Information and clothes shop Zack LaFreniere of Howland, Maine, had set a bait barrel in a distant a part of Penobscot County in early September. He monitored the bait website with a mobile path digicam, and observed when an oversize bruin started hitting the bait usually.
“In Maine we are able to lawfully harvest bears a number of methods: with bait, hounds, and likewise with snares,” says the 33-year-old outdoorsman, who guides bear, deer, and moose hunters by means of his Wild Ferns Guide Service. “Leg conibear traps can’t be used, however snares can. They require a great little bit of effort and talent to set them proper to idiot an enormous previous black bear … I exploit the digicam to ensure solely a big bear is coming in earlier than setting a snare for it.”
LaFreniere mentioned it took six days of monitoring his distant digicam photographs to substantiate an enormous bruin was hitting the bait. Then he baited and set a snare. LaFreniere digs a gap to carry a pipe, locations bait on the backside, and positions the pipe close to a mature tree to anchor the cable. The snare can be fitted with a “cub cease” — a particular machine that stops smaller bears from accessing the setup.
“I reduce method again on the bait on the website. When a bear involves the half-full barrel, however smells extra bait deep within the pipe, it goes for the pipe bait.”
Late on Sept. 15, a path digicam photograph confirmed he’d snared the large bear.
“I referred to as three buddies and we went in very quietly to the bait website,” LaFreniere defined. “We didn’t need to spook the bear and walked in very stealthy for a few quarter-mile … We didn’t use flashlights as a result of [the] moon [was] vibrant, and we just about slipped in.”
As they approached the positioning, they switched on vibrant lights.
“The bear was laying down on the pipe snare, and when the lights got here on it stood up,” LaFreniere mentioned. “I instantly shot it with a 250-grain Hornady bullet from my 35 Whelen rifle. It dropped useless proper there.”
LaFreniere mentioned the bear had nearly labored its method out of the snare, with the cable loop barely holding the bruin by a claw.
“If we’d gotten there just a bit later the bear would have been gone.”
In loading the bear onto a drag sled they realized the bear, an enormous sow, was an enormous. It was so heavy that LaFreniere determined to discipline gown it to lighten the load. He additionally didn’t need the meat to spoil earlier than they might get the animal out of the woods and on ice.
“It was 4 a.m. on Sept. 16 after we [finally] received my bear to a tagging station,” LaFreniere says. “They didn’t have a licensed scale for weighing it. So, we drove to The Village Market in Carmel. It was weighed there and verified by state biologists at 358-pounds. “The official estimated stay weight of the bear is 429.6 kilos.”
LaFreniere’s bear is now formally the state’s largest sow taken in Maine, each by dressed weight and estimated stay weight, he mentioned. Boar black bears are bigger and are in a distinct state information class. The Maine boar bear weight document is 699 kilos.
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“My bear had lots of fats, however we received loads of roasts, hamburger and sausage from it,” he defined. “I’m additionally gonna have a full-body taxidermy mount of the bear made. It’s expensive at $5,000, and I don’t know the place I’m gonna put it, although. We have now so many deer, moose and fish mounts at residence I feel we have now to construct a lodge or looking headquarters for all of them.”
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