It was a brisk Wednesday morning with four days to go in the bear trapping season as I pulled off the gravel access road and parked my truck on the edge of a potato field. I eased out of the cab and flipped on the small LED light clipped to the bill of my cap, the sun just warming the horizon with hues of pink and red peeking through the tree line to the east. I grabbed my rifle, a sixteen-inch barreled Stag Arms AR-15 chambered in .300 AAC Blackout and clicked on the illuminated reticle of the Vortex Strike Eagle scope perched on the upper receiver. I pocketed a fresh SD card for the game camera and seated a magazine into the well of my rifle. This was a ritual I had performed every morning since the close of the bear over bait hunting season weeks ago and once again I set out across the road and down the trail that weaved down ridge between the field and the cedar swamp below.
This bear got the best of two different clients during the hunting season. Doug, the first hunter to take position in the ground blind during week two of the hunt had a few encounters just after last light, hearing the bear move through but unable to take a shot. Already dark as a pocket with legal shooting time minutes past, all he could do was text me to let me know I’d be coming in to a hot site when I came to retrieve him. He was just 40 yards away from the big bruin, listening to him wrestle the bait barrel around. The boar showed up on trail camera photos at that site nearly daily but Doug never had a daylight shot at that bear.
I decided to let that site cool off, kept it baited but left it unused for week three of the season figuring to give the bear visiting it some breathing room and a sense of security. By the time Herb showed up for his hunt in week 4, that site had been back to daylight activity, with several bears around, including the sneaky boar. Herb’s first day in the blind produced no results, as did the second. On the third day around 5 p.m., Herb caught the black flash moving through the thick wood line to his right headed towards the bait. Judging it was a good-sized bear, he readied himself for the boar to break the tree line into the bait site. It never did. The black ghost slipped away and did not return in daylight.
As the bait season ended I knew I had a dilemma on my hands – an educated bear. I knew that next year, even bigger and more dominant, that boar could push off other bears in the area and be content to only visit that site at night. It was right then that I decided to put a bracelet on that sneaky boar. I bedded a WCS Pro-12 snare thrower at the site. True to his reputation, the boar fouled and misfired that snare multiple times over the next few weeks. The WCS is similar to a foot hold trap, with a pan that triggers the snare, launching it upwards around the leg. After sensing my frustration viewing the trail cam photos and seeing how the bear approached and found many ways to foul the trap, my wife Moira got in on the action and we devised a new set. With strings of marshmallows tied high in the trap’s anchor tree, I bedded the trap to affect a rear leg catch as the bear stood to grab for his treat. With time running out we were going for broke.
I made the final turn on the trail to the trap site just as dawn fully broke. I could see the barrel on its side and out of position from where I had left it, just 50 yards away. And suddenly, a big flash of black as the bear stood from behind the knoll and started pacing around, huffing and growling, his rear leg securely cinched in the snare. My heart was pumping like an oil rig and I could hear the blood rushing through my head as I moved closer for a clean shot. As I knelt down and brought the rifle up, the bear lurched forward and took the thirty caliber round high. A quick follow-up put the boar down. I bowed my head, took a deep breath and made the call back to camp – “We did it!”