Maine Guide Snares a New State-Record Black Bear

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 web site with a mobile path digicam, and seen when an oversize bruin started hitting the bait usually.

“In Maine we will 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 way of his Wild Ferns Guide Service. “Leg conibear traps can’t be used, however snares can. They require a superb little bit of effort and ability to set them proper to idiot an enormous outdated black bear … I take advantage of the digicam to ensure solely a big bear is coming in earlier than setting a snare for it.”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 verify 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 gadget that stops smaller bears from accessing the setup.

“I lower method again on the bait on the web site. 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 massive bear.

“I known as three buddies and we went in very quietly to the bait web site,” LaFreniere defined. “We didn’t wish 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] vivid, and we just about slipped in.”

As they approached the positioning, they switched on vivid 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 area costume 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 once we [finally] bought my bear to a tagging station,” LaFreniere says. “They didn’t have an authorized 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 dwell 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 dwell weight, he mentioned. Boar black bears are bigger and are in a special state data class. The Maine boar bear weight report is 699 kilos.

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“My bear had loads of fats, however we bought 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 dear at $5,000, and I don’t know the place I’m gonna put it, although. We’ve so many deer, moose and fish mounts at dwelling I believe we now have to construct a lodge or searching headquarters for all of them.”