Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Kids at the Campfire We're Going On a Bear Hunt

My son and I depart for Maine in the morning. We're going on a bear hunt and he's the shooter. At 11 y/o I expect there will be some fear, some nervousness, and some anxiety. I just hope there's some joy and happiness too.

He will be hunting with his custom H&R 357 Maximum loaded with 180gr Barnes TSX FN bullets. He's a great shot with that rifle and ammo combo so his confidence is high.

Wish us luck, we're going on a bear hunt!

In a recent discussion with renegade60, he told me he sings this rhyme everytime he hunts bears. 🤣🤣

WTF????

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣


Get head nets, light weight gloves, and Ben's 100% deet...
Duct tape you sleeves and gloves junction.
Cut off the end 1.5 inch of the finger on the glove per his right or left shooting finger.
Same feel as at home on the trigger.

You guys are gonna need it protection against.....
Black flies, moose flies, deer flies, horse flies gonna be out and hungry.
Especially black flies.

Good luck to you guys!!!!

And of course..
" pics or it never happened" 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻🐻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

We're using a Thermacell. I bought extra fuel and repellant mats. Have headnets and plenty of 100 mph tape.

Good Luck!

HS 58

Thanks!

The Thermacells work amazingly well here. We turn it on for 15-20 minutes inside the box blind then shut it off and it keeps the bugs out for almost 2 hours.

We had a ~200lb bear come to the bait at 8:45pm. It's almost completely dark at 9pm. He tipped the barrel to the right and his body was behind a bush. We'd see his head pop up from time to time. Tomorrow will be better. The guide plans to move the barrel over a little bit so bears can tip it either way and it won't be blocked.

🤞

Good luck, Hope you see a shooter tomorrow. Pic's please.

Congrats all around.

Congrats. Very Nice. Good pic's too. Thanks for sharing.

That's awesome!!!!

Yesterday's weather here in Jackman, Maine was about 10 degrees cooler than the days before. We got on stand just before 5pm to find the limbs missing from inside the bait barrel but the barrel remained standing up. It was cleaned out of all bait.

It rained off and on until 6:30pm and we both dozed off a few times. At 7:30 my son was leaning forward in his chair resting his eyes. A bear walked in from the left side and I alerted my son to it's unexpected, silent presence. He quietly and slowly raised up to see the bear walking around the barrel.

The bear spooked and walked back in the same direction it came from. It didn't go far and turned around and came back. It walked around the bait (26yds away) then walked towards us about 20ft closer before it turned around and walked around to the backside of the barrel.

It tugged on the barrel one time and it almost came over. The bear then proceeded to pull the limbs out with it's mouth.

It shifted around to the left side of the barrel where it was standing up leaning on the barrel while it was pulling limbs out.

My son was perched in the window opening of the box blind with his 357 Max H&R rifle trained on the bear. He took the shot while the bear was stretched out pulling on a limb.

At the shot, the bear flinched and bolted. I watched the direction of travel then we sat back and waited for 30 minutes. We didn't find any sign blood so we walked to the road and waited for our guide to pick us up.

We explained everything to the guide and he drove us back to camp where we met up with another hunter and we grabbed the ATV. We got back to our hunt site at about 10pm and started to search for the bear.

We found blood about 60yds away from the bait and marked each spot we found with orange tape. The other hunter used a hunting app on his phone to mark points on the map.

We backed out at 11:30pm when the rain set in again and decided to come back early the next morning. My son and I got back to camp at 12:40am and slept terribly for 5 hours.

We got back out there at 7:30am and couldn't find any blood as it rained pretty hard overnight. We decided after an hour to start doing grid searches. After an hour the guide walked upon the dead bear. I stayed with it while he walked back to grab the Jet Sled, my son, and my father. I field dressed the bear and found the bullet entered behind the shoulder and exited lower on the far side. The bullet missed the heart but hit both lungs. The chest cavity was full of blood. It appears the lower exit hole sealed and didn't drain much blood.

We drug the bear through 260yds of one of the thickest, nastiest swamps I've ever seen.

Once back at camp again, we got it tagged and took it into town and dropped it off at the butcher shop.

All in all, it was an exhausting recovery but tears of joy were flowing when my son first saw his downed bear and gave me a huge hug.

Good job getting your son out in the woods. Congratulations on the hunt.

Black bear makes for some very good sausage.

Congrats Dinny!

Great Memories we're created for a long time to come!

HS 58

This is something that your son will never forget, it's great t hat you got to share the hunt together. A Big Congrats!

Congrats to you both!

An adventure well told and memories made, hunting bear with dad! Very Cool!

Thanks for all the kind comments! We're home now and my son is coming down off of Cloud 9. He was a bit perplexed when he couldn't find the spent brass he fired to kill the bear. Mom saved the day. When she moved his clothes from the washer to the dryer she found it. He and I will make a necklace and incorporate the spent brass casing into it somehow.

Dinny, Sorry I am a bit late to the party, but congrats to the both of you! I think my middle son who was always with me shot his first bear at the age of 9. I was nervous as a whore in church (really that means I was battling with my own control issues ). I was running the (VHS) video camera and playing back-up guide. He wasn't nervous and just hammered the bear with a cut down .270 I had for the boys. Curious how your experience was.

Regardless, I couldn't be happier for the two of you and hope you relive the experience often. Great, great job - thanks for sharing it with us!

Bob,
I was shaking like a dog pooping a peach pit. I was excited for him before he even pulled the trigger. He was cool under pressure and exercised the most patience I've ever seen him use. He waited for the perfect shot and took it while the bear was comfortable and leaning on the bait barrel. I must have told him to shoot three times before he pulled the trigger, lol.

Great job you and your son!

Thank you!

We hunted with Joseph Tomah Outfitters near Jackman, Maine. For $2500 per hunter (my son was the licensed hunter, I accompanied him for free) we were provided lodging at the Maple Inn three miles north of famed Bishop's Gas Station and Convenience Store. We were provided with a substantial lunch everyday. This lasts for 6 days, though one could pick the 6 days they want to hunt. We chose June 11-16 hoping all the bears would be out of hibernation and hungry. As an added bonus, the boars were on the prowl for a mate. We hunted the 2nd available week so I believe the season opened o/a June 5th and goes until late June sometime.

The guides drove us to our stands and picked us up just after dark and brought us back or we stayed later while downed bears were recovered. We had the mornings and early afternoon everyday to fish, explore, or sleep in.

The Passamaquoddy Tribe owns 30K acres of wilderness and those lands are mostly accessible by truck via gravel roads that wind and twist throughout. Travel from the motel to some stands could be an hour or slightly more. We were in our stand by 5pm and it didn't get dark until about 9pm.

They have 2 man 15 ft ladder stands and medium sized box blinds on the ground. The bait barrels are rarely more than 30yds from the stands. We had action at our stand nearly everyday. The experienced hunter who sat in our stand the week before passed on a smaller 110lb bear, we passed on a 130lb bear we saw the first night, shot the 165lb bear pictured above on the third night and someone shot a 150lb bear from that stand on the fifth night.

Some stands are less than 100yds from the roads and some are much farther. ATVs are often used to get limited mobility hunters to and from their stands.

This year they baited with trail mix, chocolate chip cookie dough, fryer oil, and molasses.

Roger and Joe and their crew of experienced guides treated us like family. Facebook has Joe's contact info. They also offer Fall moose hunts though they may be booked full for some time in the future. We saw 8-10 moose either on Hwy 201 or on the gravel roads around the hunting grounds. They're alot bigger in person than I imagined.

A excellent butcher in town had our bear cut up and frozen in near record time. He previously worked for a taxidermist and left the paws and skull attached to the hide when he skinned the bear. He vacuum packed all the meat and it all stayed frozen when kept in the back of my truck inside decent Walmart coolers.

https://m.facebook.com/people/Tomah-Joseph-Outfitters/100063831339706/

We truly enjoyed the balance of time, lodging accommodations, food, and hunting opportunities this outfitter offers. Lord willing and if the creek don't rise, we'll be back next year!

congrats on a good hunt with your kid, time well spent

Thanks!

Great story Dinny! You just created a wonderful memory for the both of you that’ll live forever in your hearts. Nothing better than a hunt like this!

Give your son a high five for me and a hearty tip of my hat to you from one dad to another. 👍🏼

On a separate note…. I’m glad to hear that the Thermacell works well for you. I’ve used it twice up in Alaska with less than stellar results. In fact by the end of the week it seemed that the mosquitoes were using the Thermacell to copulate on…it didn’t keep the mosquitoes at bay for us. On this fly out hunt we probably had $10,000 worth of gear between the 2 of us but of everything we DID bring we forgot to bring headnets. For want of basically $4.00 worth of headnets we were swatting mosquitoes and fighting those bastards the entire time. 100% Deet helps but it’s not a substitute for a headnet. 😀

Great job to both of you guys!

Thank you!

Next year I think we'll skip bear hunting and go after smallies and walleyes on Lake St. Clair. 😎

Good deal. Something I only dreamed about at that age.

Same here. I shot my first bear in my 40s.

Lucky kid!

This is an awesome thread! Thanks for sharing it.

The first one is always the most memorable, for both of you. Good job!

Wishing you many more memorable father and son hunts.