12 yr. Old Hannah Goes Hunting Bear!

I met Hannah at the youth bear hunt when I was interviewing the kids that the ABC Sportsmen’s Club had sponsored. This spunky little gal was raring to go and told me she would be on a hunting show some day! You go Girl!

 Here is 12 year old Hannah’s Bear Hunt in her own words:

 The first day we went out and we checked on the baits in the beginning of the day. We saw 2 cubs alone and there was 1 mother and 3 cubs. It was a good sized mother, but of course you can’t shoot a mother with cubs. Then at around 2 o’clock we looked at one bait, and we saw medium sized tracks and we guessed around a 200 pound bear.

 We got ready and we decided to go after it. We let 1 dog go and started to hear the howling and we let 3 more and then another 2. They all started howling and we kept going back and forth and back and forth because they kept on running on the bear tracks for 2 hours because the bear would not go up a tree.

 The bear was running in circles. My guide Larry noticed there were 3 dogs going in one direction and 3 dogs going in the other and it was weird because we think there was a small 100 pound (bear) and another 200 pound bear. Three dogs were chasing after one and 3 dogs were chasing after the other. We put 3 more (dogs) out there and we ended up with the 100 or so pound bear up a tree.

 We had to walk at least a mile out in the woods and we found it. It was up in a tree and it was about 125 pounds.

 We were getting the dogs tied back and getting ready to shoot and it went down the tree. It ran out and he let the dogs go again. Larry asked if  

I wanted to go for a different one and I said no because none of the other kids had one yet at this time.  

 Our truck was way over on the other side and we were closer to some trucks on this side of the woods where there were other people that helped us. He (Larry) went to get our truck and we heard howling really close to us. One of the other hunters came back and he said that the bear was on the side of the road up in a tree.

 We ran down the road and there it was up a tree and all the dogs were there. Then I shot it once and got it in the lungs and then it climbed up the tree. We didn’t know if I missed it or not. It was weird and then we hit it again, I think in the neck and it still wouldn’t drop. So we hit it 1 more time and it finally dropped. It weighed about 125 pounds.

Hannah’s first words when she saw the bear were “I can’t believe this! It’s like I’m dreaming”.

 A big THANK YOU to the Medford Hunter Safety Instructors, Ashland Bayfield County Sportsmen Club, Bayfield County Wisconsin DNR Warden Pat Quaintance, and Guide Larry Leer of Ettrick, WI and his entire crew of awesome Hunters for making this little girl’s unbelievable wish happen.

 Youth can sign up for the WI LTBH (Learn to Bear Hunt) program on the  WI DNR webpage or at a DNR Service Center or at a hunter’s safety class.

One more note: Hannah has also taken her first deer in the WI Youth hunt last weekend. Congratulations Hannah.

My First Lion

 

Clancy Sayer

One day towards the end of January, my dad woke me up earlier than usual and informed me that his friend Mike was looking for lion tracks and wanted me to go hunt with him. I immediately replied “YES!” I hurried and changed into my long johns and wool pants, then headed out to the truck. My brother and sister thought it was unfair that I got to hunting while they had to go to school so my dad let them go with us too

 

It seemed like it took forever to get to our destination, especially because it was my first lion hunt and if I was lucky my first big game animal. We finally found mike who had cut a female with a large tom following. We decided to let the hounds go (Trapper, Jess, Exploder, Clyde and Tobey.) It was very exciting, Mike showed Jess the track and she let out a big bawl and took off after the lion. We traveled from place to place around the mountain in the trucks trying to figure out where the dogs were heading. We came to a canyon where we thought the dogs headed to. My brother, sister and I stayed with my dad while Mike and his friend Brandon went up to look for the dogs. I swear we sat there for three hours. Finally they reported back to my dad on the radio that the dogs went over the ridge and headed for the top of the mountain.

 

 

 

See the original article at Ultimate Predator Magazine