Buck Scrape Taxidermy Journal
Ontario Bear Hunt 2004
There are four of us going on the trip from Greenfield Indiana and my oldest son Rob will be driving from Lincoln, Nebraska and meeting us at the camp. Greg Moore, Kent Colclazier and I will be bear hunting and fishing and Randy McClarnon will be fishing. Randy and I have been going up to Bluffy Lake Wilderness Camp since 1984. I first took Rob up to the camp when he was 12 and now he is 32. Greg has gone up with us once before and this is Kent’s first trip to the camp. Randy had planned to drive his dually F350 but at the last moment Kent had offered to drive his Suburban and Randy had not purchased a camper shell yet, so we decided to take Kent up on his offer. However this meant that all of the hunting and fishing equipment, plus our clothes, coolers and food we had planned to haul in the pickup bed would need to be hauled in a trailer. Greg has a nice utility trailer so that will work.
Randy, Jenny, Pat and I had shopped for all of the groceries for the trip. This will be all of the food for the meals while at the camp, including water to drink. Each person is responsible for providing their own personal snacks and any other drinks that he may want. The plan was to leave at approximately 6:00 AM on Thursday August 26. Each of us placed $300 cash in a moneybag to handle the food, gas, toll and hotel room expense. Additional cash is needed for food while traveling, license, gun import tax and bear export tax at the border.
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Day 1, August 26:
I packed my packed clothes, gathered all my fishing and hunting equipment. All of the food was placed in coolers or boxes. Kent arrived at my house shortly before 6:00 AM. It was raining as we packed all of the food and equipment into the open trailer. By 6:00AM, we had picked up Randy and are on our way to pick up Greg at his house. Kent forgot his passport and I suggested it might be a good idea to have in light of the 911 incident, so we stopped back by Kent’s house to get his passport. By the time we arrived at Greg’s, the rain was coming down harder and Greg suggested that we cover the trailer with his tarp. So we strapped down the tarp the best we could and hit the road. We were a little later than I had expected to be leaving, but we were still in good shape. As we were leaving Greg’s subdivision, I mentioned about Ontario requiring a previous hunting license or a hunter’s education permit. Neither Greg nor Kent had a previous hunting license or hunter’s education permit. We stopped by Wal-Mart and they each purchased a license. At last we were on the road, a little late, but there was some extra time built into the schedule. I had made reservations at the Day’s Inn in Duluth, MN right across from the Gander Mountain Store. We may be a little later than planned but we will make it okay.
At about the Indiana/Illinois state line, Kent’s transmission starts making some noise. At first we thought it was just tire noise from the road. But by the time we got into Bloomington/Normal, the transmission was slipping. We stopped to check it out and decided we had better return and get Randy’s truck. Not the dually, but his F250 extended cab which had a camper shell. By noon we were back where we started and loading the equipment from the trailer into the back of Randy’s pick-up. We were back on the road by 1:00 PM, seven hours later than we had planned to leave. I called the Day’s Inn in Duluth and canceled the reserved rooms. We drove late and stopped at a motel in northern Wisconsin. By driving late we had made up for much of the time; however, it was a long ride in the back seat of the extended cab.
Day 2, August 27:
We got up early on day two, ate the continental breakfast at the motel and were on the road by 6:30 AM. We hurried everywhere we could and arrived at the border just a little after noon. We had no problems crossing the border. I had provided Greg and Kent with the necessary paperwork to cross the border with their guns and in a short while we were back on the road. We arrived in Ear Falls, Ontario, at about 4:00 PM, right back on schedule. We purchased a few last minute groceries at the local store and went to the Four Seasons Store to purchase our bear hunting and fishing license. While we were at the store we called Keith to let him know we were in town and starting out to the camp. It is about a 45 minute drive from town to the camp. The first 17 miles are good logging roads then we turn on a logging road that is less maintained for about another 12 miles. The last two miles, the road is a little more challenging but still navigable. Keith was there waiting for us when we arrive at the wide spot in the woods where we park the truck. From there we loaded our gear onto a trailer that Keith pulls with his ATV. It was about a half mile down the path on the ATV to the lake where we unloaded the trailer into two boats. The boats are 16 foot V-bottom aluminum boats, powered by 15 horse motors. We could see the Canadian flag flying above the camp about two miles away, across the lake.
We had arranged to have one of the two modern cabins in camp. It is a nice knotty pine cabin overlooking the lake. It has two bedrooms, each with 2 bunk beds, a kitchen area, living area, with woodstove heat, and a bath with a shower. Once were at the camp we unpacked our gear and set-up the cabin. We fixed some hamburgers on the gas grill and called it a day.
Day 3, August 28
We arose early, anticipating to fish until about noon while Keith checks in his remaining guest, who will be arriving on Saturday. Around noon we returned to camp, fried up some fish for lunch and then went out with Keith to scout out some hunting locations and set-up some tree stands. Keith had already set-up a ladder stand for Greg so he didn’t need to go to his stand until evening. So while Greg rested, Keith took Kent and me to scout out some areas back over on the logging roads. I had hunted this area two times before and knew the area well. I planned to hunt the location where I had killed a bear four years ago and where my son Rob had killed a bear just two years ago. We decided that Kent would hunt the area where I had hunted the last time I was bear hunting and had missed a big bear with my bow. We both set-up our tree stands and returned to camp.
We had not realized it before, but there were also two other bear hunters in the camp, two guys from Iowa. That evening Keith and Deb took Greg and the other two hunters to their locations. Greg was up the lake across from the big island, one of the other hunters was hunting across the lake from camp and the other one was hunting along the logging road where Kent and I would pass going to our stand. Kent and I went across the lake and road together on the ATV the two miles, on a narrow logging road (more like a path), to Kent’s stand. As I put the bait into the bait bucket, Kent climbed into his stand and then I continued on my way a little over a mile to my stand. I parked on the trail a few yards from the stand. Carried in the bait and placed it in the bucket. I then walked back out to the ATV and traveled about a quarter mile down the road to make it sound like I had come to bait the bucket and leave. Then I sneaked back in and silently climbed into my stand.
That evening I saw very little activity. It was raining and all that I had come to the bait was a rabbit and some squirrels. I have good rain gear, so I was not getting wet. Since I had started carrying a cellular phone, I no longer wore a watch. I expected that my phone would not to be able to receive any service in the woods but I neglected to realize that the time would not work either. Therefore with the rain and total cloud cover I had no Idea what time it was. I had arrived at the stand about 4:30 PM and it appeared to be getting toward evening. Not seeing or hearing anything, it seemed like I had been on the stand for a long time, and not knowing if Kent wanted to hunt in the rain, I decided that before it got totally dark I would climb down and walk out to the ATV. The ATV had a clock on it so I could see what time it was once I got there. I walked the quarter mile to the ATV. It was just raining enough to be miserable, but more of a drizzle than a rain. When I got to the ATV and turned it on, it was just a little after 8:30 PM. Up in Northern Ontario, in late August it doesn’t get dark until after 9:30 PM. I didn’t know what to do now. Should I return to my stand or would Kent be waiting for me in the rain. I occupied some time taking a few practice shots with my bow. Then decided to start traveling the mile or so to Kent’s stand slowly. When I went to start the ATV it would not start. I tried different things including trying to pull start it, but it just would not start. I was just about to start walking the tree miles back to the boat when I realize that I had accidentally flipped the kill switch. I flipped it back the other way and it started right up.
Now it was late enough that I didn’t mind picking up Kent. I arrived at his stand a little before dark. He had heard the ATV and was coming out of the woods when I got there. He too had not seen anything, but didn’t mind hunting in the rain so I’m glad I didn’t come any earlier. It was about two miles from Kent’s stand back to the boat. Along the way we came upon the location where one of the guys from Iowa was hunting. He was standing in the road and flagged us to stop. He was excited and told us that he had just shot a bear. He wanted to start looking for it. I asked him how long it had been and he said he had just shot it. I guess we didn’t hear the shot from the sound of the ATV. He had a big flash light and we looked for a blood trail. Sure enough he had hit it, there was a lot of blood. I thought that we should wait for a while before looking for the bear, but it was raining and he was concerned that the rain would wash away the blood trail and he would not find his bear. So against my better judgment Kent and I went back to the ATV to get our guns and flashlight to help him track his bear. Both Kent and I were bow hunting but Kent had brought along a 12 ga. shotgun and I had a 30.06 to be used for tracking after our bow shot. All I had was a small Maglite flashlight but Kent had brought a big flashlight. The three of us started through the woods following the blood trail. By now it was totally dark. We move straight south on level ground of dense forest for about 100 yards. The blood trail started going down a hill. We could see a spot where the bear had stopped for a while. We were sure we would find him any moment. We were getting pretty far into the woods, so we decided that Kent would stay at that location and the guy from Iowa and I would continue down the ravine. I took Kent’s flashlight and we left him in the dark. I suggested to the guy that we should stop and come back the next day, but he was so sure that we would find the bear any moment he wanted to continue. So he and I continued down the ravine. I let him follow the blood trail while I walked along side watching for the bear and ready in case the bear was not dead. After we got to the bottom of the ravine the bear tuned and followed the ravine down hill. Again I asked him if we should come back later, but he insisted that he was going to continue, so I told him “well if we get lost at least there will be two of us” and we continued. We had been tracking the bear for over an hour when we hear some shouts back up the hill. It was Keith and the other guy from Iowa the friend of the guy I was with. It was obvious that he was upset with us and probably rightfully so. We should have never started tracking the bear. In hind site we should have just come back the next day and looked for it. We all hiked back out of the woods and Kent and I retuned to camp.
When we got back we found out that Greg had also not seen a bear, but Rob and Randy had experienced a great evening fishing. Kent and I had some left over fish for dinner and went to bed a little after midnight.
Day 3, August 29
Again we arose early and prepared to fish. Some of the guys from camp were going over to look for the bear. I thought that I would go, but Rob and Kent were more in the mood to fish. So I decided to go fishing. Today we were going up the river to what is called the shoots. At the end of the river there is about a four foot water falls with a lake above it. We have had good luck fishing below and above the falls. Today the plan was to take the boat and shoot up the falls. Just above the falls is a good place to walleye fish. We all caught several walleye and had a great time. After the area just above the falls seemed to slow down, we moved on up the lake to a place we call twin falls. This is one of the prettiest places I have ever been with the pine forest and the rushing water over the twin falls. While we were at the twin falls, a moose cross the lake just a few hundred yards from our boat. We had great morning fishing.
About 1:00 PM we headed back to camp, fried up some of the walleye for lunch and rested for a while before we went bear hunting at about 4:00 PM. While we were resting, Greg told us about his bear hunt the evening before. Greg described every detail of the hunt with full passion. This was Greg’s first bear hunt and for that matter first large animal hunt. He was hunting with a 44 magnum carbine. He was half frightened by the thought of bear hunting and wasn’t too comfortable about being in the woods alone. You for sure did not want to approach his stand without him knowing that you were coming. Greg was set up at a location about seven miles by boat northeast of the camp, in the opposite direction of where Kent and I were hunting. He was in a ladder stand up about 50 yards up hill from the lake shore. The bait he was hunting was directly east of him on up the hillside, making it an almost level shot across the 30 yards to his bait. The forest, like most of northern Ontario forest, was very dense. He told us about not seeing anything but had heard a stick break in the dense cover behind the bait. He turned his head slowly but could not see anything, but he was certain that it was a bear. He sat motionless for a long while. Then he heard another stick break. This time directly behind him, down by the lake shore. He told us that he was certain that a bear was going to come up from behind him any moment. He had his safety off and ready to shoot at anything that came under his stand. Like I said, it would have been fun to have pulled some type of trick on him, but there was no way any of us were going near his stand. That evening, when he heard the boat coming to pick him up, he could see the bear footprints by the light of his flashlight in the sand along the shoreline. The bear had been within 50 yards behind him, but he had never seen it.