Black Bear Ontario Style!

Our adventure continues in the outback of Ontario. We have been camped at Pasha Lake Cabins for 13 weeks and will be here for a few more. The past few weeks have been all about the upcoming bear season with limited fishing. Clearing logging roads, getting bait sites prepped and getting trail cameras up for the much anticipated August 15^th opener! The trail cameras are used to determine what is coming into the site. If there is a sow with cubs in the area that site is abandoned and not hunted. This link will take you to Pasha Lake’s website for a view of some of the trail camera images. There are definitely some huge bear out there!!!!!

This guy will go well over 300#'s

The first week of the season found 18 hunters in camp and is somewhat of a homecoming for the regular hunters up here. Many of them have become good friends and this is the one week of the year we get to see them. The first night was hot and humid with temps in the 80’s. Typically the bear will be more active after dark when it is a little cooler so we did not have high expectations for the night. We could not have been more wrong when the first hunter returned to camp a little after 4:00pm reporting they had shot a huge bear! So Barb and I jumped in the truck (along with a few others) to go recover the bruin. The hunter was a teenage girl on her first bear hunt. She was set up in a ground blind (camouflaged tent) with her dad when the bear walked within 20 yards. She made a great shot which made for an easy recovery (if easy can even be used when talking about recovering bear). Father and daughter could not have been happier! In my opinion, harvesting an animal is secondary to time with family and friends....making memories, continuing traditions and just being out in  nature. Those two certainly have memories they will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

One happy hunter!

We arrived back in camp to discover yet another hunter had been successful, by the end of the night there were 6 bears in camp (a new one night camp record) and a lot of happy hunters. The work does not stop once the bears are back in camp, due to the warm temperatures they need to be processed immediately. It is not uncommon to be processing bears until 2-3:00 in the morning and this night was no exception. The following night was equally has hot and equally has successful, another 6 bears down! For the week the camp went 18 for 18, not a bad first week! Follow this link for a peek at a few of the harvested bear.

If this keeps up we are in for some long days and short nights for the 3 remaining weeks!