Alberta Bear Hunt - Day 8
I awoke early from another sleepless night. We had breakfast and then headed out with Jeff to the "Third Chance" stand to look for my bear. The "Third Chance" name had certainly proven accurate! I never would have believed, based on all the years hunting bears back east, that a bear would give a guy three shot opportunities from the same stand in the same week. Also wouldn't have believed I would need this many chances, but that's another story.
The first thing we did when we got to the bait site was look for my arrow. It wasn't in the crib logs as I suspected from the sound, so we expanded the search in the direction I had seen the bear leave. There it was, about six feet from the crib, lying on the ground. There was a slight amount of blood on the feathers, which meant a pass through shot. Problem was the arrow was covered mostly with grease/fat. There was no blood trail. Obviously the bear had turned to run after the hit, pulling the arrow along with him for a few feet before it fell out.
I got up into the stand to confirm the trail the bear had taken when he left so we could narrow down the search grid pattern. Also, while up in the stand I did an experiment to try to figure out what happened to the arrow flight/placement. Holding my left arm out with my thumb up as an aiming point, I aimed my thumb at a point on the crib with both eyes open. Then I closed my right eye and re-aimed. With my left arm held steady, I then closed the left and opened the right eye to see the effects on the point of aim. I wish I had done that before now!
In any case, the change from one eye to the other shifted the aim point over a foot to the right. If I had executed a good shot, with correct form, the arrow would have hit 14-16" to the right of where I had the pin pointed, which would have put the arrow in front of the front shoulder. This matched the sign on the arrow, as there were only slight amounts of blood and lots of grease/fat.
Seriously disappointed in having screwed up yet again, we started the tracking job the best we could. After a long search we did find a few small spots of blood about forty yards from the crib on the trail the bear had taken the night before. From there, on hands and knees, we were able to take the trail another fifty yards or so to the edge of a big swamp. We searched the swamp in vain for a half hour before deciding to change tactics.
We slowly circled the swamp looking for any sign of where the bear exited. There was none, but there also was no sign that the bear had stopped or that he was still in there.
The reality set in shortly, the bear had only received a slight flesh wound which was not serious. Given a few days rest, he probably would start coming back to this stand to feed! I doubt he'd give anyone an opportunity to get an arrow into him however!
I had one day/evening left to hunt, but my heart wasn't in it. I had been given three opportunities at a trophy class bear and screwed them all up one way or the other. It was time, in my opinion, to call the game in favor of the bear. He had won fair and square!
All was not lost however. I learned a lot, as one always does from their mistakes, which will hopefully help me in the future. I had seen some great bears and spent many enjoyable hours in a peaceful tree stand watching nature. I made some new friends, and have found a fantastic place to hunt large black bears.
This afternoon was spent discussing the hunt plans for next season and getting my gear in order for the long travel home. Eric and I discussed a lot of potential changes for next season. Believe it or not, he is going to let me come back and try again! Given that the most remote area is further back in the hills, and that the cold lingers longer there in the spring, we'll start later next season.
To avoid the mud, and long rides back and forth to the baits from camp, Eric will transport all the equipment up into the hills on the winter road before the thaw. He'll also bring in the bait and bury it in snow pits. This way the camp and all the bait will be back in the hills long before the hunt starts. He'll use eight wheel Argos to get the clients back into the remote camp locations the beginning of the hunt, then all hunting will be on solid roads in the hills via quads. That will put us all back further into areas never before hunted where the bears should be even bigger and more brazen!
After dinner the three other hunters went out on stand. Eric took Big Richard out to "Too Far Gone" way back in the hills, as it had finally started getting hit. There was no stand set up there, so they brought one with them. Shortly after starting to erect the stand they heard noise below them.
Looking down they found a large sow crawling up onto the back of the quad to feed out of the bait pail!
The quad was parked directly under the tree where they were working -- hanging the stand and cutting branches. The bear could care less about the men in the tree, she was feeding! When Eric climbed down she left, but not until after Richard got some good video footage.
An hour after Eric left, a second larger sow came in with this year's cubs. Richard got some great footage of them playing at the bait before "mama" ran them all off into the woods. Both David and Little Richard also saw or heard bears from their stands tonight but no shots were presented.
Eric only has eight bear tags for this area. I booked the camp for six hunters next spring and will be taking five bowhunters with me into this fantastic new area. The five openings will fill on a first come first serve basis that is being announced here at bowhunting.net first.