne continued to video the bear. After eating at the drum for several minutes the bear seemed to take particular interest in the pop up ground blind that Nancy & Wayne were sitting in some 25 yards away. All of a sudden without warning the bear charged the blind on the run and as the bear closed the distance Wayne hollered at the bear only to have him slam the brakes on a mere two feet from the blind. (all of this was captured on camera) The bear's bluff charge seemed to satisfy him in his mind that he was the boss for now at this site as he turned away from the blind and sauntered back to the bait drum and continued eating until he was satisfied and left. He did not pay anymore attention at all to Nancy and Wayne in their blind. A few days later after Nancy had shot her bear, Wayne went solo intent on killing a bruin with his bow. Wayne is a seasoned hunter having hunted extensively and has hunted bear with us for many years with lots of bear encounters, but none as interesting as the one he had this year. On this evening he had only been on stand for a couple of hours when he heard movement behind his stand. He could hear a bear making its way towards the bait on a route that would take it within a few feet of the stand. As the bear approached from behind the stand and came into Wayne's view he saw that he had a real shooter as he was looking at large cinnamon colored bear. The bear stopped beneath Wayne's stand and looked up at him and apparently decided that whatever was in that tree didn't belong there. The big bear stood on its hind legs and leaned on Wayne's tree with its head only a couple of feet or so below Wayne's feet. A lot of younger bears will climb a hunter's tree or the ladder to the stand to check a hunter out but bigger bears rarely attempt such a feat. This one however figured it would take a different approach. It figured whatever was in that tree didn't belong and it would proceed to shake it right out of the tree. Now for you that have hunted with us you know that our trees this far north are not all that big and this was a big bear that meant business. With the tree in the bears powerful front paws and with its large size it swayed the tree violently back and forth forcing Wayne to wrap his arms around his tree and hang on for dear life. The shaking nearly dislodged the ladder to Wayne's tree & fortunately he was able to keep his bow from falling to the ground. Now the shaking of the tree just didn't last a few seconds but went on for close to a minute when for whatever reason the bear decided whatever was in the tree was no threat and it dropped to all fours and walked over to the bait drum and started eating. That was its last mistake as Wayne picked up his bow and put an arrow thru the bear's chest resulting in a fine cinnamon colored trophy bear that measured 6'7" nose to tail. Another interesting story involved John Evanina from PA who I had been guiding. John was hunting with a rifle and had been on several bear hunts before and had always hunted from a tree stand. For this hunt I had convinced John to hunt from a ground blind. The first few days of John's hunt proved uneventful without any bear sightings, all though he had two timber wolves come into his bait site one evening. I decided to move John as I found a site that I was sure would supply John with lots of action, and as it turned out I was right. I had John and his blind with me on the quad when I went into the bait sight and when we arrived there was a bear already eating at the bait drum. When we pulled up the bear merely went behind the bait drum a few yards and just stood there and looked at us. I could tell this bear wasn't going anywhere so I told John to get his blind set up while I kept the bear occupied. I rebaited the barrel while John set up his blind with the bear maintaining a distance of a mere 8 to 10 yards from me behind the bait drum. This bear was putting on quite a performance by popping his teeth and huffing in an attempt to scare me from the bait drum. When I saw that John was set up and he gave me the thumbs up I got back on the bike and left. I knew John wasn't going to take this bear as he could have all ready done so but I also knew he was going to have a lot of company on this night and I was right. I didn't get back into John's bait site until almost dark. When I arrived John was now in the tree stand with a beautiful chocolate bear on the ground not far from the stand. John was also now convinced that he would continue to hunt from a stand rather than a blind. After I had left him a number of bear had come and gone from the bait site all evening. John had hurriedly set up his ground blind and not noticed that he was on an ant hill and now found them crawling all over him. As a result he decided to move to the tree stand. John enjoyed this evening's hunt as he had many different bear coming and going from the bait but he didn't like what he saw in regards to the blind where he had been originally set up. One bear had been eating at the bait drum for a few minutes when it decided to go check John's ground blind out. It promptly walked over to the blind and stood up on its back legs leaning its front paws on it on a probable attempt to climb on it. When the blind made a "crumpling" sound the bear bolted. A short time later a different bear came to the bait and fed and it too decided to check the blind out using a different technique. It went to the blind and crawled into it by sliding under the walls of the blind and stayed for a short time and left the same way it had gone in. All of this activity convinced John he was better off hunting from a tree. In another situation we even got the cook (Linda) involved in the action. Bow hunter Jasper Thayer from NH had been on stand when we got a brief radio message from him at the lodge in which he said "Come and get me I'm done." We could not raise him again on the radio and thought something was out of sorts. The reason Jasper did not respond is that he did not want to aggravate the bear that was hanging around the base of his tree. He had all ready arrowed a nice black bear that was lying in sight of his stand and now he had a very aggressive cinnamon bear that did not want to leave. Karl, Linda, and I went to Jasper's site and found Jasper in his stand with a nice cinnamon bear at the bait drum. The bear didn't pay us much attention and I approached him snapping pictures of him on my camera. Only when I got to 10 to 12 yards from him, did he decide to retreat a few steps down the well beaten bear trail behind the drum. Linda, Karl, & Jasper all joined me by the bait barrel as the bear stood 20 to 25 yards away in the bush. He wasn't the least bit concerned about us and in fact appeared to be quite annoyed that we had interrupted his meal. Then he started swaying his head back and forth and sure enough here he comes bouncing his way towards the four of us huffing and puffing trying to make as much noise as he can. This bluff charge stopped well short of us and I picked up a stick and charged up the trail at him hollering as I went. He took off but would only go as far as I would chase him and then stop. It was very obvious that we had a bear with more attitude than I like to see around a bait site. In judging this bear he looked like a young boar which had beautiful cinnamon coloring and would make a fine trophy. We made our way to Jasper's downed bear and found it to be a boar measuring just over 6'. While we were examining this bear, the first bear paced back and forth in the bush keeping a distance of about 20 yards but in plain view. Karl & I had to cut a trail to the downed bear so we gave Linda the 30-30 to guard the bear and Jasper. I don't think Jasper was too happy with this arrangement but I had a lot of confidence in her shooting ability as she has shot her fair share of bear, moose and deer. We got to the downed bear and loaded him without any incident but that other bear stayed right in our face. Even when we had just left the site, I went back to retrieve Jasper's arrow that was stuck in the ground and had only gotten a few steps away from the bait barrel when that bear came in and started eating. I thought it best to get rid of this bear and put another rifle hunter at this bait for the next couple of days. The hunter saw other black bears at the site but there was no sign of this cinnamon bear for the rest of the season. For you coming next year this bear should be still around, and bigger, and hopefully someone can teach him some manners. I also do not want alarm any of our future hunters with these stories as every year there are always lots of stories in bear camp. Black bear can never be trusted and should be treated as such. They will sometimes exhibit aggressive behavior to establish there dominance at a bait site but there is food at the site so they are not looking at hunters as their next meal. Bears that come up your tree or ladder can be easily scared off by stomping on your tree stand platform, talking to the bear, or taping him on the nose with a stick or arrow. (don't use your foot) They have only come up the tree because they don't know what you are and are curious. Hunting out of a ground blind may seem more intimidating but the same holds true with the tree stands as the bear are approaching the blinds out of curiosity and talking to the bear or movement in the blind will scare the bear away. But don't get me wrong, whether you hunt out of a stand or a ground blind you will get excited. When you stop getting excited that's the time you should probably quit hunting bear. Gavyn Ketterling & Elizabeth Rinke from WY. decided to spend their honeymoon this year with us and what a great way to do so by shooting trophy bear & catching trophy fish. They hunted the first couple of days hunting together and then decided to split up. The first night that they did this they both shot nice bears. Both were black and measured 6'4" & 6'6" nose to tail. I'm not going to say who has the bragging rights on the biggest trophy but taking two bear on the same night made for a nice trip. Congratulations on your marriage, trophy bear & fish. We did not shoot any bears this year in excess of 7' but had 2 bears that were almost identical at 6'll" and in the 375 to 400 lb. mark. As I had mentioned earlier Dale Hartman was one of these lucky hunters with the 2nd hunter, Arnold Jungreithmeier coming all the way from Austria to hunt with us. Only 2 bears that we harvested this year were under 6' with the remainder being between 6' & 7' with many meeting or exceeding Pope & Young measuring requirements.(18 inches) Twenty percent of the bear that we harvested were color phase bears. Out of all our hunters only one did not shoot a bear although he did have shooting opportunity at bear but decided to pass on a shot. The average time this year spent on stand per hunter was 3.5 days (evening hunts only) and the average number of bears seen by each hunter was four. The bear population appears to be in great shape with a good number of large bears still in our area. So for those of you hunting with us next year we are looking forward to having a great season with you for the bear and "yes" all those really big fish went back in the lake so they will be also be waiting for you as well. So, if you've got fishing friends or just want to fish yourself, by all means come and visit us. Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com This article was written by Grey Owl Outfitters in Manitoba Canada & submitted with permission by Canadian Hunting Trips, an online directory resource for Canadian Fishing Lodges |
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