The 12 Month Grand Slam

This September, I will be working to complete my lifelong dream of harvesting each of Maine’s big game animals (deer, turkey, bear and moose) in a single calendar year. Know as the Maine “grand slam”, it is an achievement only made possible by drawing a coveted moose tag, being a skilled and lucky hunter and heavily supported by gracious family and friends. After harvesting an 8 point buck last hunting season and shooting a turkey this spring with my bow, I realized after being drawn in the lottery for a September bull tag in zone 2, that if I was successful on the moose hunt and harvested a bear my dream could potentially become a reality.

The first week of September, I will be participating in the Maine bear hunt, sitting at a bait site and patiently awaiting the arrival of a bruin. This hunt will be followed by a few weeks off, before I head back into the wilds of the far north for a chance at a bull moose. Both hunts will require months of plotting and planning, if I hope to have any chance of achieving my goal.

Tantamount to success, will be a solid understanding of the strengths and limitations of my hunting rifle. These skills can only be learned through regular shooting practice. I am convinced that a majority of hunters simply do not spend the proper amount of time on the range, needed to really learn their favorite hunting rifle. This lack of comfort causes a hunter to be much slower to shot and additionally less confident in their abilities, when a shot opportunity arises, slight out of their comfort range. For me, shooting practice will mean weekly visits to the local gravel pit, taking shots at targets from 25-300 yards and from various shooting positions (sitting, kneeling, standing and from shooting sticks).

I encourage all hunters to spend time on the range before heading afield; it will ultimately make a person a better more confident sportsman. Though a truly monstrous size animal with bulls nudging over 1200 pounds, they are still very difficult to locate in the thick woods of Down East, Maine. Low numbers create the proverbial “needle in the hay sack” scenario, creating much difficulty in finding these titanic creatures. To locate a moose, you first need to find appropriate moose habitat. This can be done by studying your Gazeteer or using Google earth to virtually scout areas with limited human access, swamps and areas bordering small lily pad ponds.

Moose hunters heading Down East (Wildlife Management District (WMD) 19) will be well served exploring the vast network of logging roads around Little Musquash Lake (Delorme’s The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer (MAG), Map 35, D-4), West and East Monroe Ponds (Map 35, D-4) and Musquash Stream (Map 35, C-5). Moose can frequently be found, during early mornings and late evenings, patrolling these shallow ponds, dipping their heads under the water to uproot their favorite food, the common water lily. These salt rich plants are a moose favorite. Hunters finding small ponds filled with these treats would be well served to stake out these spots during dusk and dawn.

While a majority of hunters are familiar with calling moose, most do not realize that moose, like deer, can be lured by sexual as well as curiosity scents. Moose are inquisitive creatures and will frequently investigate the smells of other moose or strange smells that are not perceived as dangerous. Hunters can use this trait to their advantage, using scents to pull moose out of the deep Down East woods and into shooting range. Several companies make moose lures but my personal favorite is the type that is ignited and burns like an incense stick. The trick to successfully using this product is to take a 5 gallon bucket and drill 8-10 ½ inch holes in the top sides about 1 inch up from the bottom. Take a shovel and clear a patch of earth down to bare earth in an area slightly bigger than the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket. This “clearing” is to ensure that nothing catches fire while the incense sticks burn. Next take 2 incense sticks, poke them into the ground, light them and place the bucket over the top. The bucket will protect the slowly burning sticks from rain or strong winds that could extinguish them, while still allowing the smoke to slowly escape. This set-up creates a huge scent cloud that saturates the entire target area. Once allowed to burn all night, it is sometimes a simple matter of arriving early the next morning and shooting your love sick bull moose as he stands drooling over the smoldering bucket.

Moose hunters looking for a location to base their zone 19 hunt should consider staying at the Machias River Campsite (Map 25, A-3). While few camp sites exist (one lean-to, two RV and three tent sites) at this first come first serve location, several additional camping opportunities exists further north up the Machias River Corridor, accessible via the Stud Mill Road. Harvesting a moose is the pinnacle of an outdoorsman’s hunting career. To be fortunate enough to be chosen to pursue and potentially harvest the largest game animal in North America is truly a unique experience.

I like nothing better than to help facilitate a sportsman successfully harvesting a moose, as their excitement in the endeavor is always infectious. Anyone is planning a central Maine moose hunt Down East, please contact me and ask questions, I would be happy to assist.

The Rabid Outdoorsman "BEARS" it all on Question ONE!

This November, Maine voters will be faced with a referendum asking residents to end the three primary methods (baiting, hounding and trapping) of hunting black bears in this state. Both sides are of course passionate about ultimately being victorious and to win are embroiled in a battle using a combination of biological statistics and raw emotion to push their agendas.

I wish we could spend all the time, energy and money that will be spent on “Question One” instead working toward curing childhood diseases, improving our states educational system or combating domestic violence but unfortunately, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has decided that for the second time in a decade, Mainers need to raise and spend MILLIONS of dollars defending our wildlife management practices and prove that the black bears in Maine are being treated fairly. Now don’t get me wrong, being a Registered Maine Guide and passionate outdoors person, I certainly have a love and appreciation for wildlife but when I visit the states rural areas and see the level of abject poverty that exists, I wonder how an out-of-state special interest group has managed to push our state priorities this far out of whack. It’s plain to see that HSUS cares for wildlife but how much do they really care for their fellow man?

I realize that the folks running HSUS ”ain’t from around heah”, meaning they do not live and work in this state and as such have a real disconnect with the people and politics of Maine. If they were more “localized” maybe they would realize that Mainers are donating millions of their hard earned dollars trying to save Maine’s bear hunt from going the way of the woolly mammoth, money that could have instead been invested in our struggling state economy. Most of the people donating are comprised of Registered Maine Guides, sporting camp owners and non-profit organizations that operate barely above the poverty line and often struggle to put food on the table for their families. The people unable to give the least are once again being asked to give the most.

Now of course the state of Maine has been managing the black bear population for almost 50 years, our bear biologists are the best in the nation and with an estimated 30,000 bears in Maine; we have one of the largest and healthiest populations of black bears in the entire United States. Current management practices of baiting, hounding, trapping all serve as effective means of keeping the bear population under control, so that bears aren’t raiding garbage cans, tearing bird feeders off houses or carrying off our house pets. So given that everything is working great and has been for decades, why is it that HSUS is so adamant about wanting to end bear hunting in Maine? Well, in part, it is tied to the fact that HSUS feels that hunting is an unfair, primitive and cruel practice. Their perceived agenda is to slowly and methodically erode the tradition of hunting until it is no longer seen by society as a viable part of our heritage. It is my personal opinion that they would also probably love to end the consumption of red meat, animals in zoos, owning house pets and fishing if it was in their direct power to do so . . . but I digress.

People, myself included, certainly have a disconnect with the meat they eat and when buying a cellophane wrapped supermarket steak we often don’t take a moment to think about the animal that gave up its life, so that we can consume its flesh. Animals die so that we may eat and the way that commercial animals die is sometimes a brutal and unsettling process. I don’t like to see animals suffer and I wish that every animal killed in a slaughterhouse or shot by a hunter passed peacefully into the light . . . but that is an unrealistic and infantile view of the world. Killing things for meat is a messy business and NOBODY respects that more than a hunter, who must kill, butcher and eat the bear, deer or wild turkey they take from the Maine wilds.

No matter the rhetoric and finger pointing that comes out of HSUS, hunting over bait is not disrespectful to bear. Many other Maine animals including deer, turkey and even coyotes are also “baited” by hunters using scents, calls, decoys and even bait piles of meat to lure the animals into effective shooting range, so that a humane kill shot can be attained. HSUS states that only “lazy” sportsmen hunt bear over bait and that hunting bear over bait is against the hunters code of ethics know as “fair chase” With that line of thinking, I assume an argument could be raised that compound bows, rifle scopes, range finders and high caliber rifles are also considered “lazy” and against the hunters sacred creed of “fair chase” or the ethical pursuit of game. Maybe to be completely fair, we should all hunt naked and with pointy sticks?

I have hunted bear for over 5 years and during that time invested over 30 days in pursuit of black bears over bait. During those many evenings spent sitting in my tree stand staring through the dense woodlands at a small pile of oats and molasses, I was fortunate enough to see 5 black bears. The first bear I saw, I estimated to weigh 125 pounds. Bears are notoriously hard to estimate weight but because I was hunting over bait, I was able to study the bear for almost 15 minutes before ultimately deciding it was a small bear and not in the size class I was looking to harvest. The second, third and fourth bear I saw was a large sow with two cubs. While the sow was well over 200 pounds it was easy for me to identify it was with cubs because of my high perch in a nearby tree and their distraction caused by the pile of bait. Had I been still hunting and needed to make a quick identification and shot, I wonder if I would have been able to determine the sow had cubs before shooting. The last bear I saw was well over 300 pounds. As the monsterous bruin ambled out of the woods, I raised my rifle and upon looking through the scope noted that the available light did not allow me to place the cross hairs precisely on the bear’s vitals, ensuring a humane shot and quick death. I let that bear pass as well as the others, because as hunters we all have a code of ethics that we use to judge and control our actions. This code of ethics operates on an even stricter limit than what is allowed by the law and is driven by our love of the Maine wilderness and the animals that inhabit it. Bait sites are not the tool of lazy hunters they are the tool of law abiding, highly ethical hunters who know that in order to properly identify and harvest adult bears humanely, hunters need time to study and examine the animal they plan to shoot. In Maine’s dense woodlands, this level of study and examination is not just difficult when still hunting bears, it is practically impossible.

I wish HSUS would leave us Mainers alone, we aren’t a bunch of dumb rednecks that need to have the management of our state run by outsiders with no understanding of our state priorities. It would be my hope that in another decade I am not AGAIN watching my fellow Mainers spend millions of dollars funding yet another campaign to defend our bear hunting practices, instead I hope that money goes to supporting much more important state matters.

Bear Camp III

I just returned from a week in the remote wilds of Maine hunting bruins. Bear camp has become a new annual September ritual, with this being my third year. This season was spent with the fine folks and guides at Eagle Mountain Guide Service located in the center of the prime bear habitat of Washington County. This area of the state is comprised of dense spruce thickets, cedar swamps and thousands of acres of blueberry barrens. This unique geography creates a prime habitat of quality feeding and bedding areas for growing big bruins.

During the course of my stay, several bears were harvested ranging from a "good eatin" 100 to a monster 370 pound animal that required 6 men to stretcher out of the woods. One client even observed 10 different bear on his bait during the course of the week. He managed a shot on the final night with his single shot TC in 30-'06 firing hornary sst rounds in 180 grain. Unfortunately, after hours of tracking, by both guides and dogs over a course of two seperate days, it was unfortunately not recovered. Personally, I enjoyed watching a 120 and 200+ pound bear visit my bait site but was not offered an ethical shot opportunity on either animal.

My week was spent spending early mornings coyote hunting over endless tracks of blueberry barrens and afternoons and late evening assisting the guides with pulling off hides, butchering, packaging and icing meat, and assisting with the baiting process. All in all a wonderful learning experience.

Another highlight of my trip was the shooting of 5 different iron sighted and scoped hand cannons that several of the sportsmen had brought with them. With a range starting with the diminutative .357 (kidding) and ending with magnums just shy of .500 I was quickly educated in proper form and handling of these powerful wheel guns.

What did I learn?
Shot placement is key! Due to the close range shooting on a bear hunt rifles should be set to be dead on at 25 yards. For most rifle hunters typically shooting dead on at 100 yards this means you will be shooting several inches low. When this relatively small deviation is compounded by an excited shooter, a shot believed to be in the cross hairs can quickly move from critical to wounding. Practice elevated shots at close range before your hunt as bear in the thick maine woods typically do not allow hunters a second shot opportunity. Sportsmen can also increase their chances by studying placement charts and watching bears being shot with good placement on video.

All bait sites are not created equal. If possible hunters being guided should clearly communicate to their service the size of the bear they are targeting. Are you looking for a smaller bear for the dinner table or a Boone and Crocket animal. The more information you provide, the better capable the guides will be in setting you up with getting a shot opportunity on the animal you wish to harvest. If open to the prospect, mail your guide service a trail camera and have them capture your bear digitally and e-mail you the photos. Some highly technical guide services will even have their own cameras and run this service anyway.

Low light conditions that occur when hunting bait sites in heavily forested areas become unhuntable up to 45 minutes before the end of legal shooting due to the loss of day light. This means your cross hairs will disappear, making an ethical shot impossible, way before you need to legally leave the woods. Quality optics, battery illumination and night vision all can work to assist hunters in dealing with the darkening conditions.

Scent control should be practiced through persistence and consistence. Be sure to practive excellent personal hygeine through the entire course of your week. This task becomes increasingly more complicated when hunting from remote hunting locations. Several companies sell handy no scent body wipes that can be used to eliminate body odors. When combined with no scent baking soda based deodorants and scent eliminating sprays sportsmen can gain a slight advantage in significantly challanging a bears sensitive nose.

Shooting Practice 30-06 Style

Yeah, I know what you are thinking . . . why is he closing his left eye! Well, my shameful secret is that I shoot right handed but am left eye dominant. I am currently working to try and correct this genetic anomaly. More about this issue and possible solutions here:
http://www.tomknapp.net/news/
http://www.basc.org.uk/media/eye_dominance.pdf
http://www.archeryweb.com/archery/eyedom.htm

Video of shooting practice (Browning BAR 30-06)


In preparation for this September's bear season I took the BAR out for trial run at my home gun range. The four shots seen in the video were taken at 50 yards using Remington's Core Lokt 180 Grain Soft Points. In the photo at the left, you will see that from the initial bore sighting the deviation is minimal but with adjustment even that will be corrected before the season opener.

Bear Hunt Taken to the Extreme by Stephen Vose

The Maine Sportsman - New England's Largest Outdoor Publication – Will be publishing this short stories in their July 2008 edition. The article will be part of the magazines “special sections” and will highlight my adventures with family and friends during the 2007 bear hunt. For more information on the Maine Sportsman Magazine or to order a subscription click this link: http://mainesportsman.com/. The following is a copy of the submitted article in its original (unedited) version. Enjoy!

Bear Hunt Taken to the Extreme - I have to admit that standing half naked in the middle of the Maine woods with two individuals I had met only hours before was a little unnerving (especially as the sound of the dueling banjos from “Deliverance” began to play in the back of my head) but this was my first bear hunt and I was determined to take every step possible to insure I provided myself with the highest level of opportunity to tag a massive bruin. I guess what I had forgotten to think about, as I reveled in the brilliance of my advanced preparations in scent control was how I was going to change into my scent free clothes once I had arrived at the bait spot. Unfortunately, things had not gone as planned and upon arriving I was forced into putting on a “show” for my new friends; while taking a barrage of sarcastic comments on how they planned to rent me out to a few bachelorette parties that weekend for beer money.

To better understand how I had allowed myself to arrive at this point of humiliation, I need to rewind to last October 2006 when in a casual conversation I mentioned to my Uncle Kim (a registered Maine guide from Grand Lake Stream) that I would like to go on a bear hunt. A few months later, my Uncle called to inform me that he had cashed in a couple favors and come September 2007 I would be going on a bear hunt. As I hung up the phone I had a huge smile on my face and could barely contain my excitement with the anticipation of fulfilling one of my lifetime dreams. Like many of my other adventures this one began with educating myself with the task at hand and almost immediately I began researching all things “bear” in books, on the Internet and on hunting shows trying to learn as much as possible about their habits, haunts and behaviors. Part of this research, had informed me that a bear’s sense of smell is as sensitive if not better than a deer and because of his fact, I planned to take the same precautions as I would on a deer hunt and washed all of my hunting clothes in no scent soap, dried them outside and finally packed them in a dry bag with pine and spruce boughs to preserve them from absorbing any offensive odors. My plan had been simple, to wear my regular street clothes on the drive to the bait site and then change into my hunting apparel once I arrived. So perhaps now you can see how I ended up with very little clothing on in a desolate and unnamed Township somewhere in the wilds of Washington County with two individuals I barely knew.

Well, I can honestly tell you that during that first evening on the stand I knew that I was hooked on bear hunting. Every squeaking tree branch, changing shadow and crunching leaf set my heart racing. Though I can’t put my finger on precisely what it is about bear hunting that makes it so definitively different from other hunts but for me there is a thrill to it that sets it far apart for other big game. For over three hours, I sat overwhelmed with my good fortune at being able to be in this place and mesmerized by a gymnastics display by what I believe to be one of the largest red squirrel colonies in the state of Maine. Those of you who have never sat over a bear bait let me assure you that doughnuts and cake are as much liked by red squirrels as by bears. As I watched the sun slowly sink to the horizon, I heard several shots in that critical half an hour before the end of legal hunting time when bears become increasingly more active and I waited intently hoping that my chance might be next. However, by the end of my first night on the stand no bear arrived but I was still filled with excitement and hope as to what the next evening might bring.

Upon arriving back at the truck the CB radio crackled with activity that indicated the other members of the various parties had taken sizeable bruins. I was very excited at the chance to see a bear up close and personal, as until this evening the few bear I had seen in my lifetime had either been by chance encounter while deer or partridge hunting or road kill. With suicidal intent, we raced back toward town down the twisting dirt roads narrowly missing large boulders protruding from the road surface and washouts the size of the Grand Canyon. We incredibly managed to arrive back in town, shaken but not stirred, and immediately went to check out the bruins. Two of the harvested bears were in the 300 lb range and each where beautiful specimens both with thick black coats and one with a large white chest patch. The third bear (actually filmed by the hunter and watched by me about half a dozen times) was hit with what appeared to be a beautiful shot just behind the huge bruins forward shoulder with a Marlin 45-70. Unfortunately, although tracked with hounds and my very enthusiastic cousin until about 1:00 AM that evening and then again at first light the following morning the bear even after these exhaustive measures was not recovered.

During a late dinner that night that consisted of appetizers of deer venison jerky, jalapeño cheese and crackers and a main course of ½ lb moose burgers, fresh corn on the cob and garlic mashed potatoes my uncle expressed a list of concerns with the “limited” power of my 30-30 Marlin. As many of you know the Marlin 45-70 is a sizeable caliber capable of launching a projectile that packs an incredible amount of down range energy (especially at a bear bait site where most shots are less than 25 yards) but after the previous nights unfortunate recovery debacle and my inexperience with bear hunting I listened intently to his argument. I attempted to explain that I had used the 30-30 Marlin extensively on whitetails for over 15 years with zero recovery problems, however, he was adamant that I needed to take this hunt to the “extreme” and use a more substantial firearm. My presented weaponry of choice, produced from his extensive arsenal, consisted of either a pump action 760 Remington .308 or Remington semi-auto .270. That afternoon after taking both guns to the gravel pit and poking at a target at about 50 yards from various sitting and standing positions I decided that the .270 was a better fit and even though I was shooting a gun that I was completely unfamiliar with, typically a BIG no-no for me personally on any hunt, I relented to his pleas.

The second night I arrived at the stand around 3:00 PM and once again put on a show for my new friend and another buddy of his who was planning to shoot his bear with a Smith and Wesson 500 magnum. I noted that the other hunter was wearing his hunting clothes and seemed unconcerned that my “extreme” scent control measures were the least bit necessary. Having come this far, however, I decided not to change my tactics and I put on my clothes and sprayed down with a healthy dose of activated carbon scent eliminator. I sat on the bait for the entire evening watching the red squirrels and listening to the calls of the chickadee and as the shadows lengthened and as the golden hour approached I heard a single distant shot from the Smith and Wesson 500 but as the sun sank below the horizon I knew that a bear this year for me was not going to happen.

I arrived back at camp and was pleased to see that the other hunter was excited to have been able to shoot his bear with a pistol and he was busy making plans to butcher it for future table fare and of his good fortune I could not have been happier. To say that I was disappointed would not be entirely correct but I had been hopeful. In the end, it was an “extreme” privilege to be able to get a chance to hunt for bear this season and the people of Grand Lake Stream always make my visits incredibly enjoyable. I have a saying that hunting is only about 5% about the actual taking of a game animal and the other 95% is about the friends you meet, memories that are made, stories that are swapped and time spent in the field learning about the many wonders that Mother Nature has to offer. As I sat in the camp on Wabassus lake that evening playing a friendly game of cribbage with my uncle I rejoiced that I had been allowed to spend this time with him and in my mind I was already making plans to come back next season on another “extreme” bear hunt.