This hunting story is for our recovering buddy, sixshot. He always posts some great hunting stories for all to enjoy, so here's one for him since he can't hunt this year.
The 13th of June found me on-line watching the Maine moose drawings, which resulted in a swing and a miss for the eighth year in a row. As soon as the final name was pulled, my buddy, Jesse Cote of Backwoods Guide Service, gave me a call. He asked if I'd like to come up on a bear hunt since I didn't draw a moose tag. I thought about it a couple seconds and said "Heck Yeah!" - Especially since my Africa hunt was COVIDified. Jesse is normally booked up a year out for bear, but due to the COVID he'd had several hunters cancel. He told me he had several spots available for the opening week, so I started contacting handgun hunters to form a posse. Out of twenty some odd invites, only three were available to attend due to the short notice or other conflicting hunts. The posse wound up being myself, Randy Barnett (randominator), Matthew Nash (cmnash), and Don McCullough, a co-worker.
On the 29th of August, we met in Bangor, ME and drove up to Caribou where we'd be staying for the duration of our hunt. Our three and half hour drive was nothing but heavy rain the complete trip - we were on the tail-end of hurricane Laura. Our arrival was a day and half early to have time to do a little grocery shopping, buy license/tags, check weapon zeros, and just relax and shoot the bull before opening day.
Sunday and Monday brought cool weather with N-NW winds. Lows were in the low 40's and highs in the upper 60's - a welcome change to our southern temps that had been in the mid 90's with high humidity. Opening morning had all the hunters in camp excited about the afternoons hunt after Jesse conducted his orientation and showed everyone pictures of bears coming to the stands they'd be hunting.
The first evening proved to be eventful. Don's set-up was on fire! He had barely had time to get situated in his stand, when a bruin showed up. Don was looking through and adjusting his red dots brightness and a big bear appeared in his sight! All was going great until he missed!
Unbeknown to Don, his red dot sight had tanked on him the previous day while doing sight checks. Oh well, it provided for some good memories and it was only the first sitting.
Later that evening, Randy's stand also produced an opportunity. Randy had a great set-up with a 40 yard maximum shot...
...
Just before legal light was up, Randy had a bear come into the bait. He capitalized on the chance to take his first bear...
...
His custom Ruger Bisley in 45 Colt, by Gary Reeder, planted a 250 XTP at 1327 fps, right where it counted - tagged out. Just after legal light, I had two bear come in to my set-up ? one was huge!
Once everyone returned to camp, well, you know what happened. If you've ever been in a camp with other hunters (friends), you know the shirt tail ceremony starts. When Don started with the sad singing and slow walking, the pocket knife came out. Being that it wouldn't be fair for just one person to partake in the ceremony - we all got to cut.
Me...
.
...Randy...
... and Matt.
... and thanks to Matts poetic talents, Don left a nice memento at the lodge.
Day two required a change of plans. Once Laura had completely passed, we got a 180 degree change in the wind - straight out of the south at 16 mph. Most all of the set-ups were set for a prevailing NW wind, so Jesse and his crew got busy moving stands to play the wind. The only issue with this was that I wouldn't be hunting the same spot I'd seen the huge bear, but that was ok because there was plenty bear according to camera evidence. Don got his red dot swapped out and zeroed and that afternoon we headed back out for round two. The site I was at looked great. The area was very thick and the maximum shot opportunity was 45 yards - just right for iron sights. Once I got settled into the stand, around 4:45pm, I was immediately on high alert! I knew I wouldn?t see, nor hear, an approaching bear. Even when there's no wind and you're looking at a bear, most times you will not hear it - it's as if they're floating on air. I ranged the bait barrel at 31 yards and got ready.
In approximately 20 minutes, I saw movement in the dark shadows behind the barrel. It was the tan muzzle of a bear testing the wind. It stood there about 30 seconds and turned and left. It didn't worry me because it was still very early and I figured it would be back. Sure enough, about 10 minutes later its head emerged from the thick grass to my left, but he was gone as quick as he appeared. He did this appearing/disappearing act a couple more time over the next 10 minutes and then he finally committed to walking out in the open ten yards behind the bait barrel - 5:28 pm. It was a respectable size bear, bigger than my previous bear, so I didn't hesitate on cocking the hammer on my 6" Freedom Arms M83 44 mag and bringing that front sight into focus. Once I was happy with the sight picture, the squeeze began. The 260gr PC Keith style bullet, by Dick Thompson (sixshot), found its mark tight behind the onside shoulder. Before I could gather my thoughts, I heard the death moan. He?d made it about 45 yards and was done.
It's always a great feeling to fill a tag early in the hunt. Now Randy would have someone the lie to at camp. Still no luck for Don and Matt.
Day three was still consistent with the south winds, which wasn't effecting Don?s set-up, so he went back to his same stand and Matt was moved to a different stand that was showing evidence of daytime activity - Matt had not seen a bear up to this point. At approximately 5:30pm, Don had activity at his barrel site.
This time, his red dot was true and so was the shot. He let the 240gr Winchester Platinum Tip fly from the Ruger Bisley Hunter, striking just behind the shoulder on a quartering away shot. She made it 50 yards and down.
Matt finally seen some bears, but well after legal light.
The opening week of season turned out to be a great week, for most. Out of 14 hunters in camp, 13 took a bear. The only person that didn't have an opportunity was in our party - Matt. We boiled his tag, along with some Maine lobsters, so it would go down much easier...
All-in-all, we had a great time! Great tales around a camp fire while enjoying the beautiful view...
We met and made some new friends...
,
...made lasting memories and came home with plenty of bear meat?
I also got the shoot Matt's infamous shiny Ruger?
... and Randy?s custom 510 GNR?
2020 Maine Black Bear hunt....
