Maine Bear Hunt

Bill chose Libby Camps, an outfitter/guide service with pretty good looking credentials. Little did we know that Bill had accidentally chosen one of the top two or three outfitters in Maine for bear, moose, deer, grouse, and of course, trout. We could not have gone to a better place than Libby Camps. More on that later.

Our trip started on a Friday. We left Charleston early after very little sleep due to excitement. We drove to a friend’s house in Red Hook, NY, and spent the night. The next morning, we traveled across upstate NY, across Massachusetts, into New Hampshire and finally across a bridge into Maine. Of course we had to stop for lunch in a little town called Freeport and visit L.L.Bean.

Then it was off, north on I-95. We drove and drove and drove for a couple of hundred miles. Some exits were 30 miles apart with nothing in between but trees and swamps. It was an isolated place! Bill had reserved us a room about 60 miles short of our destination for Saturday night. We could not enter camp until Sunday at noon. We stayed that night in a little Mom and Pop motel and talked with several other hunters heading north for the Bear Opener on Monday, August 30.

The next morning we had our choice of two gas stations on opposite sides of the interstate with attached diners for breakfast. Those two places and the motel pretty much made up that little town. Now we are about 1000 miles away from Charleston at this point and still going north!

Forty miles or so north of the little motel on a two-lane road, we turned west toward Oxbow, a small town on our map. If any reader has ever been to Seebert, West Virginia, that would be considered a big town compared to Oxbow, Maine. Actually the only thing memorable about Oxbow was that the paved road ended there. At a turn in the road, we saw, a river, the Aroostook, a tiny cabin, and the start of a gravel road into….The North Maine Woods.

Actually, I’m not so much addicted to Maine as much as I’m addicted to the North Maine Woods. This is the neat part. The North Maine Woods are sort of like the Monongahela National Forest back home, only larger and are privately owned by a timber company, but with a long history of sportsman’s use in Maine. This is a four million acre logging tract that is basically nothing more than wilderness over a hundred miles across with no paved roads. Hundreds of lakes, ponds and world class brook trout streams are scattered throughout this paradise.

We stopped at the tiny cabin, and met a little guy in his 80’s named Lester. For $25.00 each, Lester issued us a permit, to hunt, fish, hike, and camp in the NMW for a period of one week. I nodded toward the beautiful stream outside and inquired about recent trout fishing success, and was told in a thick, Down East brogue, “ you know how it is, some days you get ‘em, some days you don’t.” That was about all the conversation we got from Lester, so we said goodbye and headed off into the NMW for about 35 miles to Libby Camps.

Libby’s is a fifth generation hunting and fishing lodge on a 2700-acre lake, Lake Millinocket, just north of Baxter Sate Park. We rounded a turn on a side road to see this gorgeous lake and a beautiful log lodge surrounded by log cabins. It was perfect. It turns out that Teddy Roosevelt and Jack Dempsey stayed in the 100-year-old cabins that we were to enjoy. We were greeted by Matt Libby a lanky soul with those eyes you see on people who are always pleased about what they are doing at that moment. Bullet and Belle, the two resident Brittany Spaniels whose time of flushing grouse and woodcocks was only a few weeks away also greeted us. For now, they both seemed content to sit on my lap for the next 6 days.

That night, along with several other hunters who trickled in that afternoon, most by the road, but one fellow and his 88-year-old granddad came in by floatplane to the little dock down at the lake. We socialized during a feast of “comfort foods”, prepared by Matt’s wife, Ellen and their daughter-in-law, Jessica. Libby Camps is an Orvis endorsed fly-fishing destination. A full-page photo of Matt Libby, the owner, is in the 2004 Orvis catalog and Field and Stream did an article about them in November 2004.

We met the staff of guides and the talk was of bear hunts past. It seemed we were the only ones in camp who had not been there before. Most seemed to be regulars. We retired to our cozy cabin, with homemade quilts, propane lights, but with indoor plumbing. Our beverages were stacked in a cooler on the porch with a huge chunk of ice that I found out later was cut from the lake the previous winter and stored all summer in sawdust in the “icehouse”

By the way, there is NO television, no telephone on Lake Millinocket, and the silence is DEAFENING!. I have never been to a place so quiet. Occasionally the famous loons of Maine would call out, quite loudly at times. Beyond that you could hear a pin drop at night. The next morning we woke in time for a great breakfast at the main lodge and we did some exploring with some trout rods. Every stream, brook, culvert and ditch seemed to hold brook trout, from 4 inches long up to 5 pounds. The lake of course was full of these fish and occasionally, I would hook a silvery fish that turned out to be a landlocked salmon. The Libby’s keep canoes scattered over 30 square miles, seemingly at every pond and stream in the area. They will gladly give you directions, have guides drive you there, or fly you to a remote pond in one of their two planes.

At lunchtime, which is the big meal of the day, Maine Department of Inland Game and Fisheries Officer joined our group. In West Virginia, we would call him a “Game Warden”. We were given a thorough run-down of Maine game laws in regard to bears and wished much luck.

At 2:30, the guides drove us all, two or three hunters per guide to our individual stands. Bear Hunting in Maine is done with dogs, bait, and is one of the last places you can trap a bear! The stands we used were chosen months before the season opener. We used elevated aluminum ladder stands. Our average shot was under 30 yards to a 55 gallon drum that had been baited every other day for a month, with a combination of old pastry, candy, and mostly blueberry pie filling, which Libby’s seemed to have a limitless supply. Barrels of the stuff! I was surprised to see the guide relieve himself immediately after he dismounted the truck. He explained that they wanted the bears to get accustomed to human scent whenever they visited the bait sites. When a hunter arrived, the animals would not be overly alarmed. We were cautioned that to successfully hunt in this fashion at these distances, the ability to sit motionless was the key. I was in full camo with facemask, and scent shield, sitting only about 8-9 feet above the ground in a pine tree. It was warm, sticky, and trust me on this; there are a lot of bugs in Maine. No-see-ums the Mainers called them. Deepwoods Off seemed to keep them at a reasonable distance for the next 5 hours.

At about 6:00 p.m., I heard a gentle “woof” behind me about 20 yards, several times. The bears like to come in and circle the baits to see if anything is not to their liking. After 10 minutes of woofing, all was quiet. We were cautioned that bears could appear and disappear at these sites in an instant. All was quiet for the next hour and a half. You can’t see much, as the woods in Maine are very, very, thick and brushy.

Five feet on the other side of the barrel, at 7:45 p.m., I saw a tiny movement and noticed two long pointy ears sticking out of the weeds. I could not imagine what this little critter might be; a fox, maybe? Then it jumped into the little clearing I was watching. It was a kangaroo!

Actually, I was seeing my first snowshoe hare. It was huge, as rabbits go. It hopped around the bait barrel for a few minutes, trying to decide if it liked blueberry pie, when I saw the two ears perk up and turn in unison. It froze! Then, in a blink it was gone. I thought,” What has got him so shook up?” Then my brain re-started and I thought,” Maybe he sees something”. Forty yards down in the woods I saw a black leg, walking, then some more black and I finally figured out, “That’s a bear!”

As the guides warned me, at 15 steps any bear looks huge. We saw a video before leaving camp showing how to estimate a bear’s weight and size. Libby Camps prefers that their hunters shoot only bears that are 125-150 pounds or bigger. Any bear, even a cub is legal in Maine. We were told that if a bear walked in front of the bait barrel and his back came up to the SECOND band on the barrel, that was a respectable bear, probably weighing 150 pounds. We were sort of discouraged from hoping to see any bears larger than this, but mostly were discouraged from shooting anything smaller. Gary, the head guide, said there were a few bears around that were 200 pounds, but not many. Just keep watching the bear and where the barrel bands came to on him.

The bruin I was looking at walked up to the trail, looked up the trail briefly, to where the truck had let me out, and then walked by the barrel. The entire barrel DISAPEARED behind the bear! One large right paw came up, grabbed the rim and turned the bait over. A quick peek inside, then a quick, suspicious look back up that trail. All looked good, so he settled his head into the barrel and began to snack. I saw only his back and hind legs at this point. I was so fascinated, that only then did I remember why I was there and raised my Tikka .270 and looked through the Leupold scope. My cross hairs settled on black fur and I waited less that a minute until he withdrew that head from the barrel. I was watching him eat, when it dawned on me that he was out of the barrel and I was looking at my cross hairs that were settled on the hump of his shoulders, broadside. I thought, “Gee, I can shoot now if I want”.

So I pulled the trigger.

The bear was instantly down and thrashing. He thrashed and kicked and pawed the air, but did not move over a couple feet. I figured he was done, but he was really tearing up the weeds while lying on his side. I decided to send him another. BOOM. He never stopped thrashing, but now starts an awful, eerie moaning. Later I was told a bear often gives a death moan when dying. I took aim again and fired once more and after 10 more seconds of thrashing, he lay still.

I sat there a good five minutes in the dusk just fascinated by the whole experience. Then, for the first time in 25 years, I got the shakes! Big time!

I climbed down, reloaded and approached within 10 feet and hit him with a stick on the nose. I did not know for sure that he was dead and was taking no chances. After I was satisfied he was dead, I fired three more times rapidly to signal the guides I had one down.

10 minutes later the guide pulls up about 35 yards away, in the logging road. I yelled to bring a rope. I was still a little excited and blurted out, “I think he’ll go 200 lbs!” The guide, Gary, said he doubted it. Then he tied a rope around his neck and the two of us could not budge this bear one inch!

Gary offered to go get help, and asked if I knew how to gut the bear. I said” Maybe”. He answered” Good, I’m not very good at it!” It turned out Gary was a fishing guide and knew little about bears. Oh well, I bent to dress the bear and Gary offered to take my rifle for me. I handed it to him and started on the task in front of me. I stood a minute later and watching the taillights go away from me in the near darkness, I realized I am 20 miles from camp, 50 miles from a road, and 1100 miles from home, in the woods, in the dark, with bears, unarmed! Great!

I dug through my pack, located a 3-cell Maglite and a handy little Taurus.22. It wasn’t much, but it made me feel a lot better! An hour later, Gary, Bill, and another hunter showed up to help drag and heave the bear into the truck. Later, at camp, the bear weighed 274 lbs, dressed with an estimated live weight of 344. The bears in Maine rarely get very large as they eat only wild foods so this bear was considered a trophy. I was told it would make the record books in Maine and qualify for a citation. The rest of the week was spent, fishing, relaxing, helping the guides moves stands, etc. Bill was never quite able to connect with his bear this trip, but a total of 7 bears were taken out of 13 hunters. One fellow took a 65-lb. cub with a .44 magnum, proudly announcing that his taxidermist would make a nice toilet seat cover with it!