Son first trapped bear!

[davidlt89]

As you may or may not know, I took my oldest son out the first day of bear season. We sat 35 minutes and had a nice little bear come in. He shot but did not seem to connect. The bait ended up going cold so I ordered him a trapping license along with a bear trapping permit just in case the bait did not heat up again.

I received his license friday and we got permission from a local farmer to put a snare in just down the road from us a little over a mile. we got the snare in sunday night, when I went back monday, the board and bucket the snare goes to was taken out of the ground and moved about 10ft away and all the bait was gone. So I put it back in the ground and rebaited and hoped a bear would be back.

As I was looking over the snare while getting it all back together I noticed that the deer stop may be in the wrong place. according to law the snare can close no smaller than 2 1/2" and the the hole seemed to be awful big. I got to reading the law again and it suggested using a soup can with diameter of 2 1/2" to wrap the snare around and set your deer stop. I believe this would make a huge difference so yesterday my mission was to retrieve his snare and mine and fix them. the circumference of the hole the deer stop was leaving was 2 and 1/2" across but about 5" length wise. No wonder the bear had not stayed in his snare the night before.

I stopped at his snare first to pull the snare and bring it home to fix the deer stop. when I got there I noticed the snare was not at the bucket. on further inspection, a bear had somehow got its head in the bucket and got caught around the neck like mine did last year. But, this was not a last years cub like mine was last year. I figure this bear to be at least a two year old female, this one dressed at 113lbs.

my son was excited to say the least! here are some pictures of the event.





Gonna get it cut up tonight and get the pelt in the freezer. I did get my snare and fix the deer stop. using the can it moved my deer stop over 3" closer and now I have a reasonable loop to catch and hold a bear. I set my snare in the bucket I had for him and switched out the name over the trap. hopefully one of the big boys in the area will find it.

Also, his bait has heated back up and is getting hit again. the bears are really starting to feed again. he is allowed to shoot one and trap one so maybe he has another in his future. God Bless.

[rockinbbar]

That's great!
Give him our congratulations! Nice write up too, David.

[JaDub]

Two thumbs up  !!!!

[Alboy]

HooBoy, good luck seems the tide has turned again.

[gitano]

Way to go!

Paul

[davidlt89]

hoping the snare connects again soon!!! our other bait is getting hit hard also. I gave my son the option of going to sit on it again tomorrow, but since he "got a bear" already (and I think he spent 14 hours in the blind the first week) he told me I could sit in it. I did not need to hear that twice!!! I will be in the stand tomorrow night, hopefully getting a chance to bloody the 45/70 for the second time. then what would be nice is to come home, go to the snare and dispatch another!!! Maybe thats just being greedy though. God Bless.

[Alboy]

could be a long night of skinning. sure would be nice labor

[gitano]

sure would be nice labor

AMEN! Brudder.

Paul