Black Bear Double 2007

Two Black Bear taken, with a muzzleloader, in less than 10 minutes, from the same spot, and one of them being a 500 lb trophy bear to boot!  Now that has got to be some kind of record!  Well at the least, it’s a story worth telling, but first some background and history.

This is our second year hunting spring black bear in Labrador with Wayne Watkins at Expeditions North.  All total, this year we saw 16 Labrador black bear, both from stand as well as from the road while driving to and from the stands checking bait.  Labrador definitely has an abundant black bear population.  

I hunt with my father who is now 1 month shy of being 80 years old.  He also has had diabetes for the last 30 years, which has affected his sight as well as limits his ability to walk beyond 75 to 100 yards without sitting down.  His balance is not very good, so hunting from a tree stand has not been an option.  My father has been a life-long hunter, and he is not ready to give up on hunting, even though hunting options are becoming more limited.  I located Expeditions North on the Internet while looking for a spring 2006 Black Bear hunt.  Several other outfitters were reluctant to book us once I informed them about my dad’s limitations, but Wayne Watkins offered to set up some ground blinds for us so we could sit together on stand.  Our spring 2006 hunt resulted in two nice bear taken; a 250 lb boar and a 300 lb sow.  Now our 2007 spring bear hunt has resulted in another two bears, both boars.  The first one weighed only around 150 lbs but had beautiful thick luxurious shiny black fur, and …..  the second one was huge, weighing an estimated 500 lbs, a trophy bear by any standards!  Wayne has been successful both years in getting my father good opportunities to take nice bear.  Dad missed his bear this year, but we are planning on booking another hunt in spring 2008.  Wayne has been our outfitter & guide both years and has done a great job for us.  Wayne’s wife Ruby is an excellent cook.  She did all of the cooking and we ate very well.  They made us feel like family.  This has been a great second year, and we are already looking forward to spring 2008.

We booked our 2007 spring hunt for early June, with the intent of trying to beat the black flies as well as improve the condition of the hides.  Wayne delayed our hunt one week due to the late spring and cold weather.  He told us to come prepared for cold weather, but when we arrived it was over 80 degrees and stayed hot the whole week. 

Monday, our first day of hunting, we saw 4 or 5 bear from the road whilechecking baits, but nonegave any shooting opportunities.  That evening both of us missed opportunities at nice bears.  My Dad had a good shot opportunity at a real nice 350 – 400 lb bear.  He got excited and just missed, as I did later on another nice bear just before dark.  I guess no matter how many years of hunting experience we have, we still fall victim to buck fever, or if you will, ‘bear’ fever.  As it was close to dark we decided to wait until the next morning to fully investigate the areas where the bear went after the shots. 

So, Tuesday morning instead of traveling back roads, (where you would expect to see more bear), we took a more direct route to where we were hunting the previous evening. We were traveling on the Trans-Labrador highway, not so much in a hunting frame-of-mind, but thinking more on the events of the previous evening.  While driving at highway speed, (and churning up a huge cloud of dust), I caught some movement to my right, and just as we passed, I saw a huge black bear duck back into the thick timber off to the side of the road.  Even though I only caught a glimpse of him, I knew this bear was big.  I shouted “Bear, big one!” and Wayne quickly stopped the truck and backed up to a point near where we saw the bear.  I stepped out of the truck and while waiting for the dust to clear I put the 209 shotgun primer in my Thompson Center Encore .50 caliber muzzleloader.  Wayne was right behind me as I moved toward the timber and then we spotted the bear again about 40 yards back down the road.  This time we got a good view of him as he again ducked back into the timber. 

Now I was getting excited!  Here was the biggest black bear I had ever seen and he seemed intent on crossing this road.  Just maybe I could see him sitting back in the trees & get a shot at him!  I moved slowly into the trees where we saw him go in and there he was, partially hidden, 35 – 40 yards away, looking straight at me, with only his head & chest visible.  I centered my cross hairs on his chest, (while again fighting off a royal case of ‘bear’ fever), and at the shot he dropped clean, never moving.  Now the excitement really set in, I thought I had just shot the biggest bear I had ever seen.  I reloaded, just in case, and then we moved into the thick timber where the bear had fallen.  There it lay - a very beautiful - but small black bear!  It was a very nice looking bear, but only weighed an estimated 150 lbs.  Both Wayne and I were dumbfounded as we looked at this bear.  We had both just seen a huge black bear go into the timber right where this little bear now lay.  Bears aren’t known to run together, in fact large bear have the tendency to kill smaller ones, so we don’t know why this bear was so near the large one.   This bear had an excellent coat of thick luxurious shiny black fur, but I still felt a measure of disappointment even though I had just bagged a very nice, although smaller bear.  I was pleased though with the clean shot I’d made.

So, now telling myself how nice of a bear this really was, and of course assuming the larger bear was long gone, we went back to the truck to get my Dad, the camera, & skinning kit.  Of course my Dad wanted to see the bear and as he needed assistance to get into the trees where the bear was, I chose to leave my rifle in the truck while I helped Dad to where the bear was laying.  I intended on coming right back to get my rifle for the pictures.  Just as all three of us entered the trees, we got the surprise of our lives!  Where the dead bear was supposed to be, there was this very live bear staring back at us!  This was definitely not the small bear, this one was big, and he was standing over the carcass of the smaller bear, just looking at us.  We can only assume he had claimed the carcass as his own, but in any case, there he was, just staring at us, only about 30 yards away. 

Now picture this, here we are, the three of us standing there in this thick timber just off the road, staring down this very large bear just 30 yards away, and, - yes, you’re right - NO GUN.   The truck was farther away from us than the bear was!  Thank God the bear wasn’t being aggressive, but he didn’t appear as if he was going to leave either, so back to the truck I would have to go.  Now in this situation, do you run?  Do you sneak slowly and quietly away?  What do you do?  There I was, leaving my Dad & Wayne just 30 yards away from this very large bear and my Dad could, at best, walk slow, much less run.  So I chose to ‘fast walk’ the 50 or so yards back to the truck to get my rifle.  I put a primer in my Encore muzzleloader, and headed back.

When I got back to where my Dad & Wayne were standing, the bear was still staring at us, not willing to leave the kill he had claimed, so I edged forward to get in front of my Dad & Wayne.  The timber was thick and all I could see of this huge bear was his head and a bit of his neck below his chin, so I centered the cross hairs just below his chin and pulled the trigger.  He went down just as clean as the first one & never moved, which is a good thing, because I’m not that fast at reloading.  This bear fell just a few feet away from the first one, and boy was he big! 

As the realization of what had happened began to sink in, my excitement reached record heights, I had just shot two bear in less than ten minutes, this second one being the biggest black bear I have ever seen, and here I stood looking at both bear laying just a few feet apart.  We estimated the weight of the big one to be near 500 lbs.  All I know is he was so big that we spent close to a half an hour just trying to move him into position for the pictures.  It took all Wayne and I had to move him the three or four feet we did!  After we finished taking pictures, we ended up skinning both bear right where they dropped, what a chore!  Both bear still had a significant amount of fat left on them, especially the big one.  Just imagine how much he must have weighed last fall!  We green scored the skull of the big bear at 18 ¾”, maybe just big enough to qualify for the Longhunter Muzzleloading Big Game Record Book which has an 18” minimum qualification limit.

As it turned out, both our shots of the previous evening had failed to net a bear, and the extreme heat the rest of the week seemed to cause the bear to move only after dark and not move much during the day, so my Dad didn’t get another chance to fill his tag.  We still went home with two bear, one a real trophy, along with some terrific memories.  

I’m sure glad Labrador has a two bear limit, as it made for the memory of a lifetime.  What would we have done if we’d had no tags left after dropping that small bear?  How do you go about getting ‘your’ bear away from a 500 lb bear who thinks it’s ‘his’ kill?  Questions I’m glad we didn’t have to find answers to. The best part of all this was the fact that my Dad got to experience it with me, he was right there in the thick of it all.  After all, he was left standing there staring at the bear while I went to get my rifle.  What a memory maker this hunt has been. 

For those of you who are interested, I’m shooting the Thompson Center Encore 209 X .50 caliber muzzleloader, loaded with 150 grains, (3 pellets), of Hodgdon Triple Seven sulfur free powder behind a 270 grain PowerBelt Premium bullet.  I’ve now taken 4 black bear in two years with this rifle.  All have been clean one shot kills, and have dropped right where they stood.  Shots have ranged from 30 to 70 yards, with all four bear facing me, and the bullets entering the neck or chest with the bullet path angling back through the body.  These past two years & four black bear have made me a real fan of the Encore muzzleloader and PowerBelt bullets.
 
Thanks Wayne, for two great hunts.

Ron Harkins
Grand Rapids, Michigan

ALLAN MANN STORY
2006 Remote Hunt

Well, I've been back home for about 10 days and I'm finally getting caught up and settled back in the groove. I spent the first 4 or 5 days day-dreaming about my hunt, spending time with my Dad, being so fortunate to find those 2 beautiful bulls in a stalkable position on the last day… It was tough to concentrate on any work.

I want to thank you again for such a great trip. On Friday night, September 1st, the day we arrived in Montreal, my Dad and I met the VNQ bus behind the Airport Holiday Inn when a group of hunters came in. We watched and talked to them as they unloaded all the antlers and heard about all the caribou they saw. We knew we were going to have a great week! I don't know what happened to the migration, but I know everything worked out well for us. I couldn't believe all the evidence we saw around the Merville North camp that huge numbers of caribou had been there in the last few weeks. All the beaches and bogs were almost literally covered with caribou tracks! I was surprised how well Dwayne, our guide, knew his way around as this was his first year at Merville North. But where were the caribou?? The first 3 days we only saw a couple, I knew there had to be some around. I spent the best part of a couple of days "on stand" with my bow in likely looking spots. Dwayne did a great job of finding caribou for my Dad to shoot. I think we only saw about a dozen caribou, and only one decent bull - just a flash of him when we were walking in the timber. I was sick with flu symptoms on Thursday and spent most of the day in bed. Come Friday, I hadn't really given up, but I sure didn't think I was going to see any decent bulls, let alone a bull in a spot where I could put the sneak on.

On Friday morning, September 8, Dwayne spotted those 2 bulls from the boat. Dwayne kept the boat going straight until we were out of sight behind a point and then he pulled in and told me to "go get 'em". I jogged through the timber, hoping to get to the edge of the bay before the caribou got to the timber. They were 120 yards away, still standing in the spot where we first saw them. Then they turned and walked the other way, only walking a little and standing still most of the time, looking out over the water. There was no cover between us. They kept walking away slowly when it dawned on me that I might that I might be able to get to the other side of the bay before they did. A wide bog/marsh was adjacent to the bay. I went back into the timber and jogged around the back of the bog, kind of circumnavigating the bog, maybe about 400yds.from the caribou and the edge of the bay. I got to the timber on the other side and stayed in it until I was within 100yds.from the water. If the caribou were still coming they would come through that space. I used my binoculars and found them, still coming at a slow pace. I was able to stay behind some small scrub spruce and birch and got within 40yds. of the water. I knelt down, knocked an arrow and here they came. The first one was broadside at 30yds! I made a perfect shot, a complete pass through right above the heart, he wheeled toward the water, ran about 30yds. into the water and went down for keeps. The bigger bull ran out in the water with the first, having no idea what had just happened. I snuck up closer, staying out of sight, he turned to go back toward the shore and I tried to shoot him as he was walking. He walked a long way during the 40 yd. arrow flight and the arrow went through him right in front of the hams. I don't think he knew what happened then either. He quickened his pace to shore and climbed up on the bank. Now he was standing broadside at 40 yds. and I made another perfect shot, another pass through right above the heart. He ran back in the water and soon lay still. I couldn't believe it! What a thrill!

I walked back towards the timber going out to the point and met Dad and Dwayne as they walked out of the timber. Imagine how much fun it was telling them I got 'em both.

Wayne, I am so glad you made arrangements to set us up in that camp at Merville North. That ended up being the hunt of a lifetime. I'm sorry we didn't get more time to fish…. next time…

There were a lot of hunters at the airport Sunday night that didn't shoot a caribou. Unpacking in Montreal later that night was a totally different scene than we witnessed the week before. Besides my bulls, there were only 2 other decent bulls in the whole group and neither of them were killed with a bow. Pope & Young minimum for Quebec/Labrador Caribou is 325. I green scored both of mine. The first one is about 320 and the second one with the big tops is about 345.

I can't send this letter without saying something about Gary Heathman. What a great cook! I thought I would lose weight on this trip but I didn't. How could I with the amount of food Gary forced on us. We loved his cooking and all the effort he put into it. And we loved his stories!

So thanks for adjusting to the migration and putting us at Merville North Camp. And thanks to Dwayne for all his hard work and putting me in the right spot at the right time.

Best regards

Alan Mann

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