Saskatchewan, Black Bears, and the Phantom - Oh My! Part 2 By Barb Terry - Ten Point Crossbows
Apr 23, 2008 - 5:00:17 AM
Day 3 of our Saskatchewan black bear hunt begins and I'm just as excited as I was yesterday - the day I harvested my very first black bear. After breakfast, we split up into our two little groups - Dan and Danny, and Terry was with me. We all spent time with our equipment for the day - Danny and Terry with the Phantom CLS crossbows and Dan and I picked up video cameras. We all felt confident with our equipment in just a short amount of time, although I think Danny and Terry were a little more comfortable with the crossbows than Dan and I with the video equipment!
After our practice sessions Dan and Danny set out right away to fish in one of the many boats that Flotten Lake Resort has available, while the Terry and I tended to more important things! First we found Derrick and had him get a back strap from each of the bears we had shot the day before. We took the back straps back to the cabin and I cut them into 1" thick steaks as Terry concocted one of his favorite marinades. We both knew that we needed at least one hour for the marinade to do its job so we started the meat soaking and then killed time by getting out on the lake ourselves.
As much as Terry and I enjoy fishing, we couldn't stop peeking at our watches to see if it was lunch-time yet - those bear steaks didn't stand a chance!
Finally Terry and I had enough fishing and we headed back to the cabin. We had a pre-arranged time to meet back for lunch and Terry and I agreed to do the cooking for that meal. Since we were a little bit early Terry only put two steaks on the grill - a sample for each of us. When Terry determined that the steaks were ready, he held out the first steak for me to try. Between the drooling and moaning in sheer delight I told him "get every bit of the steak on the grill now!" That was the best piece of meat - bear or otherwise, that I had ever eaten in my life!
Just a small sample of bear steak to taste. It was more than just good. It was fantastic.
Luckily for Dan and Danny that they returned when the meat was all cooked because I was unstoppable - I tore into those steaks like there was no tomorrow! It didn't matter that we had other items on our lunch menu; I ate several bear steaks instead of everything else.
For this afternoon's hunt, Dan and I took over the duty of being the cameramen for both Danny and Terry. We were also going to different stands than our first two days out.
Once we arrived at our drop-off site, it was an approximately 2-mile ride by Quad to the remote site. Our stand was set-up a little differently than the one we were previously sitting in. Instead of sitting side-by-side, we were sitting front-to-back. Terry was all the way forward and I was sitting as far back as I could get wedged in comfortably between three Aspen trees. The way the platform was built, the bucket that I was sitting on was on two 2x4's, then there was approximately an 8"-gap before the rest of the platform started. Half of my bucket was hanging over the 8"-gap and my feet were on the larger, front section of the platform. Also, since the buckets were white we had camo burlap covering them so they didn't stick out so much on the platform.
As Terry and I finished our preparations in the stand, our Outfitter Derrick Remple and our guide Dave prepared the bait site with donut glaze, donuts, cookies and our own homemade bait - "Boargasm" which I had to sample on the way out to the new site. They departed around 2:15 and our wait began.
With my full belly, the afternoon temperature close to 70 degrees, and my comfortable position wedged between the aspens I was ready for a nap! I dozed off-and-on for a short while until Terry elbowed my knee and nodded in the direction of movement. A sow and her large cub were making their way in to the bait - noses up in the air. Now I'm completely awake!
The two bears spent quite a bit of time licking the Boargasm off of the log that was partially stuck in the barrel, then fought to get the log completely out and on the ground. Then came more movement to our left! This time it was a nice sized boar!
This boar had been around a while and knew not to mess with a sow and her cub - the sow was definitely large, but that didn't matter as much as her wanting to protect her cub. The boar decided to kill some time and let the other two bears feed at the bait so he went for a walk. His walk led him over to our group of trees. Terry sat patiently and I filmed the sow and cub on the bait.
As I was filming the bait site, I head some scratching on our trees. Then something unexpected happened - the boar quickly climbed one of the trees behind me and stuck his paw in the front part of my bucket that was hanging over the 8" space, knocking me and the bucket forward! My upper body landed on Terry's back - of course the filming was terrible at that point! Without saying a word or making any sound at all, I reached over and put the camera on pause and then started pushing off of Terry and resetting my bucket. Terry then asked "what are you doing?" and I responded "the bear knocked me off of my bucket". His next comment was "cool!"
OK, take it easy. We're just sitting here trying not to get eaten.
Now that the bear knew for sure that there was something alive up in the platform he got extremely mad and wanted us down. At this point he is now on my right side, letting out a load roar, and getting onto his hind legs heading toward a 12-foot sapling that he slams into chest first. Not satisfied with the sapling slamming, he now comes to the front of our platform, gets on his hind legs and starts eating the main beam of our ladder - not the wrung, the main beam! Of course I couldn't film this part because I'm sitting again and my Hunter's Safety System vest is strapped to the aspen tree over my right shoulder!
The ladder was not on the menu. It was more of an appetizer.
Eating our ladder bored him quickly so he decided to join us in the stand! Now he comes over to our left side and starts climbing. Terry and I both stand up and Terry tries to "talk him down". I'm filming as straight down on him as I can, but being strapped to the tree on my right kept me back a little. All the while I hear Terry repeating "get down" and "you don't want to do that" over and over - my guess is that the bear was a French bear, not English speaking! The bear makes it to within 4" of my boot and then gets down. He had fear in his eyes looking at the Phantom CLS crossbow but not when he looked at us!
The sow and cub are long gone now and the boar slowly heads to the bait, turns back to our trees a couple of times. Then Terry squeezes the trigger and the NAP Spitfire broadhead, Luminok nock, and aluminum arrow go right through the bear perfectly and then stick in the ground! The bear goes approximately 20-yards and crashes!
Bear down. What a great trip, experience and one load of excitement.
Terry and I sit back down and breathe our sighs of relief, high-five each other, do our post-kill interview and pack up. What a fantastic hunt - I've never experienced any hunt this exhilarating! Now we want to go see this renegade trophy!
Just as Terry went to experiment with the sturdiness of the ladder, he hears me say "we can't go yet - there's another bear coming in". Needless to say we had another 45 minutes of adventure before we could get out of our stand. The film I shot next was more of a comedy video that will probably never make it to TV, but it was fun all the same! This bear didn't care how much we moved or said. He just didn't want to leave!
Wrapping the experience up quickly, we had three bears down in four days of hunting - Danny didn't see a bear he wanted to shoot, but he did pass on several smaller ones. Look for repeats of the show on several of the outdoor channels in the US and Canada.
Our Ten Point Phantom proved to be up to the task again.
Thanks again to TenPoint Crossbow Technologies for sending me on this hunt, Danny Leonard and his Outdoor Dreams Hunting Connection TV Show with Terry Kalush, Flotten Lake Resort with outfitter Derrick Remple and his wife Claire, Abe, Drew, and Dave our guide.
