Bear Tales from Ontario.....

The past 5 weeks have flown by and our time in Ontario has come to an end. With the opening of bear season, this past week was incredibly busy as 9 bear hunters arrived in camp with the hopes of putting their tag on one of these ghosts of the bush.

Some left with great trophies, but all left with great memories and stories to tell. Every hunter saw bear and had an opportunity to get one. 5 harvested their trophies, 2 missed while two others saw bear but were waiting for bigger ones.

Although I did not take any pictures of the bears, (you are welcome Pam) I will share a couple of stories from the hunters.

An 18 year old girl arrived with her dad to hunt bears for her first time. She brought a tree stand to hunt out of so she was elevated to get a better view of the area and she would be 12’ above any bears that walked by. The hunting site I had selected for her did not have any trees that would support a tree stand however so she had to hunt out of a ground blind. She was nervous but agreed to hunt on the ground. Actually I think her dad was more nervous than was. When she returned she had a story to tell when a sow with 2 cubs walked within feet of her blind! She of course did not shoot but said she was scared to death and excited all at the same time to have such an experience.

Meanwhile her 19 year old boyfriend had an experience of his own. He was hunting out of a tree stand at a height of about 12’ when a bear walked into the area. It was not the big one he was hoping for and was not going to shoot so he just sat there and watched it.  Bear have very poor eyesight and rely mainly on their hearing and sense of smell. Well this bear knew something was in the area when it walked in following the exact same path the hunter took on his way to the stand. It is hard to say if this bear knew he was tracking a human as this area is so remote there is a chance it had never run across a human before. So here was this bear standing at the base of the tree looking and smelling straight up trying to figure out what was up in the tree. So what does a bear do when it is curious about something up in a tree? You got it, it climbs the tree to see what is up there. The hunter said the pucker factor was off the charts as this bear climbed the tree and smelled his boot before it climbed down and scampered away!

An even more intense situation occurred with a father/son team were hunting out of a ground blind when a bear came across their tent in the woods and did not like it. They said this bear charged their blind stopping just short and growled and snapped its jaws trying to intimidate whatever was in there. Let me tell you, they were definitely intimidated! They could not get a shot at it as it approached to the side and behind them but they did get a good look at it a couple times and said it was definitely a shooter bear!

But by far the scariest and most dangerous event occurred to me when I went out to pick up a ground blind from a hunter who had switched spots. He had left his blind out in the bush so I offered to get it since I was going to be in the area. I approached the blind without a care in the world, walked up to it, unzipped the door, ducked my head and slipped into the blind ready to dismantle it. It was then I came face to face with……a skunk! Well, not face to face exactly as this beast was as terrified as I was and was trying to get out of this 4x4 foot enclosure with his butt pointed right at me! I jumped backwards out of the blind in about a millisecond and lifted the blind freeing it. Although it smelled, it did not spray so I was able to take the blind down and get back to the vehicle unscathed.

I was also able to complete our Onaman Lake video this week. This was a particularly tough task as we had so much good video to share. I was finally able to whittle it down and am excited to present the long awaited, much anticipated video!

We are now headed to Wisconsin for a few days awaiting the wedding of our good friend Kevin where yours truly will be a co-best man. We are looking forward to a few days catching up with friends and family before we head back to our property in South Dakota!