CANADA: Big Bears And Lots Of Them... Spring Rut In Saskatchewan

[Green Chile]

I just returned from spring bear camp in Saskatchewan with Spirit Creek Outfitters. This was my 3rd year in a row to hunt with them. Unlike most of my hunt reports, I won’t do a step by step retelling as you can learn most of that from my previous hunt reports with them. This report will key in on some new lessons learned and some thoughts on how to have a great bear hunt.

Last year, I went with a friend who has recently joined AH. He was very patient and looked through over 40 bears last year without drawing his bow. I still smile when I think of him coming back the last evening on stand and saying I didn’t get him but we are coming back! Bobby is also joining me on the AH dangerous game group hunt this summer in Africa. He’s a great bowhunter and local friend in DFW. He recently had neck surgery so this year he is hunting with my crossbow in Canada.

One change this year was our travel route and method. Usually we would fly from DFW to MSP to Saskatoon. From there it’s a 5 hour drive to camp. The tickets were $300-400 more this year for that route. This time, we flew to MSP then on to Minot, ND for a considerable savings. We rented a car there and drove across the border (just 1 hour north) and then about 5+ hours into camp. The border crossing on the ground was far superior to the airport customs experience where 20-30 hunters line up and get handled one at a time. That was a lot of time and hassle saved by not doing customs at the airport coming and going. The drive itself is easy and there is a lot of good looking farm country to transit through.

We knew it was going to be an interesting week of weather as the week before it had snowed and it was supposed to get into the 90’s this week! In fact, they broke heat records as it actually hit 98 degrees…crazy! Follow along as I share a few lessons learned as we chase big bears during the rut in Saskatchewan.

 

[MontanaPat]

Looking forward to more Brian!

 

[Green Chile]

One of the things I recommend to other hunters is knowing what kind of hunt you are looking for. Yes, this is a bait hunt for black bear but what kind of experience are you looking for? If you have never hunted bears before, trust the guides to put you into a higher odds setup. They will probably want you to see a lot of bears so you can gain some experience watching bear interaction and social behavior. Educating yourself is important and bears are unlike anything else I have hunted. You will want to get some experience judging bears in the field. Bears are kind of like people; some are tall and some are short…some are athletic and some are more of a couch potato…some have big heads and little bodies or vice versa. The only way to really learn is to observe as MANY bears as possible.

I know that I would prefer to see fewer bears on bait if they are older bears. I’ve experienced the small groups of younger bears coming into baits. I’ve enjoyed watching the sows with young cubs interacting at the bait. I’ve watched many sows send their cubs up the trees so she could fight off a big boar twice her size to protect her cubs. The boars will kill cubs just to put the sow back into heat. Sometimes cubs are killed within sight or earshot and believe me, it’s not a Disney cartoon. Real life in the big outdoors is harsh and Nature doesn’t much care what you think about that!

I say this because it’s one of the lessons I have learned in Canada. While the cardinal rules is “don’t guide the guide”, once they get to know you and understand some of your capabilities, don’t be afraid to share with them any goals you might have such as color phase or bigger bear than last year. My guides know what I’m looking for and they know I will put up with almost anything to take an older bear. Nasty mud…no problem. Super long ATV ride to the bait…bring it on. Last one into camp every night…even better! So after getting into camp and saying hello to old friends, the guides came to me and said we have an interesting bait site for you. It’s a really long drive to get there and we haven’t hunted it before but there is at least one awesome bear there…not many bears on camera but one is excellent and we think he is killable. Not every bear on camera is…but they thought we could work it out. I said without hesitation, I’m in. What a great way to get started and it’s good to be back!

 

[Green Chile]

Let's talk about what really matters in bear camp and that's your mindset. I get a lot of questions about everything BUT mindset. Yes gear matters to the extent of are you comfortable enough to sit for long hours in whatever weather spring throws at you. I've seen snow, endless mud, bugs that won't quit and now 98 degrees during the hunt. Caliber doesn't matter a lot unless you try to shoot one with a small, inappropriate cartridge. Think deer or elk or PG rifle with good bullets and you will be fine. All of these details are fun to plan and improve but your mindset is your secret weapon!

Mindset allows you to be optimistic when all evidence points towards feeling hopeless. Mindset helps you to focus when the bugs and heat are relentless. Mindset carries you forward when the bears aren't showing up. You can tell in bear camp when the mindset is present or missing in others. Guys that are losing it will be in different levels of frustration or despair. Guys that are locked in will be optimistic even though it's day 4 and they aren't seeing their target bear. Let's face it, these are long days in the stand with not much to look at and nothing to do. Bring a book or put your bluetooth ear buds in (one not both!) and listen to an audio book. Some even bring an iPad just to break it up. Whatever it takes for you to get in the stand and STAY for as long as it takes. Trust me when I say that your mindset will make all of the difference when you start to feel unlucky or even cursed as some would say. This subject of mindset would make the difference for some in camp and was certainly a repeated lesson to me.

 

[Green Chile]

Let me introduce you to my little friend...the Can Am 6 wheeler ATV. Without this, we could never have gotten around to all of the stands or gotten bait to all of the sites or hauled all of the bears back to the road. Our bait sites were scattered all over creation and there were around 56 of them being maintained all season. My particular site, called Blue Moon, was a 90 min drive from bear camp in the truck to the end of the road. Then the ATV came off the trailer for a 45 minute one way ride to the bait site. Most of the ride was in deep mud and swamp that seemed bottomless. We actually had to winch out just GOING to the stand. A regular 4x4 would have been buried and hopelessly stuck before getting to the site. Every ATV has a chainsaw onboard to deal with whatever has fallen into the trail since you were last there. Rubber muck boots are essential!

 

[Green Chile]

Bait is a primary subject for drawing and holding bears, particularly during the spring rut. The bait is actually to pull in the sows and cubs as they are eating after a long hibernation. Many of the boars will eat a few bites but they are focused on checking sows to be in heat. If the sows hang out around the bait, the boars will be close by. Boars will eat some before the rut but when that switches on, the dominant boars will be focused on the sows so you need to draw them in to where you can observe.

Some of the bait recipes I've seen are somewhat secret so I won't comment on too much of that. You basically need a bulk item like oats...mix that with binders like peanut butter, cooking oil, syrups, etc and then add some bonus items like meat scraps/bones, expired candies like M&Ms, gummy bears, etc and then get it into barrels that serve 2 purposes. #1 it holds the bait and slows down the consumption of bait by having small holes for them to shake it out of the barrel or the smaller bears can reach in and drag out small amounts. #2 the barrel serves as a reference point for sizing bears. If a barrel is upright and the bear is as tall as the barrel while standing on all four feet, then you have a mature bear to consider. There are other factors in sizing, which we will discuss soon.

There are other items that can be used to try and hold a bigger bear onsite longer such as expired beavers that have been trapped and can be used in several ways. You can attach one to a tree at a certain height to have another gauge of bear size or you can put them into heavy welded cages of rebar and chain them to a tree to try and keep a bear in a certain spot long enough to judge the size and get a shot. The art is in setting it all up so the bears will be in front of the bait instead of behind it. If your guides are better at this, then it gives you more opportunities to both field judge and take bears. It can be quite frustrating to have that bear lay behind the barrels when you are trying to size it or worse, you know it's the right bear and you can't get a shot!

Here we are adding some special items to my site to get a particular target bear into shooting position.

 

[Green Chile]

Baiting bears without game cameras would be a much harder process. Good operators will pull the cards every 3 days or sooner depending on the situation. One of my favorite things is pulling that card and gathering around the guide's phone to scroll through what has come through the bait site recently. You see new bears showing up and most importantly, the patterns that are emerging for certain bears. If a bear is showing up in a pattern that puts them there before sundown, then you have a viable target. If he's been doing that for multiple days, then you have even better odds of seeing them. None of it's a guarantee and these bears can be tricky!

Sometimes your guide will get excited and show you something like this...a chocolate color phase weighing over 400 lbs. This became my target bear for the week and I would pass up numerous mature bears in my attempts to take this one. Although he isn't next to the barrel, other photos showed his back being at least 6 inches above the barrel. His hips were even taller and that's a sign of a big bear. Notice his front legs being straight and beefy like a tree trunk. He has a belly line that drops even though he just recently emerged from hibernation. His ears are set far apart and his nose/mouth are blocky and square. Females have a pointed face that is more triangular than square...like a German Shepherd. The hump in his backline is also a strong indicator that he is a mature boar. If we were in grizzly country, it would be very important to know the difference between a big black bear and a small grizzly.

 

[SCHUNTER73]

I really want to do this hunt soon.

 

[CamoManJ]

This is exactly the kind of informative thread that myself and many others will learn and greatly benefit from. Thank you, Sir.

I’ll eventually get up there…

 

[Green Chile]

Thank you. I try to write all of my hunt reports with lessons learned and tips on how to have a great trip yourself.

 

[Green Chile]

Ok so what is a typical day like in bear camp? First of all, you are probably sleeping in since you got back to camp so late the last evening. More to say about that in a minute. You get up at 7 or 8 typically and breakfast is ready. All meals are all you can eat at this camp. It's hash browns, pancakes, sausage or bacon or biscuits and gravy. Nobody is eating cereal. Everyone picks up their plates and takes them to the sink or dishwasher so the cook doesn't have to clean up after everyone. Then you've got most of the morning to shower or do laundry...hang out with the guides if they are in camp (often they are out working)...watch bears get skinned, shoot some arrows, etc.

The bears recovered last night are laid out in the grass for photos and if the bear was shot but not recovered you and a couple of guides left early to go track and hopefully recover your bear. If no blood or sign of hit is visible, they consider that a clean miss and you continue hunting. If blood is found and the bear isn't recovered, it's a filled tag and that actually happens more than you would think. It's not unusual to lose 1-3 bears in a camp of 12 hunters. Bears are missed at close distance by shooters lifting their head to try to observe the hit. A good follow-through is important. You don't think you would miss a whole bear at 25 yards? It happens every couple of weeks and some guys have missed a whole elephant at 20 yards. People get nervous and the good thing about bear bait hunts is you should have a minute or more to prepare for the shot while the bear is at the bait. If you are shaking or can't control your breathing then you shouldn't shoot.

Many bears are wounded in camp...I would say 20-30% are hit but not recovered that day. Many are recovered the next day and some are not recovered at all. Bears don't leave a good blood trail in many cases and sometimes they leave no blood trail. There is a lot of fat to plug up the hole...some guys don't get an exit hole...and bear hides can soak up a lot of blood. In talking to the guides, they think a lot of people miss or wound animals because they get nervous around bears. Take your time and follow through on the shot. Also bear anatomy is very different than deer. Listen to the guides and take their shot advice. With a rifle, I shoot for the offside shoulder or take a high shoulder shot. I get exits every time and the bears are down right there or within a very short run of 20-30 yards. Be aware that bears bounce back up quickly after being shot and you should get a 2nd shot into them if they are rolling around. If they get back on their feet, you will not be able to swing fast enough to hit one again.

 

[Green Chile]

Continuing on the typical day in bear camp....guides are checking baits, pulling camera cards and recovering and processing bears in the morning. All bears are removed whole from the field. All bears are weighed on scales without being cut open or cleaned. Weights are recorded and bears are skinned as well as having their skulls measured. As with other predators, the only measurement that counts is squared skull...or length plus width from bone to bone. All meat is removed from the head to measure with accurate calipers. Interestingly, some bears are real meat heads and don't measure well and others have little meat on their heads but are mostly bone. Weights and skull measurements are recorded.

Lunch is served around noon and sandwich making supplies are laid out for anyone who wants to take sandwiches, leftovers or baked goods to their stand for the long sit. Depending on how far your stand is, you are on the road by 2pm and will sit until dark or earlier if you shoot. Sundown is around 9:30pm and most guys are picked up by 10pm and back in camp by 11 or midnight. Dinner is ready when you get back to camp and is a full spread of salads, meat and vegetables as well as dessert. No one loses weight in bear camp! Some stay up a bit to tell stories and toast success but most are in bed by 12:30. If someone is coming in late with a bear, guys tend to stay up to see what comes in. It's always exciting to see that truck pull in and wonder if the client took the target bear or something else came in. By the way, everyone is hunting a bait site that is active with recent photos showing target sized bears. You also have been texted photos of those target bears so you know what to be looking for. It's a great system.

 

[Green Chile]

Let's talk about the range of bears that are taken. I will be sharing a whiteboard of the first 3 weeks of the season showing measurements of all bears taken. You will see everything from 100+ pounds to 300+ pounds in the weights and skull measurements up to almost 20 inches. As you will notice, the lighter bears are not measured for skulls but in my opinion, they should be for record keeping purposes. It does take some time to get this measurement done correctly and not everyone is asking for it. You will also see color phases noted in the chart. I recommended that they create a spreadsheet and input as many bears as they have numbers for. What a valuable resource to build over time. If you were really on the ball, you would also include some weather data for each day that bears are taken. I'm a big pattern guy and this kind of data is really helpful for small businesses like hunting outfitters to see trends and patterns.

 

[Green Chile]

You can see a wide range of weights in the above chart. You will also notice that the 3rd week bears were noticeably heavier on average. The lightweight bears taken (under 250 and certainly under 200) were NOT the target bears for those bait sites. For each site, the hunter is shown recent photos of activity and specifically the larger target bears visiting that site. The hunters are encouraged to keep those photos handy on their phone to compare to bears coming into the site. I'm told there are penalties assessed for very young bears taken. I don't know for sure if that happens but it's probably a good policy. Hunters are given a great presentation on target angles and judging bear sizes. They are given the photos of the larger bears onsite. Some hunters just get excited and shoot quickly as they aren't accustomed to seeing bears at 20 yards. I have a friend who was dropped off on the first day...he had 2 bears come to the bait and he shot the larger of the 2 bears. This was all within 30 min of being dropped off on the first day. I don't think the guide had even made it back to the truck yet. That bear was very young and under 200 lbs. It takes some patience to pass up bears and to educate yourself on what a good bear looks like. The guides want you to take the target bears not just any random bear.

 

[Green Chile]

So we are all being dropped off in different locations...some 90 min north and I was dropped 90 min south of camp after a 45 min ATV ride. I joked that I could almost see Manitoba from there and the guide said you're not far off! My first night, I see a couple of medium bears under 200 lbs. I think they were siblings and about 3 years old. There was no sow with them and they seemed to be about a year past weaning. Fun to watch but nowhere near the target bear size. A large boar came in and ran everyone off. He was interesting but smaller than the chocolate target bear. Nothing else came in that night. When I got back to camp, there were 3 bears downed and 2 were recovered. One of the young guys in camp had driven up by himself from Missouri and he was self-filming his first bear hunt with archery. He had shot a good bear his first night and the video footage looked promising. I know he didn't sleep much that night but the next day he recovered his first bear and it was over 300 lbs with a P&Y skull measurement. Quite the first bear!

Others had seen more bears and I think at least a couple of guys saw 20+ bears the first night. A great start with 3 bears down and recovered.

 

[Green Chile]

The next day was rinse and repeat and we had about another equal performance....3 bears down and recovered. I saw the same bears as the first night but this time I told the guide to pick me up much later. I wanted to see what time this chocolate bear was coming into bait. We had a good moon and around 10pm he came in from behind the barrels and his back was about 6 inches above the tops of the barrels. He looked towards the ladder stand and I looked at him thinking yea he's the one I want. I texted the guide and he picked me up. We also checked the camera and confirmed that was him at 10pm on the bait. Hmmm...time for a better game plan.

Back at camp, the guides stayed up late with me discussing ideas and we decided to put a big beaver cage out and chain it to the tree in front of the barrels. That should help as I could tell he liked standing behind the barrels. That's always frustrating as the vitals are often covered. Time to turn in and work the new plan the next day.

 

[Green Chile]

The next day comes and we rig my bait site differently. As planned, we chained the beaver cage to a tree between me and the bait at 25 yards. So the cage was around 10 yards. We also moved the barrels from behind the trees to in front of the trees and spaced them out further so a bear couldn't lay down behind all 3 barrels. We also spruced up the bait with some melted peanut butter and some meat scraps. As a final thought, we smeared frosting on the trees facing me to give me a height distance of the mature bear. Any bear as tall as the icing on the tree would be taken. Little details like that can make a big difference.

As the guide left, I was feeling pretty confident with our revised bait site. The medium bears came back and squirreled around for a couple of hours like normal. They played with the beaver cage but it was too heavy and they could only get the end of their nose into the cage. The openings in the rebar are too small to get to the bait. The big black came in towards the end of the day and went straight to the beaver cage. He was acting kind of goofy because they love the castor oil in beavers and I think it acts like a catnip to them. He laid down beside the cage and pushed it with his nose. It hit the end of the chain and he sat up quickly like a dog sitting on his backside. I really wish I had video of what happened next. He cocked his head to the right...and then to the left. Then he bent over and picked up the whole cage in his mouth. He squatted onto his back legs and with one movement broke the chain off the tree! Then he carried the 150 lb rebar cage around in his mouth like a dog with a bone. I thought he was going to leave with it! Finally he got tired of it and put it back down and left a few minutes later. The big bears are so incredibly strong. It's amazing what they can do. I remember thinking this big black boar is pretty cool. He's a strong #2 for target bear.

Later the guide picked me up and there was no sign of the target bear. In the morning we would check the camera and learn that he didn't come in until midnight. The heat was changing his pattern to more nocturnal. However, my friend Bobby had taken his first bear that night! I was thrilled that it only went about 10-15 feet after blowing through it with the crossbow. A nice first bear to a very patient hunter!

 

[Green Chile]

The weather continued to get hotter and on day 4 of the 5 day hunt, it hit 98 degrees in northern Saskatchewan! I think it set a record that day. That's really hot when you think about the need for full length clothing, bug nets, rubber muck boots and gloves. I ended up taking off my boots on stand. By the way, bears on bait don't seem to be as concerned with human scent. The wind can shift and you cringe waiting for them to blow out and they just keep eating. I know that's controversial and I've even been required to wear scent suits with the strictest scent control when hunting bears on bait. Guys, it doesn't really matter in the end. When bears are hungry, they eat.

It was so hot with just 2 days left that I decided I might take the big black boar if he continued to come in before the chocolate ever showed up. That was the problem...the bears were coming out of order...biggest bear after dark (maybe) and #2 bear showing up before that in the last hour of light. My guide said I would hate to be you making that decision tonight!

So the usual characters came into the bait...first the 2 medium bears...then they came back...then the big black came from behind the bait and walked straight to a barrel. His backline was just above the barrel and he was covered up by the 3 barrels. I pulled the 300 win mag up and turned on the lighted reticle....it was still legal light but the sun was setting. He took a step forward and his front shoulders cleared the barrels. On broadside bears, I always go for the shoulder and if possible, a little higher on that shoulder shot but not too far! At the shot, he rolled backwards and I was reloaded but he bounced on to his feet and went running past. Second shots are super helpful but only if they connect. I listened carefully and he seemed to go about 30 yards and fell. Within seconds you could hear the long expiration of breath that some call a death rattle.

Here he is on camera at the bait barrel to give you a size reference.

 

[Mauser3000]

Did he weigh in the mid 4s? That’s a great bear.

 

[Green Chile]

Thanks. I got him before he filled up on bait and the next morning he weighed 332. He looks bigger. The guide guessed 370+ and I guessed 350. In the fall he would be 70-100 heavier.