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2001 Fall Black Bear Bowhunt With Fred Lutger
by Robert Hoague

| Getting Ready | 1st Day's Hunt | 2nd Day's Hunt | 3rd Day's Hunt | 4th Days Hunt |
| 5th Day's Hunt | 6th Day's Hunt | 7th Day's Hunt | 8th Day's Hunt |

First Day's Bear Hunt
Casey Gulick (age 21), a successful whitetail bowhunter since he was 12, had sat in his treestand for an hour when a bear circled the immediate area. Casey saw a shot opportunity and took it and put his arrow right behind the bear's front shoulder. 

The bear spun and lunged ran right into a tree, head-on, and flipped over and lay there, motionless. Casey watched the bear for 20 minutes and climbed down. His heart was racing when he cautiously approached the bear. He looked around for a long stick and found one. He poked the bear with it. 

The bear didn't move. This was the first bear Casey has ever seen.

We were running late when I dropped Paul Millhuff off at Stand #4. Paul tossed half a bag of marshmallows on the ground in front of the bait area and climbed into the Ladder Stand. In 20 minutes Paul saw a bear in the dense brush. It moved close to the bait area and watched from the cover. Paul got ready to shoot. Suddenly the bear charged the bait, threw the logs off the bait bucket (like they were toothpicks), grabbed the bucket in his mouth and ran away with it. Some of the bait spilled by the logs.

Paul waited, hoping the bear would return. It did, an hour later. The bear was still very cautious but eventually moved into the bait area. He sniffed the marshmallows and started eating them. Paul was ready to shoot, but the bear would not give him the right angle.

At last ... the bear positioned itself so Paul had a quartering away shot. He drew and aimed at the vitals and released. The bear bolted away. Paul waited 30 minutes and got down to look for a blood trail. He could not find one.

Meanwhile, I didn't see any bears at Stand #5. I did however see plenty of mosquitos, they were absolutely brutal and ate me alive. Paul was standing in the road when I drove up. I suggested that we wait until morning to recover the bear. (The bear had gone 80- yards and we found it the next morning.)

Curt Cheshire climbed into his treestand at 6:00pm and got settled in. At 6:20 he saw the branches moving off to his left, and uphill. The movement came closer. He sat the bear sitting in the woods 35 yards away. Curt turned on his video camera and pointed it right at the logs that covered the bread and candy. The bear moved to the bait, knocked off two logs, grabbed the bait bucket and ran uphill, back the way he came. The bear mad a lot of noise cleaning the bait bucket. Some of the bait had spilled out and 10 minutes later the bear came back for it. The video was still running. This time the bear turned sidewise, quartering away, and Curt placed his arrow in the vitals. The bear ran uphill to his right and stumbled backwards, against a tree. He gave a death moan. It took 15 minutes for Curt's legs to stop shaking. It was his first Ontario black bear. 

Curt waited in the road and Paul Millhuff, Kim Sutterfield and I drove up. Then we walked up the hill and pulled the bear to Curt's pickup. 

Bob Avendt (a rifle hunter) went to his treestand. A bear came out before he was settled in the stand. He aimed and shot with his 30-06. The bear dropped behind some bushes. Bob went to the bear and poked it in the eye with a branch to verify that it was dead. It was. Bob cinched the bear up and pulled the bear downhill to his new Yukon. It was too heavy to get it up and into the back of the truck. Bob backed  the truck in a ditch to get the bumper almost ground level. Then he cinched the bear up with his treestand safety harness and climbed into the back of his SUV and pulled with all his might until he got the bear loaded. Then he drove down toward Casey's stand area so he could wait until Casey came out. He saw Casey walking in the road -- he had his bear too.

Mike McDowell

Bob Avendt

As they moved it to harness it up, the bear made a growling noise. They jumped back and then realized it was only the air in it's chest, the bear was dead. They drug the bear out to Joe's SUV.

Seven more bears were seen. The hunt is off to a strong start. 

The Bearhunt Continues Tomorrow...