One day a while back, my husband was hauling gravel to fill in ruts on a path in our woods. We use this path to reach our sap lines, and the deluge of rain that came down a while ago did a number on it. He was in the woods with the tractor, trailer and skidder making all kinds of racket.
A notice on one of his trail cameras popped in. Stopping to glance at his phone, he wondered what it had taken a picture of. It made his jaw drop.
Not far from where he was working was a bear lumbering past the trail cam. It wasn’t skittish nor apparently all that concerned that my husband was out in its territory in the middle of a sunny afternoon.
We’d been getting trail cam pics of a few bear up in our woods, usually during night time or the wee hours of the morning, which prompted my husband to apply for a tag this year. This particular sighting was smack dab in the middle of the day.
Needless to say, that sighting was all my husband needed to stay crazy excited about bear hunting.
As a small girl, I’d had a reoccurring dream in which a black bear was chasing me around and around our empty barn. Barely keeping ahead of him, I rushed from stanchion to stanchion, his hot breath on the back of my neck. It was terrifying.
So when my husband had a desire to actually bait and hunt one, my gut tightened, even these many years later.
From what I understood, the process sometimes takes a while, from applying to actually getting picked. He’d applied and waited. The desire sort of waned. One day, he even mentioned he probably wouldn’t go bear hunting.
I breathed a sigh of relief.
Short-lived.
The very next day, I went out to the mailbox and there, tucked in with junk mail, was a yellow-colored notice congratulating my husband on getting picked for a bear tag. I almost fell over and was quite tempted to throw it out. He wasn’t home. I reasoned with myself he’d made up his mind. He would never know.
I couldn’t do it.
Thus started our journey to secure a bear.
Last year, one day as he was cutting wood, he came across a beech tree that was hollow inside. So he cut it in about a 2-foot length. Because it was hollow in the center, we could fill it with sweets.
Keeping that in mind, one day we headed to Bob’s Bear Bait in Birnamwood and stocked up on enough junk to turn the bear into a diabetic.
Coming home, we stored the loot on the trailer in our shed. Not a wise decision as within days it had attracted a raccoon who informed his mom, dad, siblings and cousins that he’d found free food and it was delicious.
The first day we noticed an issue was with a full box of missing Teddy Grahams, which the bait people had given us free. They were gone, along with some gummy worms.
We moved all the items into a garbage can with a secured lid and stuck a block of cement on top, just to make sure.
Setting a live trap — as time went on — we’d captured and relocated eight raccoons in six days. Yes. Two days had had two in the trap at one time. Their house is in the woods. Our shed is off-limits.
Deciding on a spot to bait, we hauled the hollow log along with the goodies, which included nuts and seeds, out to a place in our 40-acre swamp. He’d taken a trail cam from one spot and relocated it to the bear-bait spot, facing toward the hollow log to catch any movement. Placing a sheet of plywood on the top along with a heavy stone (to ward off smaller critters), we wait.
As of this writing, we have not had a hit on the bait stump. Disappointing to say the least. Well, for him. He’s since chosen a different location, again securing a trail cam close by.
Time will tell if this will be the spot.
If so, I might have to look up bear meat recipes and may actually like a bearskin rug in my back room.
To be continued …
(“Everything that lives and moves about may be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.” Genesis 9:3, New International Version)
Kay Reminger was born and raised on a dairy farm, and she married her high school sweetheart, who happened to farm for a living in Leopolis. Writing for quite a few years, she remains focused on the blessings of living the ups and downs of rural life from a farm wife’s perspective.
