Bearpaw Season - Spring 2016

[Mark251]

Nice birds!  Congratulations 

[bearpaw]

Bear Hunting Begins
Growing up in the northeast and becoming a hunting guide I've been a very lucky person to spend so much time outdoors hunting. In all these years I can never remember such an early spring. Everything has been earlier this year. On the turkey opener I found fresh bear tracks and scat but we decided to wait another two weeks to start bear hunting.

Guided Hunt
We started our first bear hunt a few days ago. The first two days it poured rain and was too cold, we weren't expecting that and it certainly impacted our bear hunt in a negative way. Finally yesterday the sun came out early and it warmed up. The hunter missed a bear yesterday morning, then in the evening they spotted a big bear just before dark at long distance. They quickly closed in but the big bear eluded them in the final minutes of light. They went after that bear again this morning, guide Daniel sent me a text, the big bear outsmarted us again, so they must have saw him again but didn't close the deal, they are still hunting.

Unguided Hunt
We also have 3 unguided hunters in camp hunting turkey and bear. I sent them to a good area for both, the first morning they called in a nice tom but wasn't able to close the deal. Yesterday they nailed a very nice bearded hen and the lady shot at a bear, unfortunately she didn't get the bear, but at least they are in animals, they have to go back home for work but should be able to come back, so it's probably just a matter of time until she notches her bear tag.

[bearpaw]

Yesterday our guided hunter Sean and Guide Daniel were after the big bear again first thing in the morning, they could have shot at 300 yards and at 175 yards but Sean didn't feel comfortable with the shot so they didn't shoot while hoping for a better chance. The bear disappeared so they left and planned to check on the big bear again the next morning. Daniel went to a different spot where they spotted another decent bear, Sean shot but didn't get the bear so they headed back to the house to shoot the gun on paper. After some fine tuning on the scope they headed back out for the evening, as luck would have it they spotted another bear, Sean put the cross hairs where they belong and squeezed the trigger as the bear was taking it's last breath, a one shot kill, he dropped the bear. Not the biggest bear they had seen, a young boar, but Sean was very happy that he connected and he said he will be applying for another tag next year with his hunting buddy so they can both come back for another hunt.

Congrats and thanks Sean! 

[justyhntr]

  Crowinghen and I will be putting in for spring bear in your area next year to .

[bearpaw]

Our next hunter isn't here yet, so Daniel had a day off to work on his truck and sneak in a little turkey hunt for himself, notice the new camouflage pattern he was product testing, it works surprisingly well!   

[bearpaw]

Crowinghen and I will be putting in for spring bear in your area next year to .

Awesome, we would love to see you both nail a nice bear! 

[sirmissalot]

We'll be back tomorrow night Dale, we've sweet talked our moms into letting us hunt over the weekend! It will probably be late but we will see you Saturday

[bearpaw]

We'll be back tomorrow night Dale, we've sweet talked our moms into letting us hunt over the weekend! It will probably be late but we will see you Saturday

I have been out hunting, so just found your message, look forward to seeing you again. 

[bearpaw]

Our next hunter was Dale, gotta be a great guy with a name like that, LOL.

Now that another bear hunter arrives it started raining again, I couldn't believe it. We waited for the heavy rain to slow and then headed out late morning. We saw a beautiful rusty colored bear but we didn't get a shot at him before he disappeared, even though he wasn't big his color just about killed him. About an hour before dark we got onto another little better black bear. Dale decided to pass and wait for a little bigger bear so we let the black bear walk.

On day two yesterday I hunted the morning and we found where two really big boars were living, both had nice big tracks, but we couldn't find either bear. I had to take care of some other business mid day so Daniel dropped me off and they continued to hunt. They saw another bigger bear in the afternoon but it never gave them a good shot opportunity. In the evening they snuck up on another black bear that they watched, not as big as Dale originally wanted but he decided to shoot this one and dropped it with one shot. The bear has about 4 inch long thick hair, it will make a dandy rug.

Nice going Dale and Daniel! 

[jrebel]

Beautiful bear 

[sirmissalot]

We've sure been having a blast Dale, looking forward to this weekend! I'll try and work up a little more of a story on Chases bear at some point but here are a couple of field photos for now. I've got some great videos to share as well once I figure out how to post those. We sure appreciate your help so far and your hospitality

[Tschaefer72]

Love the color on that bear. Look forward to more pics and videos!

[bearpaw]

It was great having you folks back over for the weekend again. Here's another photo of Chase's bear hanging up. It's the best colored bear yet this season. I'll send the photo to your email too. See you next weekend! 

[bearpaw]

This morning we started a new turkey hunt with Mark and Tom from South Carolina and their friend Matt is along to video the hunt. I put Tom in a blind where we've been seeing a couple toms and I took Mark and Matt with me. We checked out one property and found nothing and couldn't get any answers, I felt kind of foolish after expressing so much confidence the evening before at dinner. We did hear a couple birds gobble on the neighbor place but that really doesn't count.

I headed for another property with my tail between my legs, I told the guys we would try to spot some birds to go after since we weren't getting any gobbles. We spotted from several locations and saw nothing but a couple hens and no birds would gobble so I figured we'd go to another property. Sooner or later if we kept covering ground we were bound to find some chest hair. As we were leaving we all spotted some birds right on top of the highest ridge, I stopped and we glassed them, sure enough there were at least two birds with full fans strutting.

I drove around to the back side of the ridge and we hiked to the top from the backside. As we carefully crested the top of the ridge I knew we had to be close, I stopped short of looking over the other side, Mark and I sat down behind a big old pine stump, Matt sat down 10 yards behind us with camera running. I made a couple soft calls and was greeted with several hen yelps, it sounded like they were only 50 or 60 yards away. We didn't dare move so I swapped calls with the birds as they got closer and closer. Suddenly two heads pop up to our right about 5 yards away. 

As the two jakes walked slowly past the end of the gun barrel at 3 or 4 yards another couple heads popped up, we had 4 birds less than 5 yards from us, I tried hard to keep from blinking or breathing too heavy. I was watching a spot 20 yards awy where I had expected the gobbler to appear. The jakes made a half circle around us with the hens not far behind, they began to putt so I figured I'd better call to where the gobbler was at. The jakes gobbled and then the gobblers gobbled, they were just barely out of sight. All the birds were putting, I looked closer at the bigger bird, he had a bit of a beard and looked 30% bigger than the other jake, I whispered "The big bird might be a mature bird with a short beard?"

BOOM, bigger bird down, we quickly looked over the hill and Mark hammered the gobbler over the hill, the bird rolled but didn't stay down, I was trying to catch the 1st bird before he went over the steep part of the hill, I said "Mark, run after the bird you hit and shoot him again!". Mark quickly closed the gap and nailed the other gobbler again. Awesome, two birds down!

We tagged the birds, took photos and video, and then sat down for a few minutes to savor the view, these guys had never been to such a scenic spot before. We hiked back to the truck and headed for home to clean birds. The smaller bird was a big jake with a 6" beard and the bigger bird had 1" spurs with a 9" beard.  I love it when a plan comes together! We had hot wings for lunch and have Tom set up in another good spot for the afternoon hunt.

[Machias]

What a pretty coat on that bear.  Looks really thick!!