This past Sunday (Sept. 7th) Jason and I made the trip to Moose Lake to bait one last time before we begin to hunt.  We baited our Moose Lake bait station first.  Once we arrived at the bait site, we were both surprised and happy to see that all of our bait (doughnuts and cereal) had been cleaned out of the bait pit.  Interestingly, the bottom 2-3 inches of the pit was filled with a sandy sludge which could have been partially composed of our bait.  Along with the empty bait pit, we also found a number of trails coming and going into the site.  From the condition of the trails it appears that a bear (or bears) have been visiting the site regularly.  We also found a good size pile of bear feces on one of the trails. 

Jason setup a bow stand in a nearby pine tree with enough room for us to place another stand next to it for the cameraman to sit in.  At this point we hadn’t decided which of our two bait sites we’d be hunting at, but did decided that we were both going to sit at the same bait station when we do begin to hunt.  We decided this because we’ve both shot bear already, and we’d rather shoot 1 bear and get it on video, as opposed to having better odds of shooting 2 bears and missing out on video taping either of the hunts. 

The Barnum bait station had also been hit, but only about half of the bait had been eaten.  We did find one hind bear print in the mud surrounding the bait pit, but it looked like a smaller bear.  I put up a bow stand in a nearby pine tree and we baited the station. 

Our plan for hunting is to take Thursday and Friday (Sept. 11 and 12) off from work and hunt the extended 4-day weekend.  The ‘plan’ if you can call it that is to fill both of our tags in these 4 days and be done with hunting.  As much fun as it is to sit in the woods and hunt, bear hunting is an exhausting endevour; not to mention time-consuming.  Let’s hope my next post will include pictures of two bears.