A Bear On The Ground - Setting Up At Double Matrix

Two days before the bear hunt began Fred told me his plan to get a bear on the ground with the Double Bull Matrix 360, and to video the hunt. For video purposes he wanted to use two Matrix 360 ground blinds and put them together. We each would get in separate ones and he would  video my hunt from his.

We drove to the stand site he wanted me to hunt, he called it "Double Matrix" and we carried in two Matrix blinds. The bait was hammered, logs were thrown all around.

We set up the two Matrix blinds side by side. Fred put his tripod and seat in the back one.


I set my chair inside the front blind. We freshened the bait and covered it with the scattered logs. Then we set up a TrailTimer EZ-Cam so it could watch the bait for us. And it did a good job, as we found out when we returned.

Two Days Later...

We arrived at the Double Matrix site later than we wanted to, after 5:30. Once again the logs were scattered and the bait was eaten. I baited and set the logs on it while Fred loaded his video gear into the back blind.

We opened a gap in each of our blinds so Fred could see into my blind and out through the front, where we hoped a bear would be.


We were ready. The next three hours we watched and waited. Double Bull's Matrix 360 ground blind is truly amazing. It sets up in seconds and is roomy enough to shoot a bow in. You can adjust the size of its viewing and shooting window from very small to a complete 360 degrees. 

In this case I had the front open and half of the left side, and on it I pulled down the mesh so that I could see out -- but a bear couldn't see in. That was just in case it came walking in on the trail that was 2 yards from the blind. Which was why Fred put the blind where he did. He wanted the bear right next to the blind if it would co-operate.

Daylight faded and went away. I walked to the TrailTimer and checked its film. The flash picture it took as I approached it used up the film. I had another role in my pocket and changed it.

When we arrived at camp a group of hunters were going into town. We sent the film with them to get it put on CD.

In the morning we looked at the TrailTimer pictures. They told us the story of the site, or so we thought. Here they are...

One thing we knew from the pictures was that today would be another Double Matrix day.