Dick Scorzafava's Bear Hunt

Blind Side’Um

By Dick Scorzafava

The cameraman Rex Summerfield and I had settled into our Double Bull ground blind for the evening hunt when suddenly Rex spotted a big bear moving slowly off to our right. He tapped me on the shoulder and pointed in the direction of the bear and made some hand gestures indicating he was huge. I looked over his shoulder through the window of the blind and saw this big black blob moving very slowly in the direction of our bait. Then unexpectedly he stopped dead in his tracks and began to completely survey the entire area. It seemed like an hour passed as he stood there listening, scent checking, and looking for anything out of the ordinary.

These big old boars have bionic hearing and smell and I’m not kidding. If you want to kill or even see one of these big brutes scent and noise are critical issues. We were both wearing Scent-Lok BaseSlayers with one of their Savanna outfits over the top to insure we would be as scent free as possible. We also used hand signals instead of whispering, which works really well in a blind because it blocks your movement.

All of a sudden he started to move, but he was going away from the bait and circling around behind us in the blind. We lost sight of him from our small opening in the side window, but we could hear his movements behind us getting closer and closer. It sounded like he was right behind us now but Rex and I could not see him out of the small opening in the windows on each side of the blind. We were beginning to wonder if he was going to come into the blind with us uninvited through the back unopened door.

I very slowly and quietly picked up my Knight KRB and pointed it at the back of the blind in the event he decided to make a visit through the unopened back door. I had one eye glued to the back of the blind and the other out the opening in the window. Finally, I spotted his head out the window and he was just five feet behind the blind looking things over and scent checking. I motioned to Rex where he was and put up five fingers to indicate his distance from the blind. Out of the blue he finally seemed satisfied that everything was all right and walked right past my window, so close I could have reached out and touched him as he passed. He was so close we both could smell him as he slowly moved in the direction of the bait.

Unexpectedly, he stopped again and looked to his left directly at a treestand the outfitter had set up 15 yards from the bait. He slowly walked right over to the treestand put his nose to the ground and scent checked the entire area around the ladder. Then he put his two front paws right on the first step of the ladder and looked right up at the stand. He was staring there for a few moments before moving to the left, away from the bait entirely, as if he was going to leave the area. Suddenly, he stopped, turned around, and came back to the treestand again, scent checking the ground with his nose. Finally, he picked up his head and walked directly to the bait and lay on the ground on the side of the bait barrel. I looked over at Rex and gave him thumbs up indicating that using the blind today worked as we have seemed to fool this old brute.

This big bear had been around baits before and if we had hunted the treestand we would have been busted, even though the stand had never been hunted before that day. These mature bears get bait smart quickly and its critical to make sure everything is right before hunting the area or you will never see them. I have seen this situation many times over the years, that is why we decided to hunt on the ground out of our Double Bull blind and it worked.

I put my Knight KRB on my shooting stick to be ready when a shot opportunity presented itself. It seemed forever before he finally got up and moved into a position where I could take a shot. I put the stock to my cheek, looking through my Alpen scope lining the cross hairs up on his vitals, clicked off the two safeties and slowly squeezed the trigger. The 209 primer ignited the Triple Seven powder and sent my 290 grain polymer tipped boat tail bullet down the barrel with the traditional boom. We were unable to see the hit through the cloud of smoke but we did hear a loud thump when the bullet hit the mark. When the smoke cleared my bear was laying right there. It was a great shot and he dropped right in his tracks like a rock. I leaned over and gave Rex a high five, started to really feel the rush and went to go take a look at this big boy. I realized I had to sit for a few minutes to claim myself down. That was a really exciting half hour leading up to my squeezing the trigger on my smokepole. I find that moments like this are why bear hunting is a thread that binds me to the fabric of the past and how we were able to blind side him today. What a perfect ambush.

As I waited for the time to pass before I could check this beauty, my mind began to wander back to what had brought us here, today, to remote Lynn Lake Manitoba pursing monster bears. I’m constantly looking for places to hunt monster bears and it is getting more and more difficult to find these places because most places have had too much hunting pressure. This results in most of the mature bears being harvested out of those areas. It takes a long time to grow big bears they need to have good habitat and most of all age. A bear has to reach at least 8 years old to before it will have a skull large enough to achieve trophy status in areas with good habitat.

The Canadian Province of Manitoba is well known for producing quality animals every year in some specific locations. But the area around the little mining town of Lynn Lake has virtually been untouched. I found this area several years ago and have taken four monster bears in four trips. If you want to shoot big bears you must hunt where big bears exist and the more of them that are in the area the better you chances are on the hunt. It doesn’t take rocket science to figure that out. Finding places like this are a large part of the hunt for me all the research involved putting the pieces of the puzzle together is exciting and most times rewarding.

I had just returned from a spot and stalk hunt in British Columbia where I had passed over 30 bears on the seven day hunt. We had a great time, saw lots of animals, but I had set my goal for a bear over six and a half feet and I wouldn’t deter from it just to shoot a bear.

This time I had several friends with me on the trip hoping to put a tag on a quality bear and get in some world class Northern Pike and Walleye fishing. They included Walt Larsen president of Scales Advertising, Ken Byers president of Byers Media, and Toby Shaw his assistant. My goal was to give each one of them an opportunity at a good bear because they have never harvested a bear before.

There are two quality bear operations in this area and I have hunted with both of them in the past. This trip we would be hunting with Lyle and Linda MacMillan who operate Grey Owl Outfitters. Lyle’s operation is just outside of town on Elden Lake and he has a vast area to bear hunt and only takes a very limited amount of hunters each year to keep the quality up on the animals. He has new areas that they open up each year that have never been hunted before in modern times. These are the kind of places that I look for and they will produce big bears as long as they are not over hunted. The trouble with many outfitters they think of the short term rather than the future and take to many hunters. What happens over time is most if not all of the quality animals get shot out or become completely nocturnal. Lyle has the right idea and his area should produce some really nice trophy animals every year.

We would be filming this hunt for Knight Rifles Born To Hunt television show on The Outdoor Channel and hope to harvest a good bear on film for the show. We would be hunting baits that have been established over the last two years but have never had a hunter on them.

Our crew got in some fantastic Northern Pike and Walleye fishing the first few days, but nobody had seen a good bear at a bait location. Rex and I did have a small bear come into a bait and literally come right up into our stand. This immature bear was a about a three year old male that climbed up the ladder to our stand to the bottom of my feet and I literally had to kick at him and scold him to get him to retreat back down the ladder. Rex was able to capture this entire exciting encounter on film. I have had several bears come up to visit me in the stand over the years and it can get pretty scary sometimes especially if it is a sow and she has cubs with her at the bait.

Lyle and I decided we would try another bait location where the sign indicated there was a really good bear coming into it, but according to the Cuddeback Digital scouting camera we had at the location he was not coming in every night. It seems he would show up one night and then show up two or three days later. After carefully examining the pictures of the bear we decided it was worth a try because he was definitely a trophy animal.

We would have to put up another treestand so Rex could film so we decided to go in about midday put up the stand and come back around four or five o’clock to start out sit. When you got to the location with the treestand I personally didn’t like the set up because the stands would have no cover at all and we would be to close to the bait location. I really wanted to hunt this location and our only option would be to put up our Double Bull ground blind back away from the bait against some good back cover. Lyle quickly drove the ATV back to the truck picked up the blind while I picked a spot for the blind and cleared the debris. After the blind was set up we stood back and looked at it and it blended perfectly into the area. I was excited about hunting this bear with my Knight KRB muzzleloader out of a ground blind where it would be up close and personal.

Rex yanked me out of my day dream with a shout asking if I was ready to go look at my bear. I told him I had been reminiscing about the hunt and how perfect this set up worked on this bear. We were able to blind side him and he never had a clue that we were waiting in ambush. We exited the blind and walked straight over to my bear.

He was a magnificent animal we figured was between six and a half to seven feet nose to tail. He sported wonderfully thick, coal-black hide with no rub marks. He also had what I call a melon head with the crease down the head between the eyes which is indicative of a very mature animal. Overall this was a trophy bear anyone would be proud to harvest and I was actually thrilled to share this experience with friends.

When I got back to camp they informed us that Ken and Toby had also shot nice bears and that Walt had a monster come into his bait location but had never presented a good shot.

I will be back in the Lynn Lake area again next year trying to create more exciting bear hunting memories in the Land of Little Sticks. Maybe I will see you there.

For More Information on Hunting the Lynn Lake Area Contact:

Grey Owl Outfitters

Lyle and Linda MacMillan

204-322-5385

www.manitobabearhunts.ca

Travel Manitoba

800-665-0040

www.travlemanitoba.com

Products that aided in this hunt:

Knight Rifles

641-856-2626

www.knightrifles.com

Scent-Lok Technologies