MA Jay

I didn' t get to go with my friends on the annual hunt for bear in Maine this year due to my wedding and honeymoon but I thought I would post the results of my friends for anyone who may be interested in giving it a try. We hunt over bait with bows and do our own baiting. The bait sites are leased on paper land and we have a deal with a guide who runs dogs off the baits the second half the season and we bowhunt the 1st half.
10 guys went up last Sunday and sat on baits Monday night. By Tuesday night they had 3 bears .. the heaviest was a 240 lb boar, 190 and 175 were the others. 1 guy had to leave Wednesday morning bringing the camp to 9 guys. Wednesday night a camp veteran who has shot 2 bears in the past reported shooting a 350lb+ and asked for some help dragging him out. At the end of the blood trail was a 135 lber. He caught some crap for that. Thursday and Friday they took 3 more bears from 150 to 210lbs. Saturday night 1 of the last 2 in camp without a bear put a perfect killing shot .... on the barrel. His first shot at a bear with his bow and he kinda lost it. It was a 26 yard shot. The last guy in camp has shot 3 bears in the past and was holding out for a really large 1. Tuesday night he was sitting in the stand and didn' t notice till the last second there was a bear directly below his treestand, so instead of picking up his bow he picked up his video camera and shot about 3 minutes of great video .. before taking his eye out of the little viewing cup and really " looked" at the bear .. a VERY large boar, guessed at about 400-450 lbs. He tried to quickly put the camera down and grab his bow but the old boar felt something wrong and drifted off without him getting a shot .. but he does have 3 mintes of AWESOME footage of a huge bear! He didn' t shoot a bear for the week but does have great video of 6 different bears.

Totals are 10 guys .. 7 bears, 1 miss and 1 trophy on camera. The only guy who didn' t have a shot hunted only 2 days. All the bears were with bows. The feeling was that the weather was in their favor with the nights getting cool and the blueberries were harvested a little early this year making the bear hit the baits a little harder than last year.

Split-Hoof

Sounds like your buddies had a good hunt. I take it this was in the eastern part of the state?

They have been getting some nice ones up here in Aroostook county. One outfitter had two hunters bag boars over 460 pounds.......not too shabby!

Portage

It has been a long time since I have seen bears hitting the baits like this year. On Monday, my oldest son shot his first, a 140 boar. I saw a sow and 3 cubs. saw a sow with 2 cubs on a different bait Tuesday, nothing on Wednesday, and killed a 210 pound boar off the same bait as my son on Thursday. We only have my youngest son to go. I think he can' t sit still long enough.

I jumped a nice bear off one of my baits this morning before work. They are hitting the baits just as hard now as they were before the season started.

You say the blueberries were picked early. Are you hunting downeast?

MA Jay

In the Calais/Machias area. Is that downeast? It' s pretty Northeast for us!

Split-Hoof

Hehe, not exactly downeast, but it is compared to where I' m at. Up here it' s potato fields instead of blueberry fields

whelen36

congratulations to your buddies , sure sounds like a great hunting trip , too bad you had to miss it but , some things come first , so , what are they going to do with thier trophies ????

the location sounds similar to where my one co-worker/friend goes hunting deer

vtbuckrulrss

MA JAY you sound like you were right where i am going on the 24th. my friend/guide says that the beaRS are hitting his baits really well, too, and he only started baiting them 2 weeks ago. he knows of one that he has been after for a few years he hopes i can get, says it will push 400+. this isn' t too far from reversing falls. is that close to your hunting area?