Maine Bear Hunt 2008 Part One
Where to begin the story of my latest adventure is always the question I struggle with. When your adventure involves a 1200 mile drive it seems to me you have to include something about that part of the story. Suffice it to say 2 hours to drive 14miles on the Massachusetts Turnpike will be burned into my memory for a long time. The rest of the trip is pretty much a blur but I’ll tell you the slight roll back in gas prices has put a lot of the folks back on the road.
Monday morning I met up with John from R&S Guide Service and rode along with him on his bait run to refill the bait sites. John makes this run daily and the other guide Russ makes a similar run to keep the bait sites up. John’s run is about 70 miles with about 20 or so stops where he refills the buckets with a bait mixture that looks like a mixture of granola & pastries.
At some of the sites that don’t seem to have much activity he sprays a secret scent attractant that smells like a mixture of a Starbucks Coffee Shop and a good old BBQ Joint. Don’t know if it works on the bears but I’m wondering what’s for lunch and how long has it been since I had breakfast.
The use of bait when it comes to hunting is often a controversial issue with some thinking it makes it too easy for the hunter. The reality is whether it’s bears in the north or deer in the south a bait pile does not guarantee a hunter a kill. Animals coming into a bait site do not ignore their senses and if one thing be it a smell, or a sound, or movement they will be gone in a flash. The use of a bait site is also a good management tool often giving the hunter the opportunity to observe the animal closely making sure this is an animal they want to kill. In the case of bears we want to make sure we only kill boars or sows without cubs bait sites increase the opportunity for the hunter to identify the bear and whether it has cubs with it.
The bears can access the bait at any time and more often then not will access it after it becomes dark and hunting has ended. Hunting bears is important to maintain the proper balance of nature so the population does not explode impacting other species as well maintaining the natural fear of man. Baiting and using hounds are the methods most often used to hunt bears in Maine. The rural economy gets an economic boost from hunters like myself traveling to Maine for the great hunting.
Bear meat is excellent table fare, despite what many say, my family and I truly enjoy the many meals a bear will provide us.
John takes me into the place I’ll be hunting this week it’s through a broccoli field, into an overgrown hay field and down the hill into a swampy heavily wooded area. I’ll be hunting from a ground blind a mere 11 yards from the bait site. There is a bunch of trails winding through this area with a few passing on all sides of my blind. Having hunted bears before I know how silently they can come in so the multi trails especially the ones behind me give me a bit of a chill up and down my spine as we complete setting up the blind. I’ll return in a few hours to begin my hunt in the mean time we have a bait run to complete.
In part two of this series I’ll share with you the hunt and whether or not a bear came down the trail behind me and joined me in the blind.
Story & Photos by Dan McLaughlin AKA Moose
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