I had a lot riding on my first hunt last fall. For nearly a year my buddies and I planned to spend the first week of September in Down East Maine chasing black bears with serious intentions. I planned to use one of my own rifles, which is a gun writer’s unrequited dream. I messed with a dozen different rifles during the summer, making modifications and developing handloads. By August I had it boiled down to five (or maybe six) different guns. Endless hours at the range made summer almost bearable. I started packing in July, and, for once in my life, I was ready early.
The week before departure I started feeling a bit off, but I ignored it. At my age, feeling good is rare anyway. However, by Thursday I was full-blown chasing death. I thought it impossible, as I had maintained a hermit existence to stay healthy. It turned out I had COVID … again. So my buddies all headed east Sunday while I shivered out a fever in bed.
Through the marvels of modern technology I followed their hunt day to day. I texted with one of my buddies, Dean Wetherby, and I was getting real-time feeds when he shot a bear with a 788 Remington rifle I had converted to .358 Winchester. Near the end of their hunt Ted Reynolds, the owner of Wilderness Lodge Outfitters, texted to tell me they had a slot opened up the following week, if I felt up to hunting. I would be alone, but at least I would be hunting. Still weak and off my game, I jumped in my truck Sunday morning and pointed it at Maine.
If Wilderness Lodge Outfitters sounds familiar, it’s because I wrote about another bear hunt with them back in 2021. Same place, with new owners. Ted Reynolds, his son Taylor and his wife Chrissy now own the place and have worked hard to improve just about everything. It turns out Ted is the most hard-core dog hunter I have met, which will become relevant later in this story. Wilderness Lodge Outfitters offers bait hunts as well as hound hunts for black bears. They can even do a combination hunt with dogs in the morning and bait in the afternoon. But you’d better be tough to sign on for that one.
Bears have always fascinated me, and I suppose if I were of the touchy-feely persuasion I might call them my spirit animal. Bears were a rare trophy when I was growing up in Vermont, and shooting one caught a lot of attention. I wanted one not for attention but because I am a hunter. A black bear was the ultimate trophy at the time.
I was a bit obsessed with bears when I traveled to Maine in 1984 for my first bait hunt. It turns out I hunted just a few miles from Wilderness Lodge on the day I shot my first bear and started a lifelong obsession with bear hunting.
I suppose by now I have hunted black bears just about every way that’s legal and in a good bit of the places where they live. My favorite method has always been hunting them with dogs. Hound hunting is a dying sport as the forces against it strengthen. Those who have never participated in such a hunt have little idea what actually happens, so they invent reasons to oppose it. I have been lucky to experience a lot of dog hunting over the years, and I have seen lots of bears and listened to the music of the hounds countless times. I can say without hesitation that they are all wrong.
The trouble lately is that I have aged. Hunting with hounds can be challenging physically. I am in my seventh decade and operating with a lot of aftermarket parts, so dog hunting for bears has been in my rearview mirror for a while. It didn’t matter; while Ted and I talked a lot about dog hunting, this was a bait hunt.
Bait is another bear-hunting technique that is hugely misunderstood. It is one of the few viable methods available to hunt bears in Maine, and it has a different set of challenges. Never a guarantee, bait hunting is perhaps the most difficult method of hunting bears. At least for me.
While I am off warranty these days, even in my glory days I was never made for sitting still. My body might be adult in nature, but when planted in a hunting stand it acts like a toddler in church. It wiggles and fidgets, whines because it is bored, wants a drink and has to go to the bathroom. The thing is, if you are going to hunt bears over bait successfully, you must sit still. Not just sort of still, but perfectly still. I have my little tricks to pass the time, honed to a fine edge with years of bear and whitetail hunting. But, even with those trade secrets, sitting still is physically and mentally the toughest hunting for me. Bears see, smell and hear everything. The smart, older bears will often wait and watch for hours before approaching a bait. Even with the hunter hidden in a blind, they miss nothing.
I approach it as a challenge. No hunting trophy is worth a damn thing if it comes too easy. As Robert Ruark once wrote so well about hunting, “you got to hurt to be happy.”
Last year, for six long days I sat and waited. Ted asks that you stay in the blind until the guide picks you up. No moving, no phone, no lights. At the end of six days of intense hunting, I was sufficiently challenged. Others in camp saw bears. Lots of bears. Kenny tagged out the first day. Larry and his bow were taunted by big bears almost nightly. Another bow hunter took a couple of shots, but bear fever prevailed. He had bears prowling his stand almost every night.
At the end of the week, 10 of 12 hunters had seen bears. Many saw multiple bears. It seems, though, that sometimes the connection between seeing a bear and putting a tag on it is elusive. By Sunday three hunters had tipped the guides for dragging their bears to the truck. One dog hunter went home with a three-legged bear and one hell of a story. Me? The biggest thing I saw was a chipmunk with a giant blue tumor on his face. (Turns out he had a huge M&M from the bait pile in his mouth.)
It’s nobody’s fault. This has happened far too many times. Ted and I did everything right, it just wasn’t destined. Towsley’s Luck is a powerful force, and when it comes to visit it can’t be flaunted.
Hunting over bait is an afternoon hunt, so I fished in the mornings, and caught one of the best brook trout of my life. The camp was filled with strangers when I got there and good friends when I left. I had many conversations about hunting, guns and life. Lots of laughs and celebrations. But, in the end, I was depressed and defeated as I packed to leave Sunday morning.
Sometimes, though, Towsley’s Luck has a better idea.
Before I started the truck, Ted asked me if I was interested in coming back for a dog hunt. That’s like asking a hobo if he is hungry. Still, I declined.
I explained that I was worried I wasn’t up to it anymore. I told Ted, “I can get to every place I need to go, but not as fast as I “usta’ could.’” When hound hunting, things can happen fast, and hound hunters are typically tough and impatient, particularly with the “old guy.” Ted waved his hand and said, “Come hunt, we will wait for you.”
This was like tossing a starving man a steak … or better yet, a lobster! I could think of nothing I would rather be doing.
When I pulled out of the parking lot that morning, I rolled down my window and, in a pathetic “Arnold accent,” shouted at the bears, “I’ll be back!”
We worked out the specifics, and two weeks later I kept that promise.
A bait hunt for bears requires extreme patience. Bears will sit and watch, listen and smell long before they enter the site. Maine is also a great place to hunt grouse and to fish for brook trout.
When I shot my first black bear near Grand Lake Stream 41 years ago, I used a handgun, a Ruger Super Blackhawk .44 Magnum with an early Aimpoint sight. I still have the gun, although I installed a Leupold 2X scope on it decades ago. I hope I am wrong, but this could well be my last bear, and as I was hunting in the same area as where I shot my first, I thought, “Why not?” So I left the rifle at home and took that Ruger handgun. In 1984 I used a handload with a 320-grain JDJ cast bullet when I shot almost straight down at that first bear. This time I used Federal factory .44 Magnum ammo with a 280-grain Swift A-Frame bullet because I was out of cast bullets and too pressed for time to make some more.
We had no real success the first morning. All the tracks were too old for the dogs to follow. Let me point out that these dogs could follow a two-day-old rumor, so the bears that made the tracks we did find might well have already died of old age. We hunted hard most of the day, putting a lot of miles on the truck, dogs and boots, but it was a dry hole. That afternoon Ted and I went grouse hunting with a bit more success.
Day two was a different story. We checked a camera about 8:30 a.m. and saw that a good bear had been there at 4 a.m. Cameras are another tool that are subject to a lot of criticism from the ignorant masses. But they allow the hunter to pick and choose which bear to run. This way no sows with cubs or young bears are involved. In this case it was clearly a bear that had been living well. Even in early October it was packing a lot of fat. Our goal was a lone bear (no cubs) that would weigh at least 150 pounds. This bear more than qualified. Still, it was an old track and it was extremely dry, making it a tough trail. We turned loose one of the dogs, which made a large circle and returned. Then Ted released his secret weapon. Lucy is a treeing Walker with a little bit of Plott in her. This gentle, unassuming dog looks very little like the Kraken, but watch out when she is released.
Lucy took off on the cold track with serious intent. After a few minutes, Ted turned loose Gracie, a redbone hound, and she caught up just as Lucy jumped the bear about a mile from us. While following them we found where they had crossed a logging road and we released three more dogs: Teeter, a puppy still learning the ropes, with Tigger, a black and tan, and Jack, a Redbone, as his mentors.
This bear was so fat it didn’t want to climb a tree, and the dogs caught up with it on the ground and they all just walked along making a lot of noise for the next hour or so. The bear finally bayed and when we arrived close by, it broke and ran again. In about a half a mile it tired of the foolishness and climbed a tree.
Our walk to the tree was only around 400 yards, but it was through some of the worst cover Maine can generate. It was extremely thick with a lot of uneven footing. I lost my hat, twisted my ankle and face-planted in the moss, but I kept up, more or less. Ted and I were separated when I thought he zigged and he really zagged. I have enough experience, though, to just go to the dogs. When I got there visibility was reduced to feet. It was so thick I couldn’t see the bear or much of anything else, including Ted.
I thought the bear was still on the ground, so I moved cautiously until I could see Ted and he pointed up at the sky. I still couldn’t see anything resembling a bear. I quietly moved off to one side where I could finally see a patch of its rump. No shot, so I made a path to the other side of the tree, which was better anyway as it put the dogs behind me. Often the bear will run away from the shooter, but we didn’t want it to run into a bunch of leashed dogs.
The dogs were deafening and it was hard to hear Ted when he said, “You better hurry, that bear is getting antsy and it’s going to bail out.” I could tell the same thing, but so far there was no shot. Whether by chance or choice, the bear had picked well and there was so much brush and vegetation that all I could see was the top of its clearly nervous ears.
Then the bear stretched its head for a look at me. Already looking through the scope, I quickly shot it at the very top of the chest, hitting the spine. The bear came out of the tree, and although another shot wasn’t needed I put a finisher into it as fast as I could. I learned a long time ago that “dead” bears can often cause a lot of mischief. Ted could attest to that, as just a few weeks earlier a bear a hunter had shot sent him to the hospital for stitches.
The intensity of it all just stopped. I fell to the ground beside the bear and felt everything drain away and seep into the cold Maine earth. It was deathly quiet. No one spoke, not even the dogs. We all just held in place, each with our own private thoughts, as we soaked in the moment.
The emotions that replaced the now-silenced intensity are what makes this so damn good. I make my living with words, but I can’t describe it well enough to do it justice. Every hunter should have a moment like this at least once in his life.
The author owed much of his success to Lucy, a treeing Walker with a bit of Plott in her. She looks unassuming but takes to a track with serious intent.
Gunning for Bear
I have done a lot of bear hunting all over North America and I have been part of a lot of bear harvests. As a confirmed gun guy, I have traced a lot of bullet wound channels through bear carcasses. I have learned a thing or two about what to shoot them with. If possible I always take a backup gun. Trust me, sooner or later you will be glad you did.
Bears are tough. No matter what you saw on the Internet, they are not exactly easy to kill. Mostly.
If you have a good double-lung hit, it ends quickly. But almost anything else can send them a long way. Unlike deer, bears don’t run 100 yards and lie down. They have a place in mind where they feel safe, and they will go there when wounded, or die trying.
This brings me to two points. First, as Mr. Ruark said “use enough gun.” That means something powerful enough to penetrate all the way through, even from a bad angle. Remember, too, that black bears can vary a great deal in size. Plan for the biggest, not the average. Second, that exit hole is important. Bears are notoriously tough to blood trail. Without a large exit hole, there is often no blood to follow. So, I prefer large bullets with lots of horsepower pushing them.
My choice for the bait hunt was a custom Remington 7600 pump-action rifle in .338-06 with 200-grain Nosler Accubonds. My backup was a custom bolt-action .338-06 Ackley Improved with 210-grain Barnes TTSX bullets. For the hound hunt I switched to a Ruger Super Blackhawk .44 Magnum with Federal ammo loaded with 280-grain Swift A-Fames.
Book a Bear Hunt
In the 2025 season Wilderness Lodge Outfitters had 21 bait hunters who took 10 bears. Only two hunters did not see a bear. (I was one of them.) Seven combo hunters took six bears, all with dogs. (One hurt his knee and had to quit before the hunt ended.) Four dog-only hunters were 100 percent successful. Several bears were quite large; a 454-pound male was the best of the season. To book a hunt contact Taylor Reynolds at Wilderness Lodge Outfitters in Hampden, Maine: 207-649-7870; [email protected].
