“Foot Race With A Bear” Part 3 Of Maine Bear Hunt
This is a 4 part series on my Maine Bear Hunt, in part one I covered some of the background information and the hunt set up, in part two I talked about my first day on stand and some of the products that helped me be successful.
Bears and bear hunting for whatever reason is a lot different then many of the other hunting we do. Unless you have a lot of experience judging the size of a bear is extremely difficult. Hunters will know the term ground shrinkage and with deer it usually means you shoot what you think is a nice 10 pt and when you recover it you discover a basket 8 or maybe even a 6 pt. Hunters usually judge bears by their weights (record books actually use skull measurements) and they tend to over estimate the weight by a lot. Maine has a very good bear population with the average bear weighing in around 150-200 lbs 300 and up is a trophy bear.
I don’t know about anyone else but hunting predators can be a bit unnerving if you really think about it. No matter the size of the bear when it gets inside your comfort zone it makes your hair stand up on end and gives you an adrenalin rush. Tuesday’s hunt was going to do this because of how it all came to be.
I arrived at the blind site around 2pm to find that a bear or bears had discovered it and tore it down. I quickly and quietly as possible put the ground blind back together and put my pack in it and rested my gun against a tree. I then took the bait I brought in to the bait bucket a mere 11 yards away and dumped it in and started to return to the blind. A few feet from the blind I noticed some fresh bear droppings probably from the culprit that rearranged the blind. As I was looking at it I heard a noise I turned and looked and caught a flash of black behind the bait site. The bear was coming in fast and I wasn’t even in the blind nor did I have my gun with me. Looking back it seemed like a foot race between him and I, he going for the bait and me for the blind. I’m not sure who won because when I looked up he was at the bait.
This turned out to be a small bear probably one of last years cubs he had to stand on his tip toes to get into the bait. His initial arrival was certainly an adrenalin rush and he entertained me after that. He came into the bait early everyday to avoid any confrontations with other bears I’m sure. His approach to the bait from directly behind was not the typical approach other bears were using judging by the trails. I started calling this guy Booboo and was hopeful he would bring Yogi in with him one day.
The only other thing that happened to me on Tuesday was halfway out of the woods my flashlight died. I lost the trail out and ended up hitting a soft place in the swamp sinking almost to my knees. Luckily I had the bucket with me that I carried the bait in with that I could use it to pull myself out.
Other then Booboo I didn’t see any other bears on Tuesday or Wednesday. Everyday I arrived at the blind to find it dismantled by bears the night before and I found fresh scat close to it like he was taunting me. Thursday would have to be the day because it was the last one I could hunt. So join me for part four and hear how this hunt ends.
Story & Photo by Dan McLaughlin AKA Moose
[...] But we’re hopefully getting that back today or tomorrow. Anyways, playing catch-up, here is the 3rd and rather exciting installment of Moose’s black bear hunt in Maine. I don’t care if he was a small bear, unnerving to say the [...]
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