I caught a flight out of KC on Friday morning. After stops in Denver and Edmonton I arrived in Fort Mcmurray around dinner time. Amazingly, my bow case and bag were on the same flight. We were greeted by Brian and Pat Garrett, the principals of Garrett Brothers Outfitting, who made sure everything was proceeding smoothly and on schedule. The next morning we loaded up in two jet boats for a roughly 1.5 hour ride upriver to their hunting camp. We arrived in time to meet the other hunters (8 in camp including us), get a briefing on what to expect and how to judge bears, grab some lunch, check our bows, and head to the stands.
Since I had absolutely no idea what bear hunting entailed I’ll give you a general breakdown of how it works: First, the guides run the baits checking for activity and the size of the tracks left by the visiting bears. They also check trail cams and consider sightings from previous hunters (we were the first hunters for the 2009 season though). After gathering all the available info, the guides decide where to put the hunters.
Around 4:00 everyone would load up into boats and/or 4-wheelers and head out. Roughly 30 stands are spread out over dozens of square miles so the ride can take quite a while depending on where you’re headed. The farthest require a good boat ride followed by a quad run. We’d arrive anywhere from 4:30 to 5:30 and expect to sit until dark around 10:00. The stands themselves were custom built welded double man stands. While I didn’t test it, I suspect you could put two NFL linemen in one without much worry. The stands were set for bowhunters, with a long shot to the bait being 20 yards. The baits themselves would be a variety of good and bad smelling bear foods. Retched rotten meat sat next to cookies and each bear seemed to have his or her own taste.
Once you’re in the stand there is exactly no skill required beyond bear judgment and shot selection. The bears know you’re there, they can smell you, but usually they don’t care. You can move around a bit, talk quietly, wear unwashed clothes, etc… For most of the hunts someone was there to video and keep you company. On the stands where I was alone I’d set up my video camera then read a book until something ambled in.
The first day was cold and rainy. The bears weren’t moving too much for anyone, and I didn’t see anything except this squirrel:
Of the 8 of hunters, 4 saw bears and the only kill was from The Old Man who stuck this P&Y sized chocolate. I’ll post the video when I get it, but for now you’ll have to deal with a photo:
The bad news? We had 5 days left to kill a bunch of bears. The good news? The first day was the slowest of the trip. More tomorrow…
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