. Luckily I was able to fish and camp on the three baiting trips I did, making them a lot more enjoyable. This year I baited with popcorn and dog food and choose two baiting locations located in funnels of dry land (mature mixted forest) between lake and marshes where I tought the bears were going to travel during the rut in late june. One of the barrels (accessible by canoe only) got hit the first week but the other one wasn't hit at all when I showed up on the last baiting trip (It had been there 3 weeks already).
So I took a week of vaction to go and do the killing after all the hard work and miles put into baiting those bears.
I showed up on june 24, one week before the end of bear season and set up my camp for my week of solo hunting and fishing ahead. At 6h30 in the afternoon I decided to dress up and go visit the barrel (bait site) that hadn't been hit yet. I drove to about a 1/4 mile of the bait and then started walking with my bow in hand towards the bait located on and old logging road inaccessible by any type of vehicle. after 100 yards I started seeing bear tracks in the sand and about 40 yards from the barrel I saw a few bear scats on the trail. It's only when I got to about 20 yards of the bait that I saw a small bear (100 pounds) laying on the ground feeding on popcorn. The bear immediately saw me and took of running, but as it did that I saw another bear (bigger one) move from behind the barrel and look at me. It was a bit quartering to, but I took the shot, heard him run a little bit and then stop and kinda moan a little... Adrenaline rush for sure ! I backed out and went back to camp to get all I needed for dragging and/quartering the bear.
I found the bear about 30 yards from where I had shot him and started the heavy lifting... took me two hours to get it in the truck and I had to detach the rear legs from the body to be able to lift it in the trunk. I was up until one o'clock butchering and making sure the meat was cooled properly...
Working on it...
