# Spring Bear..Update..Review..in Quebec..(long)



## hunterjb6 (Jul 7, 2009)

Well, first I want to say to everyone that was inquiring or that I had been talking too, my apologies for taking so long at getting this together. We got back the end of towards the end of June and I have not had the time to put all the pics together and resize them and sit down to put together a full report. Tonight I had some time so I will put this together and paste it tomorrow.

Ok so the hunt took place in NW Quebec the second week of June at (Mike's Outfitter). I had spoke to quite a few before we went and some of you have some info already but basically I am giving the story and my review of the hunt. Here is the link though to their website.
the link: http://mikesoutfitter.com/Home.html

This trip consisted of 3 of us and who are all part of this forum, myself, Giver108 and Moose57.
So I will start by saying the trip in a whole was awesome! So far to date this has been the best guide..or outfitter..cabins..hopitality..scenery and action that I have been on, for a bear hunt (speaking for myself). This is what I was looking for and we have already booked again for this next June!!
So we took two days to drive up and left on a Friday afternoon. We stayed in Ontario on Friday night about half way up. It shortened up the drive a little breaking it up but really it was not bad at all. It was 14 hours driving approximately and that included fuel stops and some quick bites to eat.
It took us a little while to get back in there as the last couple of miles to get back in there on the gravel road was a little rough, but the gravel roads were all good and solid, just a little bumpy. So we arrived back your you park the vehicles, unloaded the gear and the ATV's and loaded everything up on Mike's barge. (Basically a 40ft pontoon boat). We then took about a 10 minute ride up the river to the cabins and started to unload everything. So sure enough we get everything into the cabin and it starts pouring. Needless to say by the time we got everything unloaded and it with it pouring raining we decided to start hanging stands the next day on Sunday. So we ate dinner and then went up to the lodge and got aquainted with everyone and downed a few brown soda's while we relaxed.
Of course we wake up Sunday morning to rain and it did not stop the entire day, regardless though we said we were putting on the rain gear and hanging some stands and doing some baiting. So we loaded up the gear and bait and back up the river we went to the machines and took off. So after checking all the baits, we decided where we were going to sit for the first couple of days and got our stands hung.
So rather then waiting until the end here are a couple of pics that I took later in the week, which will show some of the scenery and area that we were traveling and hunting through!

Some beautiful country!!


















After the stands were hung it was getting pretty late in the afternoon and it was still raining. At this point it was agreed that after the all the comotion and it being as late as it was, we would start hunting on Monday when the weather would clear and we could get into the stand good and early in the afternoon.
Day 1 sitting, I was right next to a beaver pond- flood area which in the beginning was very enjoyable to watch the beavers and as well hearing them splash around occasionally. Well about 7:30pm I hear a few of the beaver start smacking the water hard with warning smacks back to back. (I have trapped long enough and know beavers well as to when something is not right) sure enough about 5 min later a bear comes from the swamp area. He was a beautiful bear about with a very nice coat and a white V on his chest. I then had decided that I would pass on this bear as he was only about 140-150lbs. So as I watched this bear for over an hour, I was bummed that he was that small as it would have been great to take a nice bear with a blaze. It was the first night and the first bear so I was not going to shoot.
So when we had set my stand, we needed to move the bait buckets about 10 yards or so for me to have a clear shot. This bear had no problems with them being moved. After an hour the bear finally got stood up and looked towards the swamp and basically ran right towards my stand and went right on by. 
10 min goes by and I can just barely see another bear coming, although I could tell right away where he was standing in the weeds that he was much taller. So he walks right to the edge of the swamp and I can tell he is 300 plus with out a doubt. At this point I said to myself when he comes out, I am going to try and take this bear. So he stands there (with only a clear shot to his head and neck area) for about 20 seconds, looks everything over and decided he didn't like something and he turned around and walked back in through the swamp. I was bummed, but still I was stoked that it was the first night and I have seen two bears already. I figured later that night that because the bait buckets had been moved he was a little weary and just backed out.
So night two and night three I had decided to sit the same stand and wait out that bigger bear but unfortunately the next two nights did not produce any more sightings at this stand. Although the bait was getting hit everyday. 
So day 2 and 3 we baited each morning and also checked our trail cams that we hung up. Here are some pics for some visuals.

A pic of our number 2 site: (Of course no one sat here the first night in which this pic is from)










A different bear that came in a hour before dark, that we figured after looking at several pics of him that he was surely in the 400 range.
Again 1st night and no one was at this stand. Big Bummer!!
The three of us will now call this first day of our trip " Trigger Lock Day" in which there is a whole nother story to this that the 3 of us will never forget, and we will save for some other time.










The week was progressing well and was looking very promising. We were having, (myself for sure) was having a great time just going out and baiting and checking the trail cams. So here are a couple more.










A different day, same bait and a different bear.









So night three did bring some excitement though; so as I had about a 40 min ride back down the trails from where my 1st bait was to where we parked the ATV's. I was coming around a corner and up a hill and at night you really don't want to be flying, so I was only doing about 25mph and what is right in front of me at about 30 yards. An adult cow moose standing broadside in the trail.......:yikes:. and went holy crap, hit the brakes and came to a stop about 10 yards before the moose and it just walks off. (That was intense). Needless to after meeting up with the guys that night down the road, I said " I might be a few extra minutes tomorrow night as I think will be going a tad slower down the trails. Over all I seen 4 moose of the course of the week and all of them being at night and two of them being close encounters. That in itself was pretty cool! One night the guys were right behind me as I came up on a moose in the trail, it just stayed walking or trotting right on down the trail in front of us.

Now on to the 4th day; now at this point in the hunt it has been pretty productive with baits getting hit, sightings of bears and seeing moose. I guess the one most and biggest downfall of the trip was the bugs!! They were heavy even though we had thermocells and head nets. Now for me I was having much better luck with bugs and I was not getting hammered. My thermocell and I guess maybe my bloodtype was not as desireable. Although Giver and Moose were getting torn up!! We joked about it later as I told them, they were just much sweeter then I was..
Anyway I sat at a different stand on this night and again it was looking good. Again about 7:00pm I had a bear coming into the bait, although this time he was coming almost straight towards me down the trail. I could tell right away he was being cautious. As he got close to the barrel he would stop, smell the ground, smell the tree and then he bolted back about 20 yards. Now he comes back and again straight at me but behind a tree, he gets close to the drum, starts smelling and runs back. He did this 3 different times and I thought to myself, what is his deal. Well from what I could see he seemed to be in or around the 200 range. So even if I had decided to take this bear he never came back and never did offer any type of shot other then a head shot and I won't take that shot.
So come to find out the next day that this is the bait that also had a sow with the 2 cubs and also about 3 or 4 more different bears at this site. We figured after he was just spooked probably from the other bears.
So I no more sightings that evening and it was time to head out. I take off on the quad and get to the meeting point with the guys and as I pull up I can tell by looking at them as they are standing next to the ranger. Hmmmm....."so what's going on...anyone see anything??" And Giver answeres back "yep". 
So at this point I will not tell anymore of his story and leave that for him but I did get his blessing to post a little. So he took a nice bear that night on the upwards towards 200lbs and here it is:










They will be reading this, so they can chime in and tell there experiences or there stories as they want.
Moving on though it was a great night with some celebration of course, as now one of us will be fishing the rest of the week. 
In which by the way the fishing was pretty decent for us through the week when did get time. We did spend a lot of time riding and baiting our stands and checking trail cams. But we did spend a little time fishing and we did catch some walleye and pike for the dinner table.

On to Friday night: the last night that Moose and I would be out hunting as we leave on Sat.
Basically at this point it was I will consider the bitter sweet part of the trip. 
For me, now I am in the stand that I seen the bear from the night before and now know from looking at the trial cam pics that there are several bears coming into this stand. So I am sitting in the stand and it is a great night weather wise. About a quarter to 8:00pm I see some movement about 30 yards to my left and I look and I can tell it is a bear moving through some thick brush. So I just stay still and basically he comes around full circle. This takes him about 15 to 20 min to do. I can then see him walking about 60 yards to my right and I can see him just staying out there. About every 5 min or so I can see he moving out there but he is not coming in, he is just staying out there. Now it has been about another 30 min or so and he is still out there but basically just way to thick to even think about getting a shot.
So now I start thinking..hhmmmm.. ok, he knows I am here or he can smell me and he is going to wait until dark. So I am thinking to myself OK this is the last night, he is a decent bear (maybe 225 to 250) not the biggest bear but not the smallest I have seen either.
So I said...you know what, I am going to try it, so I did. It was 8:45pm and mind you it did not get out of shooting light until 10:00pm up there as we sat each night until 10:00. Anyway so I slowly stand up and grab my tree seat, take my thermocell off and pack it in my bag. So I take my time and climb down the stand, making just a little noise. I then walk out my trail and out to the gravel road. Now my quad is about 100 yards down the gravel road, so I walk back to the quad, take my hat off, open up my storage box, and set my gun down. Now it was fairly quite that night with just a very slight breeze. So I just wait quitely now and listen. Sure enough 5 minutes goes by and I hear.....donnnggg!
The steel drum goes down...and I am thinking yep, he knew I was there and he was just waiting for me to leave.
So I wait for a minute, I grab my gun and put my head net and hat back very quitely and start to creep and tip toe back up the road (which takes me about 10 minutes to go 80 yards. I get to my trail and start to walk in and after about 10 yards in I hear.....thump..thump...thump as he runs off. I figured at this point if he did not see me, he may just come back in. So I sneak up to a big Aspen tree where I am about 30 to 35 yards from the drum and I can see it. So I get down on my knees and rest my shotgun on a small spruce which I am now very concealed and also have a rock solid rest. So sure enough a few minutes goes by and I can see him, here he comes right back down the trail, he walks right up towards the drum, stops... looks towards the direction that that I was walking in from, and then goes right back into the drum eating donuts and jam. I let him get settled in and eating and then I waited a minute until he stood up broadside. He gets up stands completely broadside and I placed the cross hairs right exactly where they need to be and let it go ..boom.. 
He goes down and the drum is getting kicked and bucket lids are flying and I am excited as all get out. Just when I think he is going down right there on the bait he takes off and runs right by me by about 10 yards. So I listen and after he gets about 30 yards I can't hear him anymore. So now it is about 9:10pm, plenty light out, so I just wait there for about 10 minutes and listen. Didn't hear anything at this point so I snuck up to where I shot him and right away I see blood...good blood too. So I right then I decided to go back to the quad pack up and get a message to the guys, to bring lights, and waters back to the meeting spot so we can go tracking.
So after getting to the meeting spot, and I am waiting for the guys to show up, up comes Mike's brother on the boat. So I say where the guys at and he says, they weren't coming Moose shot a bear as well tonight and they went up to go look for his. So I said let's just go back and wait for them, that way we will go together. 
Basically we ended up meeting the guys back at camp as they were just getting back and said yah it was getting too thick in there so we decided to go back in the morning in the daylight.
So after telling the story and seeing the blood, we all decided to grab some lights and head back to go look for my bear.
In which we did and when we got there we found the blood right away and started tracking. Well the bear did not stop at the 30 or 40 yards like maybe I was thinking and we followed for about another 50 yards and had pretty good blood up until it was getting to the point it was so thick we were on hands and knees. So at that point I said let's go and we will come back in the morning.
We did go back in the morning and picked up the blood right away but after looking and searching and looking and searching we just flat out could not find anymore blood. In which at this point it was the biggest downer that I could ever remember. It had been over 20 years since loosing an animal and sure enough we could not find him. 
I was so bummed and just felt sick to my stomach, to the point I thought I was going to puke! 
The last 12 hours had went from the high light of my trip and tons of excitement to lowest sickest feeling. (I am sure there are a couple of you that know what Im saying) 
Well even after we gave up at this point I said I would go back and look some more. So after hours of combing for blood I said I am going back to look right from where I shot...just to see and look at it again. So I kneel down look right through where I shot the bear, and I said what is that laying down....? It's a green sapling tree laying over about 30" off the ground. So I walk up to it and sure enough it is a sapling tree about as big as your thumb leaning over from about 30" off the ground. I stand it back up.... and a bullet hole right through 3/4 of the tree. A perfect shot gun hole.
So after showing the guys we figured that where the bear would have been and where the bullet hit the tree, the shot placement could have went 4 inches high, or 4 or 5 inches left towards the shoulder. There was just no way to know where the exact hit was at. I just could never see that small of a tree that close in my scope. It was just one of those times where you wish you would have just been 2 iches more right or 2 inches more left. It was no ones fault but my own. Period
So I broke it off, kept the tree and brought it home and that is where my Quebec tag is attached too. It will always be a reminder to me of this trip. 
I finally got past the sick feeling and really had to look at the entire trip in a whole.
I will let Moose57 input his parts of the story and as well for Giver108.


First I was with two great friends and that we had an awesome time. Everyone seen bears, myself I saw 5 bears and 4 Moose over the entire week. I had the opportunity to fill my tag more then once and I did have a successful hunt, I just did not bring it home with me nor did I put it in the freezer, although it was still successful as I will never forget it.
The scenery was gorgeous, the outfitter and the cabins were great, the price was very fair and Mike and his wife are great people, his brother and also the helpers were just that, great helpers and great people to be around. The bears are there and they put you on them, period. They may not all be huge bears but I do believe that each week they were almost 100% just like they said 150lb to 300lb plus bears. There were a couple bears taken in the 400lb range as well and some over 300. I don't have all the exact numbers but I do know there were some really nice bears taken in those couple few weeks. 
I will say it again, it was a great trip, an awesome time and I would highly recommend them as like I had previously mentioned, we already booked to go back. Give Mike a call as there numbers are on the website or if you want any information feel free to shoot me a pm. I know that everyone has an opionion and everyone has a different outlook as to what they want or what they expect or what they are looking for. So this was my story and my opionion of what was a great trip. As for Giver108 and Moose57 thanks for coming along and I can't wait until next June. As well I am sure I have left a plenty of holes in the story and you guys can fill in where and what you want. My apologies as well for as long as this post has been, so I will stop now and will leave it with a few more pics of some beautiful scenery.

Thanks for reading!
Hunterjb6 























Thanks again for reading!


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## zfishman (Dec 21, 2008)

Thanks for sharing the story, sounds like a good time.


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## Musket (May 11, 2009)

Wow, that was a really good story,very well put. It sounds like you had a nice time. I am happy for you.


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## giver108 (Nov 24, 2004)

Wow, that's an outstanding report by hunterjb6 and he did a great job in summarizing our week. Not a lot I can add to that. Simply put, it was a blast! We had a great time hunting, checking baits, and doing a little fishing. 

As for my hunt, my first night out, I got blanked but some of that might of had to with the fact that I was getting tore up by black flies and had a hard time being still. For some reason my thermacell did not keep them away. The second night I watched a nice bear (approx. 180 lbs.) for almost 45 minutes up until dark. I was also hearing movement behind me (where I walked in) but could not get a glimpse of anything as it was very thick. Right as I was thinking about how I was going to get out of the stand without spooking the bear at the bait, it suddenly bolted back into the bush. Figuring that was my cue, I quickly slung my gun over my shoulder and my backpack over that and climbed out of the tree and headed towards the road. As I got about halfway to the road, again I hear movement. I briefly shined my light but didn't see anything and kept walking. I made it to the road and began to wait for Moose57 to arrive on the Ranger to pick me up. I wasn't standing in the dark on the road for 30 seconds and quickly realize that the noise I heard walking out was another bear and it wasn't 10 yards to my right. Before I even thought of what to do next, I hear a second bear. This time 10 yards to my left on the other side of the road. They were so close to me that I could hear them breathing. I quickly took off my backpack, reloaded my gun and began hoping I wasn't in the middle of a sow and her cubs. I decided that if anything steps into the road, I'm blazing away but after a couple minutes (which seemed like hours, LOL), I hear the Ranger coming. When Moose57 pulled up I unloaded the gun, threw it in the back, and said "Let's get moving!". The bears never did run away. 

The next day on the same stand. Around 8 p.m. I notice a bear coming into the bait that I knew wasn't the biggest bear ever shot but nonetheless, something I would be happy to take home. I finally got a broadside shot and it went about 10 yards and was dead. I shot it with a 12 ga. Ultra Slug Hunter and Remington Buckhammer slug. Moose57 helped me get it to the Ranger and after meeting up with hunterjb6, back to camp we went.

I thought maybe I would share a little about how this place we hunted operates. If you're looking to go on a bear hunt and basically show up to camp and be taken to and fro from the stand as well as being fed, this might not be the type of hunt for you. The three of us have been on those types of hunts before and while nothing wrong with them, we decided that we wanted to have more say in where we hunt, how and where we set up our stands, cook our own food so we know when we eat and what we want to eat. The day we set up our stands, one of the outfitter's helpers went with us and showed us 9-10 bait sites they had set up and we were free to place stands on whatever ones we liked best. After they show you the sites and you set up your stands (they don't have them for you), your free to head out whenever you want. We had just as much fun going out each morning and checking our trailcams and seeing what baits were hit the day before than doing anything else. In short, you have to do some work on your part but we liked this aspect and in fact prefer it that way. As hunterjb6 mentioned, the cabins are great, the hosts are friendly and speak good English, their helpers are awesome, the fishing is good and the bears are there. 

In closing, I would to say personally that it was a great trip and was glad to share it with two friends with whom I met right here on this forum. I could have not done it without them and for that I am grateful. Hunterjb6 left no stone unturned in uncovering the details of this trip and planning the requirements. I also give a very special thanks to Moose57 for his unbelievable assistance in so many ways. From supplying the trailer to haul our gear and ladder stands to hunt from, to his incredible attention to detail in securing our equipment and making sure every tool was supplied to make things as easy as possible in the field. I am also extremely thankful for his UTV driving skills that we never took a dive off that bridge we had to cross everday or hit a moose! I can't say enough on how lucky I was to have been part of this trip. 

I certainly look forward to our next trip up there and hope Moose57 remembers the keys to the trigger lock on his gun...


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## hunterjb6 (Jul 7, 2009)

giver108 said:


> I certainly look forward to our next trip up there and hope Moose57 remembers the keys to the trigger lock on his gun...


 
Nice add on to the story Mr...and thanks for chiming in with your side of it.
Thanks to those that chimed in as it really was a great week!!!

As for your ending.......:lol::lol:! And Giver, oh yah do not forget to bring your MSU shirt for next year, to replace the U of M one.!!:lol:

Maybe we will get a chance to see or meet some of you folks up there next year...it was a hoot! Great time, great people and lot's of Spring Bears!!


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## BUCKBLASTER69 (Jan 10, 2008)

GREAT story fellas! Gotta love those trips to Gods country.


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