Oh yeah...the wolf

Back on my September 16th post, I told you about a wolf sighting and included some trail camera photos.

I have an update on the wolf that I forgot to write about!

On September 12th, I got the contact information for the 'Carnivore Specialist' with the WI DNR.  I emailed him the story of me seeing a wolf and attached a few photos.  Namely, I was interested in him identifying the collar as being the same style as one placed on a wolf by the WI DNR.

He replied back the following day stating that it did appear to be a wolf and was interested in the location.  I sent him the approximate location and he said they would take to the air the following week to try and pull a radio ID on the wolf.

On September 18th, I got my answer!

Looks like the wolf in your area is Wolf 825F....she has been missing since early April.  Her location today is shown on the enclosed map.  She was caught in a coyote trap 2 miles east of the Menominee Reservation, northwest of Suring on 11/8/11. Let me know if you have any additional questions....Thanks for helping us find her.

At the time she was trapped, she was estimated to be a 2-4 year old, ~70lb female. 

The DNR tries to locate collared wolves regularly.  This is in an effort to study dispersal patterns of wolves in the state, given that this is a relatively new (reintroduced) animal in the state and the DNR is interested in home ranges and reproduction.  In addition, regular contact with collared wolves lets the DNR know if the animal is still moving/alive or if it has been killed by a vehicle, poacher, etc.

The map they attached showed her location at the time they located her approximately 1 mile southeast of my hunting location.  On the days following the response from the Carnivore Specialist, I continued to get photos of the wolf on my trail camera.  A majority of photos were at night.  And, several photos were minutes after a bear had been at the bait (maybe showing the same tendency to follow a bear around that I saw on the 11th of September).  Regardless, what I learned from the DNR is that this particular wolf seems to have at least a 1 mile range...daily!

Based on the information provided about her last-known location in April, she moved just shy of 30 miles (as the crow flies) to her current location.

What I was told by the DNR is that it's not uncommon for a wolf to use a bear bait as a food source.  I never saw photos of the wolf sticking her head in the bait log eating the bait, but there were probably a couple photos of her picking up some scraps on the ground around the bait log.  Perhaps she was more interested in using the bait as a stalking point for the numerous raccoons that visited during nighttime hours.  Since the conclusion of my bear hunt, we've ceased baiting.  Only time will tell if this wolf continues to call this area home or if she moves on to a new area now that the bait is gone.

A few photos spanning several days (there were many photos captured....she would visit for several minutes, and often several times, almost every night):

(remember...DNR got her radio signal 1 mile southeast of this location on 9/18 during daylight hours)

Possible prey (these masked midnight bandits were regular visitors and were very happy when a bear had opened the bait log for them):

And so it happens!!

On Sunday, 9/30, I was sitting on stand waiting for a bear to approach the bait.  There were only two days left in the bear-hunting season.  Clearly, my anxiety over the situation  - whether or not I would fill the bear tag I had been waiting 9 years for - was through the roof! 

I sat for most of the day and had not seen any bears.  At 6:30pm, I was entering my 110th hour on stand since September 7th.  The sun had fallen beneath the trees, and the slight wind had died down to almost nothing.  The woods was quiet now - except for the sound of a few snapping twigs that my ears were picking up on.  As I scanned my eyes in the direction of the noise, a black bear was working its way out of the swamp to my south.  As my heart raced, the bear slowly and cautiously worked its way towards the bait.  I could immediately tell this was a good-sized bear, so I slowly readied my bow and myself for a shot.  The bear started heading away from the bait for a few steps, and I feared it had either smelled or seen me.  Thankfully, it turned back and headed into the bait.  My trail camera captured one (dark) photo of the bear as it was standing next to the bait log:

At this point, the bear was facing directly away from me, so I took the opportunity to draw my bow.  What felt like an eternity was probably only 5-10 seconds, but when the bear turned, I let the arrow go.  With an illuminated nock, it was very easy to see that I had made as good of a shot as I could have hoped for.  The bear took off and ended up expiring in the thick brush 20 yards from the bait log.  I had my first bear!  With shaking hands and a quivering voice, I radioed to my Aunt, Uncle, and Dad back at the cabin that I had just shot a bear.  After an excited run back to the cabin to get a gun and ATV/trailer for the ensuing tracking/hauling job, we found my bear right where I was sure it was.  I was elated to be holding onto my first-ever black bear!

We quickly took care of the bear, got it registered, and delivered it to the taxidermist.  It was a 270-pound (dressed) female!  I couldn't be happier!

There's a lot that goes into a hunt of this kind.  The planning, the practice, the baiting, and the waiting.  As I think back to all aspects of this hunt, I'm extremely pleased with how all of it went.  The hunt that I had started orchestrating in February ended up exactly as I had pictured it!  God blessed me with this rare opportunity and provided the perfect ending to my dream Wisconsin hunt!

If there's anything that can make a good hunt a great one, it's the people you share the experience with.  I'm incredibly fortunate to have shared this achievement with my Uncle, Aunt, and Dad.  They were all present to congratulate me and help me with my bear on Sunday.  My Aunt helped create/make/bake some of the bait we used.  And, a special shout-out to my Uncle.  His diligence - going to the cabin to bait almost every day for the last month and a half - was without question the key to this successful hunt.

The last chance

I had spent a LOT of time on stand going into the last weekend of the season.  My opportunity to get a Wisconsin Black Bear was to end on Tuesday, October 2nd.  With that in mind, I was going to try my luck once more with some long hours on stand Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday - whatever it took!

We were still seeing bears on the trail camera.  The daytime activity was sparse.  But, the nighttime activity was relatively steady and we were seeing a lot of bears on camera.  On one particularly eventful night, there were five or six different bears at the bait in the course of an hour!!  Here are some neat photos from that series:

While these photos were all at night, I was pleased to see so many bears.  With them all around the bait at the same time, I was hoping they would get a sense of 'urgency' to get into the bait earlier the next few nights to beat their competition.  If luck is was on my side, one of these good-sized bears would approach during daylight hours.

It happened the next night!  A good bear approached the bait about 6:30pm on Wednesday 9/26.

Now I just need to be on stand when this happens again...

Hunt Update

Well....

It's September 16th, and since my last post, I have spent about 68 cumulative hours on stand waiting for my bear to come in!

The previous post left me very hopeful that I'd only have to wait a day or two for a good bear to come in, and there would maybe be some additional activity of small bears for me to watch.  That hasn't been the case.  It's a harder hunt than expected!  The action is slow, and the bait is getting hit every two or three days - most often at night.  It seems the big ones have become pretty nocturnal.  One of the reasons for the change in behavior is likely due to the absolutely amazing crop of acorns falling from the oak trees.  It's very plausible that the bears are gorging themselves on acorns all day and are no longer interested in the bait as a source for food but rather just a place to get a sweet bite before bedtime.

The excitement I do want to write about, however, came on Tuesday, 9/11.  I had sat on stand from 8am to 7:30pm (yes, 11+ hours on stand as silent and motionless as possible) on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday and had not seen a bear yet.  That changed on Tuesday.  At 1:45pm, I was looking another direction and when I scanned back to the bait, there was a bear approaching it!  WOW!  My heart rate jumped from a super-relaxed state to 150 beats per minute in a split second!  What a rush!
I could immediately tell this bear was pretty small and young, however.  There was not a lot of depth to the chest, no 'gut', and a scrawny butt and legs.  It even acted young.  From the stakes we had out, however, it was apparent that this bear would probably be a legal bear (42" from the tip of the nose to the tail).  But, it was a small bear.  I opted to not shoot and instead enjoyed watching it eat for about 10 minutes.  Here are some photos of the bear I was watching from only 14 yards away!

What those photos don't show you is that this bear had a very neat white patch of hair on its chest.  This is a genetic trait common in black bears, but it's not something we have seen on the couple of bears taken out of this area in years past.  Pretty cool to see!

After watching this bear walk into the cedar swamp, I sat there reveling in what I had just experienced!  And, at the same time, I was replaying the events and second-guessing whether I had made the right or wrong decision to not shoot.  Sure, it was a small bear, but was it the only bear I would see all season?  Had I just let my only chance slip away?

These thoughts made for a long five hours until 7pm.  The sun had fallen beneath the trees and the ambient light was fading.  From the swamp 40 yards from where I was sitting, a black object appeared out of thin air.  It was another bear!  When I first saw it, I was looking at a front-on view, and what I was seeing was a very broad, round, 'plump' bear.  My heart raced faster than earlier in the day, as I thought this was a big bear and the bear I would shoot.  It approached silently and cautiously - carefully calculating every step.  As it approached the bait stump, I assumed a 'ready-position' for a shot.  The instant it put its nose to the bait log, I caught myself second-guessing the bear's size.  It didn't look that big afterall.  It was another young, short bear - but definitely a different bear than the one I saw earlier in the day.  This one lacked the white crest on the chest.  Here's the one photo my trail camera snapped of this bear:

BUT - here's where it gets really exciting!
Thinking to myself that maybe I just wasn't looking at the bear right and it was maybe a good-sized bear, I wanted to give it a chance to spin around the bait a few times so I could size it up some more.  I never got this opportunity because after 20 seconds at the bait, this bear stuck its nose in the air and in one visual and obvious breath, it took in a smell of its surroundings.  As it was doing this, a twig snapped behind it - on the trail it had just come in on.  Both the bear and I looked back on the trail to see what made the twig snap.  Before I knew what was happening, the bear BOLTED from the bait and went tearing through the woods - crashing through whatever was in its way.  When my eyes locked on what it had seen, it took me only a fraction of a second to realize I was looking at the black and gray face of a wolf.  Yes, a wolf!  In all of the time my family and friends have spent in these woods of Northern Wisconsin, no one has ever been able to say they definitively saw a wolf...until now.  There was no question in my mind.

The following day, we pulled the card from my trail camera, and low and behold, the wolf appeared in over 100 photos!  It is wearing a DNR-issued radio collar and seems to be comfortable hanging around the bait -using it as a food source and a possible stalking spot for late-night raccoons.  I sent these photos to the Wisconsin DNR and they confirmed it was a wolf but couldn't tell me which wolf it is.  They will be taking to the air in a plane this week to try and locate and ID this particular wolf. 

Soooo...the bear hunt is maybe not going as well as I thought/hoped it would, but this day in the woods was certainly full of all the excitement I could ever wish to have!

I have until October 2nd to fill my bear tag.  I'll be spending at least another weekend and a few vacation days in the woods before the season is over...hoping and praying for a good outcome!

I'll leave you with a picture of the absolute beast of a bear that only comes in during nighttime hours...and I hope he makes a daytime mistake when I'm sitting in my treestand.

Bear Activity!

After starting baiting in mid July, there have been several bears visiting the bait!

My Uncle has been baiting daily since early August, and there has been a bear at the bait every day since August 6th!

Interested in trying to pattern when the bears have been at the bait, I put together a spreadsheet and marked down all the times a bear was at the bait, as my trail camera captured.  Here's an image of that spreadsheet, showing a lot of bear activity with some pretty good mid-day consistency, all things considered!

And, a sampling of the bears!

Added stakes that are 42" from the outside edge of the bait log with a piece of flagging tape 36" from the ground.

The Setup - Continued

Here are some pictures of my completed hunting setup for the fast-approaching hunting season!


Big Game Boss XL treestand with some custom camo paint:

Not a great photo of it, but here's a homemade shelf I welded up and painted...it straps onto the tree next to me for a place to put some things.  Spending all-day on stand, I want to be comfortable and have easy access to accessories, snacks, etc so I'm not making a lot of movement digging through my bag!

Here's a view of the stand in the oak tree, from the bait log:

And, from up in the stand, looking down at the bait log which was checked with my laser rangefinder to be only 14 yards away!  The base of the stand is about 15 feet off the ground, which puts me about 18 feet up from the bait given the slight rise in elevation to the tree.

A nicely-cleared and raked path up to the backside of the treestand, to ensure a stealthy approach into the stand each day:

The ladder is a Rivers Edge 20' climbing stick, and I have a rope tied to the tree with a carabiner attached to that rope with a Prussic knot...allows me to clip my safety harness in and climb the entire height of the stand while being safely attached to the tree in case of a fall (no need to unclip once in the stand).

And finally, I installed a bow hanger so it's in easy reach when a bear starts to approach.
Here's the view my eyes will see for as many hours as it takes to get a bear this fall!

Past Successes!

I keep mentioning my Uncle and Dad who successfully harvested black bears in 2007 over bait on the same 40-acre parcel.

Here is the photographic evidence!

My Uncle's bear - shot on a Sunday evening in early October, 2007.  A 150-pound dressed boar.  The 'dressed' weight is the weight not including chest-cavity vital organs and entrails.  A 'boar' is a male bear (the female is a 'sow'). 

My Dad's bear - shot minutes before the end of the last day of the season.  Exactly one week after my Uncle shot his from the same stand and bait station.  A 300-lb dressed boar.

Baiting for Black Bear

In Wisconsin, a hunter may use bait to attract a bear to a particular location.  This is a relatively popular and common way to hunt bears.  Unlike deer hunting where a hunter might set up on a well-used deer trail and wait for a deer, the success rate of this kind of hunting for black bears would be very low.  Black bears are generally nocturnal and very 'secretive' in how they traverse the land.

The Wisconsin DNR has a very basic, good set of baiting rules for hunting black bears.  There are a few nuances and other details I'm leaving out, but the main rules are:
- Baiting may begin April 15th the year you have a tag
- Bait may not exceed 10 gallons at a time
- Bait can be any food item except for 'animal parts' or 'animal by-product' (read this as meat, bones, grease etc)
- Bait must be placed in an enclosure made of natural products (ie., can be a human-made hollow log, but cannot be a 5 gallon plastic pail) that is not readily accessible to deer

So, the choices for a bear hunter in Wisconsin is when to start baiting, what to put it in, and what to get for bait!

For my hunt...

When to start baiting:
The DNR allows a hunter to start baiting in mid-April.  The hunting season doesn't start until September.  In general, the longer you bait, the better the opportunity to draw in large bears.  This is because as bears find the bait and eat from it, the food (and therefore scent) gets stuck to their paws.  When they walk away from the bait and travel upwards of a mile in any direction from the bait, it creates a wonderful web of sweet-smelling scent trails for other wandering bears to find and follow to the bait.

I started my bait station in mid-July.  This was partly due to my ability to get up north and get everything situated as well as my desire to start the bait just shy of two months before the start of the season.  I felt any shorter would have compromised my ability to draw a variety of bears in, and anything longer would be a waste of money/effort/bait.  I can tell you that so far, I'm happy with my decision.  As I write this, my trail camera would indicate that I have two or three different bears frequenting the bait.  I'll post about these bears on a future date.  So far, things are looking just about right!

What to put it in:
This was a pretty simple task - I just needed to follow the example that my Uncle and Dad used in 2007.  I found a naturally hollowed-out log from a large white oak tree.  Using a chainsaw, I increased the inner diameter of the log a bit, and then buried it in the ground - leaving about one half of the total 30" height exposed. 
The log was hollowed-out all the way through so that it was easy to make.  After burying it in the ground, I filled the bottom half with dirt and packed it tightly.  This locked the log into the ground very well.  The top-half of the log sitting out of the ground probably has a bait cavity that is ~10" in diameter and 14" deep.
In order to comply with the DNR regulations that the bait not be accessible to deer, a natural 'cap' was made using a chunk of white pine.  The cap has a 2-3" thick 'top' and a 2-3" thick 'bottom' to it.  The 'bottom' sits inside the hollowed-out log.  Bears have to lift up and flip over the top to get it off.  From looking at trail camera photos, it's obvious that the bears figure this out with little struggle.  The front paws of a bear are very agile and the mind of a bear is that of a problem-solver.  Within minutes of a bear showing up to the bait, it typically figures out what to do.
The cap alone would prevent the bait from being accessed by deer.  However, to prevent it from being accessed by raccoons, skunks, or other smaller critters, a rock about the size of a soccer ball is placed on atop the 'cap'.
The last step to setting up a bait station, in my opinion, is to place logs/debris along the backside of the bait log.  If logs are placed in a 'V' shape behind the bait log (as viewed from the treestand/hunting location), this forces a bear to come into the bear station and position its body perpendicular to the hunter, or angling away.  These are favorable angles for good shot placement in a bear's vital organs.  A bear that comes into a bait and faces the hunter the entire time does not present the hunter with a good, ethical shot.
To further enhance your bait station, the logs placed behind the bait log to create the 'V' shaped crib could be logs cut to a 42" length.  It is a DNR regulation that a bear shot must be longer than 42" from the tip of the nose to the base of the tail.  This is to ensure no young bears or cubs are harvested.  Adult bears will generally be this long or longer, so if you know you're shooting an adult bear, it should be over the minimum size requirement.  However, as long as you're already cutting sticks and logs for your bait crib, you would do well to cut them to 42" just so you have something to compare the bears' size before you pull the trigger or let go of your bow's string!
And there you have it - a natural-material bear bait station.

Photo of my 2012 bait station (rock not on top yet):

Here's a neat photo of the bait station my Uncle and Dad used in 2007.  The photos are from a trail camera - I spliced two photos into one.  The top is me...the bottom is of a bear showing up to eat what my Uncle had just set out for it.  Oh...and check the time-stamps on the photos!

What to get for bait:
When my Uncle and Dad baited for black bear in 2007, they used dried bread as a 'filler', jams/jellies, and candy.  Yes...candy!  Snicker bars, chocolates...you name it!  They had a connection to someone offering pallets of recently-expired vending machine candy for $50.
Finding good sources of bear bait is a bit of an art form!  Sure, you can go to bakeries or bread-company outlets and ask for the day-old or stale stuff.  This can be time consuming if it's not your full time job.  Or, you could spend loads of money on food items from a grocery store or restaurant-supply store.  This could be a very expensive endeavor depending on when you start baiting and how hungry your bears are!

My recommendation, and the route I'm taking for my 2012 bear hunt, is to purchase bear bait from a few 'dealers' in the northeastern Wisconsin area.  There is a whole 'underground' market for bear bait.  There are taxidermists, butchers, and hunting guides that spend the 'off-season' sourcing bait for black bear hunting.  Similar to what my Uncle and Dad found and used for their hunt, in five short years, these dealers now offer endless varieties of bear-bait goodies at reasonable prices.  One such example is Big Woods Bear Bait - check out their website here:  http://www.bigwoodsbearbait.com/
Their inventory changes often, and it is updated online, but for example, a hunter could buy a 20-pound box of circus peanuts for $5, a 20-pound pail of chocolate frosting for $4, a 40-pound pail of black-raspberry jelly for $13, a 15-gallon bag of crushed ice cream sugar-cones for $14, etc.  These prices - given the material available and the convenience of just picking it up like you're shopping at a store - are totally within reason.  It was an obvious choice for my hunt!  If not for Big Woods Bear Bait or Pelkins Processing in Crivitz, I'd spend many hours of my own time just trying to find something half as good at twice the price!

Finally, I recommend using "Liquid Smoke" when you bait.  This is a high potent liquid that smells like, well, smoked meat!  It is commonly used in making sausage.  A bottle is not very expensive and when sprayed into the air and on surrounding trees, it creates a great attractant smell for the sensitive nose of bears within miles of the bait!

How frequent to bait?  Good question.

Daily is best.  Every other day is acceptable.  Depends on how quickly the bears are coming in and cleaning up the bait.  A hunter on a hot bait site could end up baiting multiple times per day if he or she wanted and needed to!
It's extremely important to be able to bait as frequently as every other day, at minimum.  If you live far from your hunting location and don't know anyone local that can bait for you daily, you need to take this into serious consideration and expect a lower-than-normal success rate for your hunt.  Black bears coming into a bait will end up coming in on a daily basis and change their daily route to include a stop at the bait station you set up.  If you only bait your location on a Saturday and Sunday for three weeks prior to your hunting season because that's the only time you can get up to hunt, you're not going to establish this 'regular stop' for bears in the area.

I am incredibly lucky and grateful that my Aunt and Uncle moved to the 'northwoods' this spring after retiring from their jobs in the Milwaukee area.  They now live 15 minutes from the cabin they own and property I'll be hunting.  The baiting tasks my Uncle is doing for me is equivalent to what an outfitter would do for you, if you were to sign on with an outfitter for your black bear hunt.  It's great to have connections!

Location, Hunting Method, and Stand Setup

The location for my bear hunt will be on a 40-acre parcel of privately-owned hunting land in Marinette County, Wisconsin.

There are two predominant ways to hunt black bears:
1) by use of hunting dogs which chase down a bear by following a scent trail and 'tree' the bear, and
2) by use of a bait station to attract a bear to a particular location where the hunter is waiting.

A 40-acre hunting parcel is too small to hunt bear with hounds.  This style of hunting is better suited to large tracts of land such as those found in the national, state, or county-owned forests.  A 40-acre parcel (a square chunk of land that is 1/4 mile on each side) is perfect, however, for baiting black bear! 

Neighboring properties are all privately-held hunting land without permanent homes - and this is true for at least a mile in every direction. 

We know that black bear are in the area even without baiting activity.  We see them, their tracks, their droppings, and their territorial markings on trees.  And, because we know the neighbors in the area, we know roughly what kind of hunting pressure the bears see.  The hunting pressure in our immediate area has been very low in the past five years.

(In 2007, my Uncle and Dad both shot a black bear off this same 40-acre parcel.  They were hunting over bait.  To our knowledge, no bears have been harvested within a 1/2 mile in any direction since then.)

The method I'm choosing to hunt bears, as mentioned, is over a bait station.  Bear hunters have their choice of weapon for a bear hunt.  This can be either a gun or a bow.  I will start my hunt attempting to shoot my bear with a compound bow from an elevated tree stand.  Should I find that bears are not coming into the bait while I'm on my stand, or if I find that they are just to wary and smart to offer a shot opportunity, I will make the switch to a high-powered bolt-action rifle from a permanent blind (in a slightly different position around the same bait station...slightly further away, at a higher elevation, and offering better visual cover from an approaching bear).

The old saying of "a picture tells 1000 words" is very true in this situation, so here's an artistically-crafted rendering of my hunt setup:

As you can see, the tree I will be placing a climbing stick and hang-on treestand in is about 17 yards from the bait - a perfect distance at which to shoot a bow for an accurate, humane shot.  The tree stand will be ~16 feet in the air.  Given the lay of the land, I will be about 18 feet above the bait station and in a location that favors the prevailing winds that come from the northwest (my scent will be above the bear and not pushed towards the bait station by the wind).  Bears should, in general, be entering the bait station from the cedar swamp to the south of the bait station.  The rest of the cover/habitat around the bait station and blind consists of hardwoods, poplar, sparse conifers, and a heavy 'underbrush' of ferns and small poplar (this property was logged in the winter of 2009-2010.

Here is a photo of the bait log looking back at the large red-oak tree that will have the bowhunting treestand in it:

And here is the elevated permanent blind as seen from the bait log (the red oak that will have the bowhunting treestand in it is about 15 feet out of frame to the right of this photo):

So, that's the hunting setup!  Future posts to include info on what I'm baiting with, the equipment I'm using, and more of the preparation efforts that go into a bear hunt!

Wisconsin Black Bear Hunt 2012 - The Basics

A 2008 population estimate by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources put a range on the Wisconsin black bear population at between 26,000 and 40,000 animals.  While the highest density of black bears is in the northern half of the state, sightings in central and southwestern Wisconsin are becoming more commonplace as the population disperses.

To help control the population, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR) strictly manages a hunter/harvest program for the state.  Because of the overwhelming interest in hunting black bear and the size of the population, the DNR holds a lottery (a.k.a. preference-point) system to award hunters with a permit to purchase a license.  To receive this license permit, one must apply for it via a small preference-point application fee.  As years go by, the preference points will accumulate for an individual.  The population density of bears in a particular zone - in combination with the number of hunters seeking a harvest permit - determines how many preference points a hunter needs before he or she is allowed to purchase a license. 

For 2012, the state is segregated into four zones, shown in the following map:

To look at the numbers...
In 2011 the state was divided into the same zones.  There were 103,000 people statewide that applied for a preference point, of which 28,000 indicated they wanted a harvest license if one was available (you can defer and just tally preference points).  9,005 license permits were awarded.  In zone A, everyone with 7 points or more who asked for a permit received one.  For B, C, and D, these preference point figures were 9, 5, and 8 points, respectively.  By the end of the 2011 bear season, which runs during September and early October, there were just over 4,500 black bears harvested by hunters in Wisconsin!

On February 14th, 2012, I received notification in the mail from the DNR that I was being awarded a permit for the 2012 Black Bear season in Zone B!  The 2012 season would have been the year that I would have received my tenth preference point from the DNR.  After 10 years of diligently applying for a harvest permit each year, it's finally my turn!

Follow along as I add more posts about the planning, the preparation, and the hunt!