I backed my truck around and pointed it up ridge towards the silo silhouetted in my headlights. I grabbed my phone and called back to camp. My client Josh answered and I could tell by the edge in his voice he was on pins and needles waiting for my call. “Go and get your wallet out so you can tip the tracking dog. We found your bear, bud.” I could hear the other clients, the lodge owner and the camp cook in the background, hooting and hollering. After it calmed down, I told him we were headed to camp so he could meet and thank the tracking crew and the blood-tracking dog that saved his bear.
Back at camp, I introduced Paul House and his crew along with his dog Turbo, one of the finest trackers I’ve seen in action. It felt electric in the lodge as Josh realized he really had taken his first Maine black bear. His fellow hunters in camp were just as ecstatic and after many handshakes and thanks later, the trackers headed home to prepare for the next day’s hunt and to await the next call. We, on the other hand, were just about to get started. Our camp cook Skeeter had made sure the guys were well fed and ready; a long time houndsman, he knew very well that the retrieval could make for a long night and he wanted the hunters fueled up for it. The lodge owner Frank was busy readying some extra equipment – saws, pruning loppers, and extra lights, all lashed down on his ATV. When Tyler and Eric (the other hunters in camp) were ready, we made a convoy back down ridge and set to work.
The first week of the bear over bait season was a tough one this year. Both the soft and hard mast crops were bountiful. Berries and nuts were everywhere. The apple trees were loaded like I hadn’t seen in years. This combination made for some erratic bait site activity. We had some good bears on the trail cameras but my clients just weren’t seeing them when it counted – during daylight and on stand. Every night we recounted what activity was taking place around each site and the guys bolstered each other with tales of previous hunts and experiences, all the while keeping a positive attitude. Some stands were hotter than others but that varied day-to-day as well. Throughout the first four days, I saw hunters get discouraged only to be motivated again by the others. There was no feeling of competition, only a mutual bond that hunters share. It can only be felt at small hunting camps among true sportsman and I cannot express how truly good it feels to witness it – both as a guide and as a fellow hunter.
When I received word that Josh had hit a bear in the waning hours of the hunt, on the very last day, I notified the other hunters. The bear was hit twice but sprinted down ridge toward the bog into heavy cover. There was an easy, unspoken determination; let’s get out of the woods and help. After the initial search came up empty and seeing the lack of a heavy blood trail, I sent our search party back to camp and made the call to our local tracking crew. It was dark by now and I knew the dog would work better with less distraction and scent around. I parked out by the road so the crew could find me and waited to see how the night would end.
Sometime after midnight, the bear was finally in the back of my truck. The camp had come together – sawing blow-downs in the way, clearing a path through the thickets, shining flashlights to guide us, and pulling and heaving the 262 pound boar in the sled up ridge, through the black of night. As their hunt came to an end that Saturday at 2 A.M., these hunters finished their week together as they had started it – all for one and one for all.