To get rid of winter blahs, I recently dug out some old 35mm glossy photos of some bear hunts, a moose hunt, an Africa trip, and my motorcycles. I had recently lost a pile of my digital pics somewhere in my computer. So I thought it might be a good idea to try and redeem the situation, somewhat, by taking pics of some of these old photos with my digital camera. You can be the judge of how well that worked. While it’s obvious that they are not as sharp as the originals, yet they turned out well enough (I think) to help create a story line about hunting bruins, baiting them and bullets used.
This first black bear was shot by a fellow hunter at a bear camp that I used to go to each spring until The Premier of Ontario, Mr. Harris, had the spring hunt shut down for political reasons. The spring hunt was something that I looked forward to during the long winter months.
That particular bear was the largest taken at that camp that year, and is larger than many grizzly! As you see it here, it had lost it’s innards somewhere in the neighborhood of Algonquin Park, Ontario. If you Google Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario, you might be surprised by what you discover (But NOT the bear guts!)! The next 4 photos are of my first bear, and the first one shot with a Marlin in .45-70 — but not the last.
Location is Algonquin Lodge meatpole. The bear had been hanging overnight in a downpour! The story behind this bear is memorable!
The early morning routine at Algonquin Lodge was to rise in time for a good, hearty breakfast… somewhere between 8 am to 9:30 am. After that, if you wanted to offer a hand to the outfitter in checking baits, and replenishing any that needed it, you’d ride around with him in his pickup to visit a dozen or fifteen locations (he had up to 85!). Sometimes, depending on how busy he and his guides were, he’d send you off to check your own bait and refresh as needed. These bait sites were remote, and we had to travel over old, and sometimes new, logging roads. At times, ATV’s had to be employed to access more difficult areas. Many lakes, and streams, thick brush and mixed forest, as well as steep ridges and ravines created the landscape. In other words, rough country inhabited by all species of wildlife.
The stand that I chose for this bear hunt was a moose hunter’s platform built of sawed lumber and log poles… at about 15 feet above ground level on the side of a ridge with a moose trail about 30 feet to it’s right. The fall before, the moose hunters, at season’s end, had dropped the ladder, made of log poles, into the crotch of a mature twin maple.
This site interested me because I would be the first ever to use it — being a new site that had never been disturbed by bear hunters previously… and it was being hit regularly! But, there was a problem — that ladder! We replenished the site, and in driving away, I asked Norm, the outfitter, if “I could manage to get the ladder back in it’s place” to access the platform? “No problem”, he assured me! Those proved to be the most famous last words in my entire hunting career! So, around 3 pm I made my way, in the rain, to this remote, untouched, nouveau bait and stand setup. Did I mention the rain? Yes, I did, because everything… rocks, 2″ “sticks” from fallen branches piled 1-foot deep at the bottom of the tree, where they had collected over the past millenia, were as slippery as wet ice!
After struggling, in the rain all alone, for 2 1/2 hours, balancing on my little 8″ square plastic seat-backpack, I finally got the 150 lb ladder in place… and it was 6 pm, in the rain, when everything appeared “ready” for whatever. AND, I was dead beat, steaming hot with rain gear on, and fogged up glasses! I said out loud… “I’m here, and I’m gonna stay here until pitch dark if need be!” I’d expected any bear in the neighborhood to have long gone to the Province of Quebec due to all the racket from tramping around on the collection of broken wood at the bottom of the tree… the slipping and sliding, the grinding of poles on sawed timber, etc! (Why didn’t I remove that pile of “timber”? Without a photo, you couldn’t imagine it! With a diameter of 20 feet and one to two feet deep? Then, I was worn out by futile efforts to de-wedge the ladder from the crotch of the tree, which was growing, jamming the ladder in a vice-like grip!)
I leaned my 1895 Marlin over the rail (log pole) and aimed it at the bait setup… in about 5 minutes a big black bear walked out of the bush and started up the trail in the direction of “my tree”. He was gonna check out what all this noise was about… that had suddenly gone quiet! Where he appeared, there was an open area of green grass and he was silhouetted coal black against it at about 75 yards. Coming directly toward me, his head was up, swinging from side to side, his mouth open with his tongue sticking out testing the air. With eyes glued on him, I never exhaled! Then, satisfied all was well he did a 180 and lumbered directly back to the bait and turned broadside, as though all this had been previously rehearsed for a movie. I was watching him all the while through my scope set on 6X… and, yes, I was breathing again! Crosshairs were planted tight behind his right shoulder, trigger squeezed and the 400gr Speer left the muzzle at about 1865 fps, traveled the 100 yards in less than 1/3 second and impacted at just over 1500 fps…right where the crosshairs said it would.
There’s more to the story, but you see the photo of my son slightly lifting the right front leg to reveal a 3″ entrance hole! The bullet was too soft for that velocity, but it did the job anyway. The bear went 10 yards before piling up on his back in the alders with all four paws flailing the air. I gave him another in the neck-shoulder juncture from an offhand, standing position. A cloud of steam arouse from the alders.
(A younger Bob with “the bear”)
The rifle on the right was the one that made me a firm believer in the efficiency and effectiveness of a Big Bore.
In all, I attended The Algonquin Lodge bear camp for eight seasons. That’s where I learned how to hunt bear over bait, starting in the late 1980’s through to 1995. I also learned how to bait them. Beginning in September, 1995, I commenced baiting bear on my own in the Haliburton Highlands, 1 hour’s drive from my home. There were two teachers: 1) Norm, the outfitter, and 2) experience.
(Algonquin Lodge: L to R: son Brent with his M94 in .356 Winchester; friend Mike with his .308 BLR; me, in the orange hat with my trusty .45-70, and friend Bob with his .270 Win.)
You’ll note the variety of firearms and cartridges used in them, any one of which is adequate for most black bear under most circumstances. Notice too, that 3 are lever-actions and only one is a bolt-action. There are valid reasons for that — which we’ll take under review next time.
Brent went back to Africa, but on his next furlough he went with me to Algonquin Lodge again and shot a smallish bear with that rifle — a handload I’d put together for him: 220gr Speer at 2300 fps+. Here’s a pic of the rug he had made from it:
Not all bear rugs have to be gigantic! Especially, if the wife has anything to say about it!
Next time, more stories about bears and bear bullets.
Shalom
BOB MITCHELL