Well the first week of bear season is passed, and the beginning of a new week has begun with guests arriving with excitement. I'm disappointed that we did not bring more bear in the first week, however the strange weather and unreal heat and humidity worked against us. However hunters saw bears!!! Some good shooters but would not present a shot or was too late coming in. Thursday Jill, my lady hunter who I sat out with had an opportunity of a lifetime. Jill is an archer and that is a much different game than a rifle hunter. Rifle scopes gather light and allow for hunting right up to the last minutes, however when using a bow, time works against them and darkness takes over. About 5 minutes before end of hunting time, the biggest bear that I have ever seen on a site came in. He had to go well over 400 pounds!! I took a 350 pound bear myself in 2008, and I thought he was big; this bear that came in made him look very small and literally took our breath away!! I asked her, "can you see your pins?", she said yes she still could and therefore I told her take the shot. First arrow flew...missed..under shot. The bear jumped and went just a little ways, turned and came back. We got another arrow out and she attempted another shot. The bear jumped and lunged, I thought she had hit him! I said to her, "lets get out of here, give him some time and we'll come back after every one gets in". Bear hunting is and can be a dangerous game and not one to take risks with. A guides number one priority isn't to have success, but safety. Leaving I kept listening intently, but did not hear any crashing or the death moan known for bear down, however I have taken 3 bears over the years and only one death moaned, therefore I still thought she might have hit him good. With pure excitement we left. We had to pick up one other hunter before heading back to camp which was her boyfriend, and he had some excitement of his own. He had been charged by a bear waiting for me to come and pick him up. Bear will do what is called a false charge; woofing and snorting and jumping forward a few steps. Usually this is all it comes too, however she did actually charge and we figured it was a sow which we had seen on the cameras with 2 cubs in the area as they had been seen on this bait site. Well we regrouped and went back in only to find the second arrow had clearly missed also. Looking around, I heard a grumble from the woods; the bear was still there and not to happy that we were back disturbing his supper. I said, " lets get out of here and hope he was not jumped so badly that he would come back another night. However much to our disappointment, we did not see another bear the rest of the week. All in all, about 13 bear were seen last week, with only one coming into camp from our new youth hunter, Jake. Jake has never hunted before and was a very happy young man.
I have never witnessed nor experienced a week of heat in bear season as we had last week. The water literally run off us the whole time in the stands with no breaks and no relief. A very strange weather pattern that I blame for the big bears coming in too late. Saturday the hurricane clipped us bringing is wind and about 6 to 7 inches of rain. Last night was much cooler and even nippy at the end of hunting time; more of what we are used to this time of year. Therefore, we are looking forward to a much better week, with much more success. We only have 4 hunters in camp this coming week, so we can relax a bit and take a breath to recuperate for the 3rd week which we will have 8 hunters and 1 non hunter in camp.
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