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Tom Black's Bear Hunt
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Booshway
posted
I remember seeing Tom around here, he's got a great article in the latest issue of Muzzleloader on his Maine Black Bear hunt. Good job! I never gave much thought to a hound hunt, but after reading the piece it definitely has my interest peaked.
 
Posts: 429 | Location: Delmarva | Registered: 22 December 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Free Trapper
Picture of TurkeyCreek
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Looking forward to it. I know Tom from the American Longhunter forum and he does love his bear hunting.


"They do not live their lives 'by your leave'! They hack it out of the wilderness with their own two hands, bearing their children along the way!" - Cora Monroe - "Last Of The Mohicans"
 
Posts: 186 | Location: Turkey Creek on Cimarron Drainage | Registered: 10 September 2014Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Hivernant
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Great story! Bear by hound is the HARD way to go. Non-hunters will never understand that.

In my county the no bear dog signs are the popular posting signs. [like a dog can read]

Here in NE the antis are against both dogs and baits for bear. They are just following the rhetoric supplied by their organizations without any research of their own.

The small farmers in my county hate bears as they destroy crops and domestic live stock. My son makes some of his living preventing that but what he can do is limited by the F&G and for some unknown reason the Federal wild life that the state says are partners.

Most growers here believe in the 3S' rule and have backhoes.
 
Posts: 109 | Location: NH | Registered: 05 July 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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I confess that I have not read the story yet.

I just wanted to comment that the only legal, and effective way to hunt bear here in Tenasi is with dogs. No baiting is allowed here. Spot and stalk is about useless in the thick forest. I don't have bear dogs, so I just "still" hunt for bear and hogs. I have tried a predator call, but with no response from any bears yet.

It seems like every year a hound or two will be lost and then find me. I share my lunch with them and then they stick with me all the rest of the day and follow me back out of the woods. They have all had radio collars, so once back on a dirt road their owners soon come and pick them up.


Know what you believe in. Fight for your beliefs. Never compromise away your rights.
 
Posts: 1296 | Location: Cherokee Land, Tenasi | Registered: 06 January 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
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So you're providing a public service....Great.


Beer is proof that God loves us,and wants us to be happy-B. Franklin
 
Posts: 2014 | Location: Oreegun Territory | Registered: 24 March 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of wattlebuster
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I have read the article an its very well written an entertaining. A typical Tom Black story with some of his excellent pics of those beautiful Mike Miller flintlocks. Whats not to love


Nothing beats the feel of a handmade southern iron mounted flintlock on a crisp frosty morning
 
Posts: 354 | Location: Heart of DIXIE | Registered: 18 November 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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I have now read the story. Pretty good.

Down here in Tenasi, in the mountains surrounding the Great Smokies, bear hunters seem to be very clannish. I see them gathered beside a road as they monitor their dogs by radio tracking. I've stopped to talk, but then they get very quiet. One might answer me in the very shortest terms, but most of them just stand and glare at me.

I had an invite once to go with a group of those houndmen. The quarry could be either bear or wild boar. The method was to drive around the back roads with a dog or two up on platform on a truck. When a dog bawled out that it had caught a scent, the dogs were released.

The progress of the pack was monitored by radio collars. Meanwhile, we would careen along the rough and winding forest roads at breakneck speeds, trying to get ahead of the dogs. Whenever it was thought that the chase was heading a certain way, men would bail out of the vehicles and run up a ridge to take position in a gap, or go down to overview a stream crossing - wherever they thought the bear or boar might pass.

More often than not, the chase would turn and go off in an entirely different direction. Then we would jump back in the pickups and jeeps and race off to try it all again.

These men certainly do take their share of bear and boar this way, but their methods just do not appeal to me. Maybe its the radio tracking. Maybe its the racing around in motor vehicles. Maybe I'm just too old to be running up ridges. Whatever, I just don't care for it.

Many years ago, while hunting with my Uncle in Pennsylvania, I shot a black bear that dressed out nearly 250 pounds. (We had been still hunting along a creek drainage) The two of us had to drag that bear through a shallow creek, and several hundred yards uphill to reach a point where we could get to it with our truck. That relatively short drag wore us out.

My hunting partners are gone now, so these days I hunt alone. If I ever take another bear, boar, or even a deer in the back country again, I will have to quarter it and take it out piece by piece.


Know what you believe in. Fight for your beliefs. Never compromise away your rights.
 
Posts: 1296 | Location: Cherokee Land, Tenasi | Registered: 06 January 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
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Sounds like you have some wonderful memories...I've taken a rabbit or two with my Crossman760...Shot placement,shot placement,shot placement.....Those squirrels that raid my bird feeders just don't know how close they are to my stew pot,heh....


Beer is proof that God loves us,and wants us to be happy-B. Franklin
 
Posts: 2014 | Location: Oreegun Territory | Registered: 24 March 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
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Oh yeah,I've killed a few ground squirrels on a friends property to reduce the over population in their range land...


Beer is proof that God loves us,and wants us to be happy-B. Franklin
 
Posts: 2014 | Location: Oreegun Territory | Registered: 24 March 2013Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
Picture of Hanshi
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If I got a shot at a bear while hunting I'm not sure I'd even take the shot unless I had a partner nearby; and even then I just don't know if I would. I do well to just walk safely with my cane and never hunt far from my vehicle. Just don't know what I'd do with a dead one. They're all over the place here.


*Young guys should hang out with old guys; old guys know stuff.*
 
Posts: 3559 | Location: Maine (by way of Georgia then Va.) | Registered: 26 January 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
Picture of Hanshi
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I've killed lots of squirrels, ground squirrels and rabbits with my old Sheridan Blue Streak and an inexpensive .177 Remmy. I can drag a rabbit/squirrel out of the woods by myself but it's a tough, sweaty job. Cool


*Young guys should hang out with old guys; old guys know stuff.*
 
Posts: 3559 | Location: Maine (by way of Georgia then Va.) | Registered: 26 January 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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I live in prime bear country, the Pocono Mountains. The largest bear taken in my area, behind the Pocono Raceway, the NASCAR track, was estimated by the Game Commission at 834 pounds live weight. They had to get a backhoe to get it out of the woods. I have seen 4 to 500 pounders behind my house, and my backyard. Here in PA the normal way to hunt them is by driving through the swamps. You are limited to 25 hunters, not my cup of tea. I don't hunt bear because I couldn't get it out of the woods, and couldn't afford to get it mounted. At my age I have no desire to shoot a bear.
 
Posts: 353 | Location: Pocono Mts. in PA | Registered: 12 June 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
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One of these days I'm going after a bear again, I really want to kill one with one of my flinters. I've got 8 preference pts here in Maryland and time to go this fall, so I"m hoping this will be the year (even built a new gun for it). Been twice so far, both with buddies that drew tags. Two years ago we had horrible luck and rainy weather to boot, and he could only hunt 2 days of the 5 day hunt, so that didn't work.

In 2004 I actually killed one, with a modern rifle, if you google 'first Maryland bear' you'll probably still find stories and pics of me as I got bear tag #0000001 when I killed it, first legal bear in the state in over 50 years. More luck than skill, but an awesome thing to be part of.

But now I want to get one like old Meshach Browning up there in his country!
 
Posts: 429 | Location: Delmarva | Registered: 22 December 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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