I'll be heading out for a fall bear hunt in Ontario in just a few days. While packing supplies and what not I began to realize how much of my gear is tied to tradgang in one way or the other! I feel like I will have alot of you with me in some shape or form! This hunt will be at Bear Paw landing a place were Fred Bear, Dick Lattimer, Jim Dougherty and some guy named Charlie Lamb have hunted in the past! Here is some of the gear I'll be dragging along and how it's tied to the Gang!
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My Bob Lee recurve (sponsor) with hush puppies, bow hush (sponsors) and skin-eeze from Arrow Wraps Unlimited Sponsor)
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These will be the arrows I will hunt with, The shafts came from the classifieds (can't remember who right off), The snuffers came from Kustom King (sponsor) The wraps are from here of course!
I'll also be bringing along some arrows for practicing these were also bought on the classifieds, The wraps came from Onestringer and the feathers were gotton in a trade from a member!
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The quiver I'll be using I made myself from tidbits of information learned here at the gang and the how-to's! It's also got some signatures of freinds and tradgangers I have met! And a helle knife I made from a blade kit (sponsor again)
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Of course I will have to bring along my tradgang dew rag and a headnet I won at the St. Judes auction!
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I won't have to worry about finding the truck or stand in the dark thanks to Ray Hammond who sent me this GPS unit during last years white elephant exchange! And you can't go wrong with another Helle blade (sponsor) just in case.
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Best of luck to you Dennis. We are leaving the same day you are. Almost time for the stories of these two hunts to begin.
And of course I'll be bringing along my knapped neck knife for a little luck!
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Thanks to all the great sponsors and members for there great products, trades and hand me downs I don't know where I would gather as quality equipment with out you all! Theres no place like tradgang!
So Keep an eye out for this thing headed north soon!
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Leroy, Right back at you my freind have a safe and fantastic hunt!
Good Luck!
Good luck on Your hunt Dennis. My son and I are headed to Colorado Wed. morning for Elk. Be safe in Your travels. bretto
I'm still carrying the knapped head and one of the buffalo teeth you sent my in the first white elephant.
Were back! we rolled in late last night, here is how this played out over the last week.
After a 17 hour drive north on 9/7/07. We finally made our way close to camp. It seemed like alot of this drive was on quite long lonely roads which made it bearable!
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We stopped for the night around 7:00 P.M in Dryden, Ontario just about 30 miles west of camp. Dryden is a nice little quite town.
The morning of 9/8 we checked out of our hotel and made a run for groceries before driving the rest of the way to camp.
We were staying in a cabin just accross the channel on lake Wapigoon, from the main lodge. The channel was 0.72 miles accross according to Ray's GPS!
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We tossed our gear into a 16 foot semi-V boat and headed accross the lake to our home for the next week! There's 4 cabins and a showerhouse accross the lake. All propane powered with fridges, stoves, lights, and the water heater! Every thing you would need was there fire wood, blankets, dishes and even targets were waiting.
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There were a total of 6 folks staying there he week, Josh and Melissa from Forrest City Mo, were in one cabin, Steve and Holly from Mexico, MO in another cabin, And finally Dad and myself in a third. While none of us new each other or had ever met we all seemed to be like minded and got along great, you could not have asked for a better group to be in camp together!
After stashing gear, grocceries and goodies, we put our bows together and went out and flung a few at the back stop just to loosen up a little. We had to be back at the main lodge by 12:30 for a meeting and to be shown where our baits were. We arrived a little early and shot some more on the other side of the lake. Carl the owner of the place came out and watched us shoot. He was excited there were a couple recurve guys in camp! He said he doesn't get many in fact we were the only 2 this year. After talking with Carl I found out he has been shooting a mulberry selfbow this year, I was feeling at home already!
During our meeting on the do's and don'ts of camp Carl told us there was a bumper crop of blueberries this year and they had not been seeing the bears they normaly do. However there was a big cold front coming in on the 9th and he expected that to liven things up.
We were showed to the baits we were to hunt they were about an hour drive from camp. The first 10 miles were nice paved roads then we made a turn onto the gravel where I stopped to take a picture of this sign.
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Dad's bait was 21 miles down this road. Mine was 33 miles down this road. Dad's bait was known as rocky bottoms. It was situated in a low spot in a hollow right next to a big rock cliff anout 50 feet high. My bait was known as first shot. it set on a shelf part way up a ridge thick in spruce tree's both of our baits were set up 10 yards from the stands. here's a picture of me I had Carl snap of me on stand when he showed me where it was. He was standing on the hillside in front of me almost at my level.
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The spruces were so think around this stand you could only see 10 to 15 yards in any direction.
This was my first bear hunt and the first time I have ever hunted around "Bait". I had mixed feelings about bait but decided I didn't know how I would feel about it until I tried it. Well after seeing how thick this country is I understand why it is how the bears are normaly hunted here. Carl used 5 gallon pails baited with oats mixed with jelly, syrup, honey and applesauce and various meat scraps and pastries as bait. The combination of oats and sweets really mad for a pleasant smell while sitting on stand!
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After I was shown my bait I settled into the stand. It wasn't long when it begin to rain, a trend that seems to follow me daily! I set until dark without seeing a bear that fist day. However I did see lots of interesting things including pine squirels, camp robbers (both of which I ws familar with from hunting out west) but I did see a variety of woodpecker I had never seen before and my first snowshoe hare! I couldn't beleave the size of those hares and there feet are just huge! I had a hare around my stand for several hours and really enjoyed him, he seemed so clubsy with those big feet but when he saw something he didn't like like the camp robbers, he could flat out fly with them! Right when the shadows were really starting to play tricks with me I heard a wolf howl in the distance and that was absolutley facinating! I ended up hearing wolves 4 different nights and even caught a glimpse of one one evening! When it was to dark to clearly see my bait I slipped out of the stand a little chillled it was alot cooler then I expected it would get tomorrow I would be wearing more clothes!
One of the reasons I booked this hunt whith who I did was due to reading the Fred bear thread on the legends and pioneer section here on tradgang. That and this camp was archery only which was a big plus! Anyway if you have read that thread you know that Charlie Lamb and Fred Bear shared a camp here in 1975.
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Well unfortunatlely I wasn't able to stay in Fred's old cabin but I was just 70 yards or so away I couldn't resist having my picture taken on that porch where the one in Dick Lattimers book I remeber papa Bear was taken.
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Millisa and Josh were the two staying in papa Bears old cabin. They were great folks and I spent almost every evening after dark visiting with them and playing cards in that cabin. The walls were plastered with signatures and drawings of folks that had hunted there in the past. Lots of history in there I took alot of pictures of those old cabin walls!
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The rest after I unpack and sleep a bit more!
:thumbsup: :thumbsup: can't wait for the rest!!
9/9/07 Dawned red and cold. We headed out with the first morning light to go check and rebait baits. I took this picture from the boat landing as we left.
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As we arrived at the first bait area and shut down the suzuki I heard the distinct hiss of air. the rough gravel roads had claimed there first tire of the trip. After rebaiting we headed to Dryden to find somewhere to get a tire patched. When I rolled it into the tire shop the guy said "not from Canada eh" Then charged me $36 for the patch! That was the first road issue of the trip but wouldn't be the last............
We got back to the cabins in time for a quick lunch then it was back to the stands. We got on stands around 2:00 P.M. and sat until dark once again no bears were seen but we did manage to get real wet as it rained from about 9:00 A.M. till after I went to bed! The moisture combined with the 40 degree temperatures had me chilled once agian on stand, I vowed to put on another layer for tomorrow.
sweet post
9/10/07 another gloomy night gave way to another rainy gloomy cool day. had to be in the low 40's to upper 30's last night. I broke down and built a fire in the woodstove and did it ever feel good. The sunrose in a brief break in the drizzly showers giving me this shot to take pictures of.
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We made our usual trip to check baits and rebait again this morning. Those signs stating the roads were not maintained were right on. I spend alot of time on gravel roads around home but these took the cake! After coming back from the second bait the old suzuki barely turned over. After closer inspection I found that a battery cable terminal had cracked from all the bouncing around luckily I had a couple extra in the glove box.
After taking care of that the sun slowly started peeking out and soon it was quite a nice day, we took advantage of it for a little midmorning fishing. It was incredible, a walleye or pike on every 10 cast or so for the next couple hours!
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It was fresh fish for dinner tonight!
We made it back to our stands around 2:00 P.M again today and set till dark. No bears were seen but I was entertained by a never ending show of birds, squirrels, and hares all in all a fine day! The local wolf entertained me again with some howls as I walked the trail back towards the road in the dark.
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9/11/07 A very stiff wind blew in last night and stayed. It had to be blowing around 35-40 mph. I had to get up every hour or so all night to refasten all the windows in the cabin the wind was strong enough to rattle them until they came unlocked then making them bang over and over. When it got daylight enough to see I slipped down to the dock to check on the boat (I was worried it may have sunk or been blown away). I was happy to see it still there, but the whitecaps on the lake were downright scary. There wouldn't be any crossing the channel this morning to check baits. We had already talked to Carl the night before and he was putting us on new baits today anyway so we decided to just hang around camp until the wind died down.
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Finaly around noon the water had settled down enough that we were able to cross the channel. It was still a rough wet ride! Carl showed us to our new stands/baits. Dad was put on "new blind" and I was taken to "8-ball" both baits had been hit when we went to them so we rebaited and settled into the windy evening on stand.
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I set until it was too dark to see the bait bucket with out seeing a bear. once again there was a steady stream of birds, squirrels, and hares to keep me entertained though. Dad had had no luck either, but when we returned to camp we saw our neighbor Melissa had shot a bear. This was Melissas's first hunt for anything and wow was she excited! It was a small bear compleley black but had a great coat! She couldn't have been prouder and I was very happy for her as well!
Great story and pictures.
What trip! Man, the memories you'll have for ever!
Thanks for taking the time to share your wonderful experience!!!!
9/12/07
We were off at daybreak on our usual run to rebait this morning. Once again I took advantage of the sunrise for a photo shoot from just above the boat landing.
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It was cool again this morning and as we drove further away from the lake there was a pretty good frost on the ground. I am assuming the lake held enough heat to keep the frost away by it. Anyway we rebaited 4 baits. The one dad had hunted the first 3 days had been hit really hard. I tried to talk him to relocating to it but he seemed content on the oone he had hunted yesterday. He is still recovering from a car accident he had 3 weeks ago and not moving to quick, the bait he was on now was a short walk and that was fine with him!
When we tried to leave the last bait we had baited the old suzuki wouldn't turn over. A quick check and we noticed the rough road had managed to break another battery terminal. Luckily I still had 1 left in the old tool box. We fished the miday and did fairly well again, it looked like fish and chips for supper again tonight.
We got back on stand around 2:00 P.M. our normal time and hunted till it was to dark to see. No bears were seen again, but the normal squirrells, hares, birds and a couple spruce grouse had kept me entertained. Dad even seen a fisher this evening from his stand.
On the drive up I had seen several of these signs warning us of moose crossings and had took a picture of one.
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While there wern't any signs on the gravel there should have been. I picked up dad and drove a mile or so when I came around a corner and there was a huge bull moose facing me in the middle of the road he was probaly 45 inches wide! By the time I got stopped he was maybe 10 yards away! he stood there for a bit then started away from us, then turned around and came towards us I thought for sure he was gonna give us a little push! He eventually changed course and crashed into the brush I could hear small tree's breaking as he trotted of through the brush. I had seen moose before alot when I worked in Yellowstone but this was the first dad had ever seen he was very excited and amazed by there sheer size!
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9/13/07 Our last day to hunt. We slept in a little later today but i did catch a little bit of sunrise still.
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We set out to rebait this morning as usual. The stand dad had hunted earlier in the week had been hit hard again. I tried to get Dad to hunt it but he still didn't want to. So I decided that I would have to hunt it this evening.
I slipped into the stand around 2:00 as usual and set till dark. There was one pine squirrell stealing bait all evening. This was a very quiet stand to sit, no birds at all. I read a book glancing around at the end of each page before turning it. No bears were seen and I slipped out when it became to dark to see the bait barrel.
When we got back to camp, I made up a little momento to leave in papa bears cabin with all the others of course i had to do mine tradgang style it was made on birchbark and i added a tradgang wrap.
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All in all it was an great hunt, Carl even told us we were welcome to stick around a few more days and hunt since the weather was so crazy and the bears weren't to active but we decided to go head and head out friday morning so we could have a little rest before we had to get back to work.
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A couple more pictures from Friday morning.
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Great pics. I'd have been tempted to spend half my time walleye fishing.
Thanks for the Pics. Congrats on some time well spent. :thumbsup:
Nice pics and good story. Thanks.