A little prelude - this is a gun kill. After waiting 14 years for a permit, we wanted to tip the scales in our favor in any way we could.
The last week before his hunt was to begin, one way or the other, we got the stands baited every day. We were getting so many daylight pics we stopped saving them. The kids actually started to name the bears - Lucky Charms, Vector, Cookie Monster and so on. It was crazy.
Finally, around 6:15 or so, we heard a crack in the swamp off to my left. Than a “sploosh” in the water out in front of us. I motioned to my son in law which trail I thought he’d be coming in on and it was less than a minute later he was straight out in front of us, about 30 yards or so, headed for the bait.
In the Baldwin Unit, bait hunters have the woods to themselves the first day but after that, the dog hunters are free to roam. It was really important to us to try to get it done the first night.
My son in law didn’t hesitate the moment the bear gave him a nice shot. The bear ran off into the swamp about 30 or 40 yards and the woods went silent. We waited a few moments for a death moan but didn’t hear anything.
When I had gotten back to the stand, I wanted in the worst way to go back to where we had left off but I waited for my son in law. This was going to be HIS moment.
We walked back in to where we had left off the night before and slowly went another 10 feet or so before we found the trail forked. I went one way and my son in law went the other. We were mere feet apart but couldn’t see each other. I hadn’t gone but 20 feet and there laid the bear.
I think if you’ve been there, you know what that feels like. The night before you’re 99% sure but that 1% is still huge and when you see him laying there, it’s the best feeling in the world.
Our original plan was to just skin the bear but because he was bigger then the sled/tub we had to pull him out with, we decided to gut the bear and create a little more room to tightly strap the bear’s legs into the tub.
The trip out was just that - a trip but after an hour or so and several winch pulls, we made it from the stand back to the truck and headed back to the cabin.
It was so fun having our daughter and Gail there with us that day. The only thing better would have been to have had the boys there with us.
Thanks for following along!
in the photo in question, 9/8, looks like a bobcat
Congrats on the bear!
"A once-in-a-career opportunity in the state of Michigan just took place,” said DNR wildlife technician Don Brown, who helped bring the animal north last week.
After a Sanilac County farmer notified the department that an "easily approachable" lynx had been feeding on his domesticated geese, the animal was trapped in Harbor Beach last month and moved to the Howell Nature Center's Wildlife Rehabilitation Clinic to evaluate its health, officials said.
The cat was verified to be a Canada lynx, which are listed as a threatened species in Michigan. They typically are found in boreal spruce-fir forests in Canada and Alaska.
Alexis... I thought a LOT about you and April this fall. Over the years I’ve learned a lot from you and it extends beyond bear hunting. Blessings to both of you.
Greg... (Grape), you prob haven’t seen this yet but thanks for your encouraging texts. I don’t know if there is anyone who knows more about bears and bear hunting than you. And nobody is as fun to be in bear camp then you.
Chris... thanks also for your encouragement and help. I don’t know if there’s anyone who’s as passionate about bear hunting as you are.
Re the “freaky” picture... I included it because it created a ton of interest and conversation between us. We thought everything from dog, to wet fawn, to bobcat. It’s a crazy pic for sure. Unfortunately we only got one.
When Gail and I baited, it was our habit to go in, bait, I’d suck the pics off the card onto my phone and then when we got back to the truck, Gail would go over them as I drove back to the cabin or to the other site. When she saw that pic, it was pretty funny... she said, “What is THAT?!?!”
Sorry about all the trail cam pics but it was such a huge part of the fun we all had. Two things I have really enjoyed over the years on this site are Alexis’s spring threads with all the trail cam pics and Chris’s threads where you get to see pics of “the story behind the story”. I tried to do a little of both.
MT Livin - no, we never did get a weight on him. Wish we had but we had no scale at the cabin.
He wasn’t the biggest one we had on camera and pics don’t do him justice but he was a nice bear for sure. So happy for our son in law!
