We are looking forward to a great adventure a trip like this brings, and hopefully the bounty of a few bears to bring back with us. I’ll have my camera with me and hopefully will catch a lot of the trip and be able to share some of the photos out here.

A question I’ve been asked a few times is what does the bear population look like and how will this season be. By all reports Maine and really all of New England is expecting a very good year. Here is excerpts from an article on the bear forecast from New England Fish & Game.

 New England’s 2006 Black Bear Forecast

Things are looking good for New England’s black bear hunters in 2006. Here’s the lowdown on what you can expect when you head for the woods this fall. (August 2006)

By Al Raychard

Based on the most recent harvest reports, bear hunters in New England had a slow season last fall. Although some harvest figures were still preliminary at the time of this writing, in Massachusetts and from Vermont across to Maine, hunters registered 20 to 40 percent fewer bears than in 2004, making 2005 one of the poorest seasons in years.

After several years of record-breaking or near record-breaking harvests in all four states, the obvious question is, why was 2005 so unproductive? Certainly not because the bears aren’t out there. According to biologists, black bear populations are on the rise throughout the region. And with bears showing up in areas where they haven’t been seen in modern times, there is mounting evidence that bears are also increasing their range.

Jennifer Vashon, the Bear Project leader for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, suggests several factors that may have contributed to the lower harvest.

“I can’t say what happened elsewhere,” she said, “but bad weather and poor hunting conditions during the first weeks of the season led to lower hunter success in Maine.”

Weather conditions can have a strong impact on hunter success, especially if bad weather occurs early in the season, Vashon said. Poor hunting conditions were reported across Maine last year.

There was also a bumper mast crop last fall throughout northern New England’s top bear range. Years with big nut and berry crops generally result in high harvests because when food is abundant, bears den late. In Maine and New Hampshire, bear activity on baits during the baiting season — traditionally the most productive hunting period — can be slowed due to the availability of natural foods. In Maine, lower hunter participation means that simply fewer hunters were in the woods to take advantage of the situation.

Another factor may have contributed to the lower-than-normal harvest. A number of Maine guiding operations reported lower hunter participation due to the uncertainty of the referendum to prohibit traditional hunting methods in Maine.

“Many hunters opted to hunt in 2004, but probably didn’t book hunts for 2005,” Vashon says.

Whatever the reason for last fall’s low yield, biologists generally agree on one thing: There will be plenty of bears out there this fall. As usual, weather conditions will play a role, but most managers are predicting that not only will hunter participation be back to normal, but so will the numbers of bears harvested.

There’s also another thing to look forward to. Last winter was one of the driest and mildest on record. There are several reports of bears leaving the dens early this spring, which means they will have more time to put on some weight before the fall seasons.

Bigger bruins is always good news.

 MAINE
Maine is home to more bears than any state in the Lower 48, and more than in some provinces north of the border. Wildlife officials estimate Maine’s bear population at 23,000 animals. According to biologist Vashon of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, the harvest levels in recent years have stabilized the bear population in accordance with the department’s management goal.

Between 2000 and 2004, according to Vashon, Maine’s bear harvests have been rather consistent, with a meager 1 percent difference between three of the four years — in 2000, 2001 and 2003 — when the harvest was 3,900 or higher. In 2002, hunters took 3,512 bear, but that was a low mast year, and in 2004, the harvest was 3,123.

At the time of this writing, final harvest figures for 2005 were not available. But in early October of last fall, the harvest for weeks 1 through 4 was estimated at 1,872 to 2,908 bears, using the regression equation first developed in 2002. That equation is based on fifteen years of bear-harvest data collected from registration stations after the first four weeks of the season. The 2005 figure during that period compares to 3,470 taken during the same period in 2004. Even with an additional 305 bears added to the October 2005 figure — which is the average for weeks 5 through 13 in recent years — the 2005 harvest should be between around 2,350 and 3,050, the lowest harvest since 1998, or up to 40 percent fewer than in the past five years. Considering last year’s low harvest, Maine hunters can expect plenty of bear this fall and plenty of opportunities to bag one.

Bigger and more is even better news.

I plan to go after mine with a muzzleloader not quite ready to try to tackle one with a bow yet. I hope to be able to get on here and update everyone on the trip and hopefully to post some great bear photos.

I pretty much enjoy hunting no matter what the game is but I have noticed that there are some groups of hunters that are very serious. For some reason waterfowl hunting attracts a bunch of them. I’m more the “Blue Collar” type hunting and it’s always interesting when I cross paths with the “gentleman duck hunter”.

I can really relate to Bob Cleveland’s article in the Clarion-Ledger

about duck hunting check out these stories he tells;

 When a duck hunter reaches his limit
By Bobby Cleveland
Gannett News Service
As much as I detest duck hunting, it is involved in two of my favorite stories in which I had a role.

I really don’t hate the sport. It has many fine qualities, including camaraderie in a duck blind and the sight of mallards funneling down in a Delta brake.

But even those can’t offset getting wet, walking in mud and freezing my butt off, and when I get a limit of either, my tolerance level gets extremely low, very fast.

TOO MUCH SQUEAKING …

My first experience with motorized decoys came more than a decade ago on a cold morning, in sleet and rain, in a muddy rice field in Arkansas.

Four of us were sitting in grass on a levee in a flooded corner. Out front we had a nice spread of decoys, and in the center were two rotating-wing duck decoys. Another outdoor writer had brought them on a trial basis.

“Newest thing. S’posed to work good,” he said. “Company sent them for us to review.”

The sun rose, no ducks flew and it was much too cold to have no ducks flying. Those two decoys kept spinning, until one tired and began to squeak. It was soon as brutal as fingernails on a chalk board, and we were demanding it be removed when …

“Good Lord, look at the mallards,” someone said. “They’re coming in.”

Must have been 40 or 50 in the first load, with hundreds more circling above them.

But, the first arrivals never dropped in. They got close, flew circles out of gun range, flared and left, taking the rest with them.

“Do you think it was that decoy?” asked the writer. He got his answer loud and clear.

Without a word, the other two guys shot the squeaker. I rose and killed the other.

“Just in case it wanted to whine,” I said.

… TOO MUCH HOIDY-TOIDY

Another winter, I was in a duck blind in the Mississippi Delta with several famous waterfowl journalists. I know they were famous, not because I’d heard of them but because they said so. They were talking hoidy-toidy about all things duck, while I sat shivering in sleet and gale-force winds.

After an hour or so, the only ducks we saw landed out of range but did swim over.

“Somebody spook ‘em,” one guy said.

I volunteered, told them to get ready, stood up and killed three – ducks, not writers – with one shot and a fourth with another, all on the water. A limit of mallards – and hoidy-toidy – is what I had.

“You stupid —-! You dirty —-!” they were yelling, all except my friend Cuz Strickland of Mossy Oak.

“Seems to me, it’s 4-0,” Cuz whispered.

I cased my shotgun, pulled out my flask, toasted the other guys and took a sip.

Brandy, with a smirk chaser … mighty fine.

Bobby Cleveland is an outdoors writer for The Clarion-Ledger, a Gannett newspaper in Jackson, Miss. Contact him at bcleveland@clarionledger.com.

The last story reminds me of a goose hunt I was on a number of years ago. There is a farmer that was having a lot of problems with geese he wanted us to slay some. This farmer lets us hunt pretty regularly on his farm and we wanted to assist him any way we could. There was only two of us that morning but the farmer contacted his neighbor that was a big shot in the local Ducks Unlimited Chapter.

There was about 30 geese sitting on one of the farm ponds the plan was to sneak up on them from below the dam and then pop up on them. We wait till legal shooting time we pop up over the dam and begin laying down a good cover fire on the geese. My buddy and I laid out 7 geese with our 6 shots and scrambling to reload before the flock got out of range. Mr. DU never fired his gun and he looked shocked at what he just witnessed. He left shortly after that and the numerous hunts I’ve been on since then he has never been back that I know of.

Some believe that if you don’t shoot the birds over decoys with the wings cupped and coming to your textbook calling techniques then it’s not a hunt to be proud of. Myself I enjoy those hunts but sometimes your faced with a situation we were facing that morning and a farmer who sees these “feathered goats” tearing up his crops and he just wants them dead. Doing whatever you can that’s legal to kill as many geese as possible is what makes the landowner happy and keeps the invites to hunt the property coming.

My upcoming season will begin in the northern Maine Bear woods. I leave in less then two weeks for the opening week and when I get back to North Carolina the Resident Goose season will be started. The daily bag limit has been raised to 8 a day, now that makes me smile. I hope to start the season out with a bang.

The best season is about to start… Hunting Season…. So Smile.

North Carolina Waterfowl Hunters now is the Time to be Heard

The annual waterfowl meetings for the state have been announced. Here is a great opportunity to get out and ask those questions or voice concerns about waterfowl in North Carolina.