Whiskey1
AH veteran
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2017
- Messages
- 150
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- 215
- Location
- United States
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- 25
- Hunted
- South Africa, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Virginia, Texas, Wyoming, Maine
I have been back from my adventure in Maine for a few days now and have finally found the time and nerve to post my first hunting report on this excellent forum. It is a bit intimidating as so many here are very talented writers.
I first hunted Maine last year. I hunted with Ryan Shepard of Shepard Hunting Company located near Patten, Maine and killed a very nice bear on Saturday, an hour or two before the end of the six day hunt! We had such a good time that a return trip was scheduled for this year but one week later in the season in hopes of cooler weather...which did not exactly pan out. Ryan offers both bait and hound hunts and both of my trips with him have been with hounds. I also became friends with a local houndsman from southern Maine and he generously invited me to bring one of my kids to hunt with him the week before my outfitted hunt. What a great opportunity! It is not legal for a non-resident to hound hunt in Maine without employing the services of a registered Maine hunting guide so he made the arrangements for a 3 day hunt for my daughter, provided his services and his hounds completely free of charge, and let us stay at his place. It worked out perfectly as the week we scheduled was fall break for my daughter's high school. With any luck we could fly up, get her a bear, put her on a plane for home, and she wouldn't even miss any school. I could then drive north to meet my companions for a week of hunting the big woods of northern Maine. Turns out it worked out exactly that way...
Lily and I left, Sept. 20th, the day after my wife's birthday, flying ATL to Portland, ME via Delta. My wife, Cindy, and Lily's twin brother, Joseph, were going to spend a couple days at the beach crabbing and surf-fishing with my parents once he finished high school football practice. By all accounts they had a nice vacation, too. I do now owe him a spring bear hunt, though. The airport and flight were uneventful except for my guncase being 3 pounds over weight which cost me an extra $100 and the ticket agent scolding my for packing jackets, shirts, pants, etc. in the case. She told me there "isn't s'posed tu be nuthin' but weapons in the case". Then asked how I was going to unpack all that stuff to show her the guns were unloaded. I explained I had always packed clothes in the case as extra padding and under no circumstances would I be brandishing a firearm for any reason inside the ATL airport as getting shot would undoubtedly hinder my travel plans. She just handed me the orange card and I put it in the case and went to TSA like normal. Strange...
We landed in Portland where airport personnel an the rental car folks were obviously very used to visiting hunters and fishermen, picked up the car, and drove 60 miles north to meet my friend Matt. We were greeted by a gorgeous Maine sunset on the way.
A typical day begins early on a bear hunt with hounds. You are up around 0400, a quick breakfast, drive to the hunting area and either check trail cameras on bait sites or drive woods roads waiting on the hounds to strike. Maine bears tend to be nocturnal so the sooner after legal hours the hounds can start a track the better your odds for success. Also, the bears have great noses and I firmly believe that they understand everything the hounds are doing when they are being scent trailed. Some of these bears are very smart! On our first day we enjoyed an excellent run, several miles long, the hounds did a great job, but the bear took them into some very steep rocky cliffs where they simply could not follow. It is a fact that bears can climb places that dogs simply can't follow and we were hunting the mountains only 20 or 30 miles from the New Hampshire state line in the vicinity of the Appalachian Trail. It is pretty rugged terrain. After a good drive and hike to catch all of the hounds we called it a day and enjoyed a nice seafood supper at a local restaurant. The sunsets in Maine this time of year are a sight to behold.
Day two began with a hot strike right off the bat and resulted in a split chase! Two of the hounds headed for the same rock cliffs as the day before but ended up (according to their tracking collars) with a treed bear just short of the cliffs a little less than two miles from the nearest road. The other three hounds trailed out almost a mile, made a circle back to the right, and treed just under a half mile from where we turned them out. The best news was they were only about 250 yards from the nearest woods road. We made a fast hike 600 yards down the road, cut into the woods, and could hear the frantic baying of the three hounds. I could see Lily was very excited! This quick approach to a bear in the half light of a Maine morning with all of the noise in the thick woods was enough to get any hunter's heart pumping! As we approached the tree, I could see the dogs and soon spotted a big bear about 30 feet up a large pine. As my houndsmen friends tied the dogs back Lily and I maneuvered so that we could get a clear view of the bear and have everyone else behind us. I am no expert at judging bears in trees but could tell this one was definitely mature and quite a bit bigger than the Maine average of 130-150 pounds. Lil was shooting my Ruger #1A 30-06 with Freedom Munitions "Tagged Out" 165 grain Accubond bullets that she had used to take her warthog in South Africa and I had my 1972 manufactured Marlin 45-70 loaded with Speer 300 grain HotCor bullets at 1950 fps. As soon as Matt gave the word she made a great shot into the bear's chest and it fell from the tree behind a large boulder. Houndsmen are very protective of their bear dogs and a wounded bear that gets to the dogs can injure or kill them very quickly. Even though her shot was lethal the bear got up so I followed up her shot with two from the Marlin that anchored her bear just feet from the tree! Hugs and smiles all around...there are not many dads who ever get the opportunity to back up their daughters on dangerous game and this had turned out great. The other two hounds had held their bear in the tree for almost an hour while we were dealing with the photos, field dressing, and loading of this one but it eventually jumped the tree on them and got back into the cliffs. (A side note- I'd never thought of black bears as really dangerous until I started hunting them with hounds. In my next camp there would be a guide and a houndsman that both carried bear scars and, of course, the dogs are in constant danger. Five hounds from one pack were put out of commission by the same little sow the Friday before I got to camp. Hound hunting is a very exciting way to hunt black bear.) After catching the last two hounds, we took the bear to the check station and then to the local butcher to prepare and freeze the meat and trophy bear skin for the plane ride back to Georgia on Sunday.
On the afternoon after Lil killed her bear she bought herself a Maine fishing license, borrowed some gear, and I drove her to a local pond where she caught a couple pretty nice largemouth bass.
Day three we accompanied some local hunters out with Matt's hounds and got to be present for another successful hunt! We had another nice meal as a local sushi restaurant and packed up as she would be flying home the next day while I drove to the north woods for my chance at a big Maine bear...
I first hunted Maine last year. I hunted with Ryan Shepard of Shepard Hunting Company located near Patten, Maine and killed a very nice bear on Saturday, an hour or two before the end of the six day hunt! We had such a good time that a return trip was scheduled for this year but one week later in the season in hopes of cooler weather...which did not exactly pan out. Ryan offers both bait and hound hunts and both of my trips with him have been with hounds. I also became friends with a local houndsman from southern Maine and he generously invited me to bring one of my kids to hunt with him the week before my outfitted hunt. What a great opportunity! It is not legal for a non-resident to hound hunt in Maine without employing the services of a registered Maine hunting guide so he made the arrangements for a 3 day hunt for my daughter, provided his services and his hounds completely free of charge, and let us stay at his place. It worked out perfectly as the week we scheduled was fall break for my daughter's high school. With any luck we could fly up, get her a bear, put her on a plane for home, and she wouldn't even miss any school. I could then drive north to meet my companions for a week of hunting the big woods of northern Maine. Turns out it worked out exactly that way...
Lily and I left, Sept. 20th, the day after my wife's birthday, flying ATL to Portland, ME via Delta. My wife, Cindy, and Lily's twin brother, Joseph, were going to spend a couple days at the beach crabbing and surf-fishing with my parents once he finished high school football practice. By all accounts they had a nice vacation, too. I do now owe him a spring bear hunt, though. The airport and flight were uneventful except for my guncase being 3 pounds over weight which cost me an extra $100 and the ticket agent scolding my for packing jackets, shirts, pants, etc. in the case. She told me there "isn't s'posed tu be nuthin' but weapons in the case". Then asked how I was going to unpack all that stuff to show her the guns were unloaded. I explained I had always packed clothes in the case as extra padding and under no circumstances would I be brandishing a firearm for any reason inside the ATL airport as getting shot would undoubtedly hinder my travel plans. She just handed me the orange card and I put it in the case and went to TSA like normal. Strange...
We landed in Portland where airport personnel an the rental car folks were obviously very used to visiting hunters and fishermen, picked up the car, and drove 60 miles north to meet my friend Matt. We were greeted by a gorgeous Maine sunset on the way.
A typical day begins early on a bear hunt with hounds. You are up around 0400, a quick breakfast, drive to the hunting area and either check trail cameras on bait sites or drive woods roads waiting on the hounds to strike. Maine bears tend to be nocturnal so the sooner after legal hours the hounds can start a track the better your odds for success. Also, the bears have great noses and I firmly believe that they understand everything the hounds are doing when they are being scent trailed. Some of these bears are very smart! On our first day we enjoyed an excellent run, several miles long, the hounds did a great job, but the bear took them into some very steep rocky cliffs where they simply could not follow. It is a fact that bears can climb places that dogs simply can't follow and we were hunting the mountains only 20 or 30 miles from the New Hampshire state line in the vicinity of the Appalachian Trail. It is pretty rugged terrain. After a good drive and hike to catch all of the hounds we called it a day and enjoyed a nice seafood supper at a local restaurant. The sunsets in Maine this time of year are a sight to behold.
Day two began with a hot strike right off the bat and resulted in a split chase! Two of the hounds headed for the same rock cliffs as the day before but ended up (according to their tracking collars) with a treed bear just short of the cliffs a little less than two miles from the nearest road. The other three hounds trailed out almost a mile, made a circle back to the right, and treed just under a half mile from where we turned them out. The best news was they were only about 250 yards from the nearest woods road. We made a fast hike 600 yards down the road, cut into the woods, and could hear the frantic baying of the three hounds. I could see Lily was very excited! This quick approach to a bear in the half light of a Maine morning with all of the noise in the thick woods was enough to get any hunter's heart pumping! As we approached the tree, I could see the dogs and soon spotted a big bear about 30 feet up a large pine. As my houndsmen friends tied the dogs back Lily and I maneuvered so that we could get a clear view of the bear and have everyone else behind us. I am no expert at judging bears in trees but could tell this one was definitely mature and quite a bit bigger than the Maine average of 130-150 pounds. Lil was shooting my Ruger #1A 30-06 with Freedom Munitions "Tagged Out" 165 grain Accubond bullets that she had used to take her warthog in South Africa and I had my 1972 manufactured Marlin 45-70 loaded with Speer 300 grain HotCor bullets at 1950 fps. As soon as Matt gave the word she made a great shot into the bear's chest and it fell from the tree behind a large boulder. Houndsmen are very protective of their bear dogs and a wounded bear that gets to the dogs can injure or kill them very quickly. Even though her shot was lethal the bear got up so I followed up her shot with two from the Marlin that anchored her bear just feet from the tree! Hugs and smiles all around...there are not many dads who ever get the opportunity to back up their daughters on dangerous game and this had turned out great. The other two hounds had held their bear in the tree for almost an hour while we were dealing with the photos, field dressing, and loading of this one but it eventually jumped the tree on them and got back into the cliffs. (A side note- I'd never thought of black bears as really dangerous until I started hunting them with hounds. In my next camp there would be a guide and a houndsman that both carried bear scars and, of course, the dogs are in constant danger. Five hounds from one pack were put out of commission by the same little sow the Friday before I got to camp. Hound hunting is a very exciting way to hunt black bear.) After catching the last two hounds, we took the bear to the check station and then to the local butcher to prepare and freeze the meat and trophy bear skin for the plane ride back to Georgia on Sunday.
On the afternoon after Lil killed her bear she bought herself a Maine fishing license, borrowed some gear, and I drove her to a local pond where she caught a couple pretty nice largemouth bass.
Day three we accompanied some local hunters out with Matt's hounds and got to be present for another successful hunt! We had another nice meal as a local sushi restaurant and packed up as she would be flying home the next day while I drove to the north woods for my chance at a big Maine bear...
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