Opener success

[jkcmj]

We rarely hunt the mornings, but do to trail cam footage, we had a good feeling on this bait site. My brother took this nice 200 lbs sow around 15 minutes after we left him on stand opening morning.

Great to share a successful hunt with my son in the blind on our boundry waters hunt opener evening. Got it on video, but having trouble loading it up.

[bigbucks]

Very cool, nice job, nice pics.

[Archerysniper]

If you can load it to You Tube it is really easy. If you can't get the video to upload here I can do it for you. Congrats on the bears and how did you go about attracting your bears since you can't bait like other areas?

[Random guy]

Very cool! And I see some awesome chest markings to boot!

[CANOPY SAM]

Great question Arch! I was going to ask the same thing. It sure is a bonus to have you young techno smart savvy guys to help us old timers figure out how to work these silly computers! I'm a lab scientist and I don't have a clue how to do this stuff! Honestly!

That last pic is priceless! Both great bears! Congrats. Tell us about your hunt(s).

[mrklean]

Congrats

[B-man715]

Great shots!

Always neat to see youth hunters out getting hooked

[jkcmj]

This was my 1st time in the boundry waters hunting, and I was not feeling confident to say the least.

We walked in to check the area for bear sign...right away found bear trails in the swamp edge, for those who've seen them, they are quite obvious, just the way they step in the same spots, and round out the foot holes in the trail...anyway, followed that in a ways till we found a few stumps ripped open for grubs...I didn't want to get to far into the swamp bedroom, so we skirted up onto the rock shelfs and found that the bears or some other varmint had been tipping all the moss on the rocks over looking for insects, etc...

I decided with all the activity in the vicinity it was an excellent area. We set up our blind about 20 yards off the swamp edge or so, and put the burner about 5 feet up on the rocks so the bear would have to open itself up for the shot. We were finally all settled in with a nice aroma floating around by about 4pm. The burn lasted less than expected, only about 45 minutes.

About an an hour and 45 minutes into our sit the bear showed up on the run, sniffed all around each marshmellow and the cherry Koolaid log, then turned to leave without eating a thing. A quick shot before he left the rock shelf and it was over...the angle of the shot took out 5 ribs, causing massive trauma and a 5 foot recovery was all that was required.

For my Brother's morning hunt in area 31, we had been having a large boar hitting that sight and lying up on it for nearly 18 hours a day. He slept right on top of it. We got over one hundred photos of him in just one day on the bait site, from 5 am till nearly 10:30 at night he stayed on the site. The following morning, day before opener, we found a smaller bear in the sight 1st thing after we had left, then after 20 minutes or so, she was forced off by the big boar again. We decided it was a morning sit for sure...we baited at the usual time, he climbed into the stand, and I started my truck and drove out. She came in 15 minutes later, and he took her as she approached the bait. He called right away and told me he had gotten the big boar...so I hurried back in and could see right off the mistake he'd made, but still a fine bear he was very happy with, but couldn't help kicking himself after reviewing the camera and seeing how big a size difference there had been. This was his 1st bear hunt, so I was happy to help him get a nice bear his 1st time out...he's already talking about what we should do for "bear camp" next season, so that's a good sign.

[certified jumbo]

thanks for sharing. very good bear, story and excellent pics!!!

[jkcmj]

I forgot about the questions! What did I use for attractant?

For attractant I used a tradition sterno burner with a can of marshmellows, cherry Koolaid mix and maple syrup. This generally puts out about an hour or so of sweet smell and toward the end a heavy fog of white smoke...to be honest I've never called in a mature animal with it, but the yearlings come running! I've taken 3 yearlings using this method over the years. I also have some sort of bait to keep them around for a good shot, wether it is a small pack of sunflower seeds or ?? being I forgot bait this time in, I used the remainder of the koolaid pack sprinkled into a rotted log, and laid several marshmellows scattered around on the rock shelf. Not your traditional bear bait,but easy to pack in and out, and obviously can be effective!

[Archerysniper]

Congrats again and thank you for the story and details as it will help lots of us.

[Matt Breuer]

Congrats, and great reading!!

[CANOPY SAM]

Ha ha ha! Gotta love that Cherry Kool Aid! OH YEAH!

Great recap! Thanks for sharing, and again, congratulations!

[jkcmj]

I finally got the video to come up...short and sweet. 16 seconds.

[paceman]

Awesome Video! I forgot I had the sounds up high. The gun blast startled me

[Boar]

Ha me to, wasnt expecting KPOW! cool beans!

[eyeguy 54]

nice! looks like quite a wound

[summit090706]

Great video.....like I was there Thanks for sharing