After the stress of getting across the border was removed, I slept surprisingly well. I woke up in time to poke around online and have a bit too much coffee before hitting the road for the final leg of my journey.
It was raining heavily as I got packed up, and I knew it was going to slow me down, so I had no problem leaving a little early. I got out of Fort Frances and worked my way north and west. This part of the drive is quite remote and I would have enjoyed it if it hadn't been so dark and dreary, but I was also getting excited.
I stopped in Kenora just as Walmart was opening and bought some seltzer water and a few bags of M&Ms. I have no idea what made me buy the candy.
Just outside of Kenora I had a deer run out in front of me, reminding me I need to keep my eyes open. Thankfully the rain had stopped by this point. Another deer ran towards me just outside of West Lake; it seemed determined to end it all by my front bumper, but I was able to avoid her.
Once into Manitoba, I saw another deer run across the road with a wolf on her heels - definitely a first for me.
After stopping to get gas in Lac du Bonnet, I made my way to camp. I saw Vance as I was pulling in and he pointed me to a cabin behind the skinning shed. It wasn't ready yet so I chucked a lure into the water for a while, getting one bite by the dock. Once the cabin was ready, I putzed around a bit waiting for everyone else to arrive. Their border crossing was not so smooth. One person had an antigen test instead of a PCR test and was turned away. Everyone else was selected for another PCR test by Canada, so it took a couple of hours for everyone else. Eventually they made it into camp, with just enough time to head out to hunt.
Carter took Matt, Tyler and me down river. I was dropped off second. Bear hunting had started. As is usually the case, it took a bit of time to settle down. This was made harder by the stand leaning uncomfortably forward. Around 5:30 I was squirming around thinking to myself it was going to be a long sit when a bear immediately to my left startled me. It walked around a bit before coming out into the bait. It was a smaller bear, but fun to watch. I will never tire of how cool it is being so close to these animals. That first bear started what ended up being one of the most active days of bear hunting I have ever had. For the rest of the night, there were bears in front of and around me. It was awesome.
It was hard to think about how fortunate I am to have these adventures.
There were several times where there were two bears on the bait at the same time. Any time this happened, they tolerated each other - but only barely. They would moan and growl menacingly at each other. A few times, this reach the level where they started fighting. It was quite intimidating being less than 50 yards from bears which were snarling and fighting.
I'm not sure how many different bears in total I saw, but it was between five and ten.
As the night went on, the bears got incrementally bigger. Late in the evening, I had to struggle to decide if a bear was big enough to take. None of them were jaw-droppers, but the last bear I saw in daylight was a really nice bear (picture below is actually the second-to-last bear I saw).
Ultimately my gun stayed silent. As it got dark I could hear another bear come in and in the murky shadows it looked much bigger. I could hear two of them growling on the bait as Carter came and got me. One bear took off, but the other absolutely refused to leave. I had to get out of the stand with that pissed-off bear making sure I knew that I was an invasion. It was both exciting and a bit scary.
Matt had had a similar night to mine, with bears nearly continuously past about 5:30. Tyler had seen one, which had walked right under him.
Back in camp, everyone except Jon (waiting on new COVID test) was there. Everyone who had hunted had seen bears which was pretty incredible. There was one shot, but it wasn't found yet in the dark. Looking would resume in daylight.
Dinner was late but good. I went to bed happy to be in camp, lucky to have seen so many bears, and rethinking my decision not to shoot.
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