I gotta go get more popcorn...hold on...

Very cool Ray!!! Anxiously waiting for the next instalment!!!  

I LOVE this site! Come on Ray, you're killing us!  

We did the 'sweeping arm' technique(you heard of that Kung Fu move before?) and got all our assorted junk in our bags and hauled them to the assembly area to strap onto 3 four wheelers and  two wagons. We jumbled people(10 folks in camp) and bags and equipment- as much as we could- into the wagons and back seats and hauled buggy-21 miles through bug-infested muskeg trails, with the fire on our heels, to get to The Sand Road..a 190 KM long highway from hell made of rocks with a dusting of sand on top...just enough to make every vehicle traveling up and down look like a destroyer laying down a smoke screen!

There we were met by Rob and a couple of old-time smoke jumpers Tom Nelson from Michigan and Ray Kania from Washington, who were thinking they had to come up the 21 miles we had just traveled to get us out....it was a back-slapping big-breath-taking meeting, I can tell you..with a lot of relief on everyones' part.

But I bet we were a sight- everyone was covered from head to toe in black muck thrown up by four wheelers running full bore to get through the boggy spots!

Tom and Ray- smoke jumpers/bear baiters extraordinaire
 

Rob relocated us to a fishing camp on Black Lake..a big cold monster of a lake that held five species of fish - walleye, pike, lake trout, grayling, and whitefish. Lots of them, and big ones too!

Fishing would be our plan for the next day since all our active baits were back at the burning lake.

Rob, Tom and Ray K began putting out new baits along the Sand Road, trying to get some bears to budge, since we could not hunt the established baits they had been working for two weeks.

Holy cow Ray. You don't do anything the boring way! I'm anxious to hear the rest.

Norb

This is a good one    :D    

The following day, after an absolutely awesome northwoods breakfast of bacon, sausage, eggs, flapjacks, juice toast and jam, it was off for a few hours of grayling fishing in the rapids about 30 seconds from camp.

Stiles, Chris and I caught and released at least 15, two of mine were around 20 inches in length +.

Somehow the pics didnt work on the bigger ones though...do have a couple though.

 

Just so you know I'm not fibbing, I'll throw in a couple of other shots of me in piscatorial pursuit, showing that I have this fishin' thing knocked, you know what I'm sayin'?
 

 

While we were fishing Tom Rob and Ray went to check the new baits and determined there were three baits active- so out we went- Andrew and Stiles to the first bait, where they said they had run off a small sow when they went in, me in the second spot, with a big track but no sighting for me, and Ray K and Tom at #3. Out at 1pm, to sit till 11 pm or so.

This is what my stand looked like the first night- you'll notice no typical barrel with pastries falling out of it etc. Thats a 5 gallon pail..with popcorn and honey.

Then there's super duper stinky baits hanging in trees..drawing them like the pied piper!

 

This is a place where freight doubles the price of everything..and there's no dunkin donuts or wasted food of any kind for that matter.

A box of chicken nuggets that costs 5.95 at Kroger or Publix here costs 20.00 in Stony Rapids because of shipping.  So Rob has a different technique- bait with very little material.

The big bears learn to hang close then, to insure no small bears get in there and grab what little gets put out before they can arrive.

I like it a lot better this way, actually.

Ray, I'm heading out at 6a.m. for Compton's tomorrow morning. Will i know "The rest of the story" by then?  

I hope so. Let me get after it here.

WOW,  Congrats to all on a great time!!!!      

So my rear end went to sleep about 4 hours later..my only entertainment was a great big fisher that came in and snatched some bait and skedaddled out of there in a hurry!

I read the label on my seat cushion for the fifty-fifth time, listened to the buzzing of blackflies and mosquitoes hovering just beyond the range of my thermacell...cleaned my fingernails, rubbed my eyes due to three days of smoke, and yawned myself into total obliviousness until it was time to go.

Rob must have sensed my rear end wouldnt be able to stand it till 11...cause he showed up at 10 and I bailed out to the road, reporting no activity. He just shrugged....both of us knowing that can change in two seconds and you just have to put your time in.

We traveled back toward camp approx. 5 miles to get to where Andrew and Stiles were. They were already standing in the road.

As we pulled up, I jumped out to ask how things went..concerned that they had been bored to tears and didnt want to go back out tomorrow.

Stiles broke out in a big grin, and that was all I needed to see to know something great had happened.

He told me that five minutes after we dropped them off, the same small sow came in and stayed camped out at the bait all day. At one point he got down and sat on the ground with the sow, who approached him and checked him out at close range..which I am sure made Andrew nervous, but he eventually got back in his stand a short while later.

Around 8 pm, things started to happen. A small boar came in, checking things out..Stiles had no interest in him, because he wasn't too awful bigger than the sow. He said he had not come this far to shoot 'any' bear...and besides, he had 3 nights left after this.

But soon the atmosphere surrounding these two bears changed dramatically- the smaller boar moving away, and looking behind them toward the road.

No sooner had this happened when Mr. Big shows up in all his glory- and he isnt going to put up with little Mr. Wimpy hanging around here!

He ran him off in quick order..and came back to proclaim his dominance over the bait...moving all around the area.

Stiles related that he had taken his bow off the hook while he ran off the other bear because he knew this was one he wanted.

The bear moved in and presented a broadside shot, moving his nearside leg forward to take a step, Stiles drew and released...and made a perfect shot! 3 or 4 seconds later and at about 35 yards the bruin was down for the count!

There was a lot of hugging, backslapping, congratulating, and all around happiness at that truck let me tell you! The grasshopper had become the master...taking what he had learned from me and building on it...making it look easy, and a big game bowhunter was born that day!!!!

 

Stiles' P&Y class trophy. He had a perfect hide, a 6 3/8 inch wide paw..Dad and "dad" were so tickled, and proud of this young man for his toughness under pressure, and strength to wait for the perfect opportunity.

This is our whole crew...we couldn't have found a nicer, more accomodating, more genuine bunch of folks to face a fire with...we all felt a real twinge on Sunday when we had to leave and I think built a permanent bond within the group and not just because of our close call.

And that is what these trips are about- the relationships, the friendships, that last a lifetime that come from these forays into the wild that make it special...drawing you back time after time.

more installments later...

man, that's great....

I'm putting a five man group plus myself together to return next year- same time, same place.

If any of you are interested, give me an email at rayhammond01@yahoo.com or call me at 678-300-2883 and we can chat about the details.

It isn't an inexpensive hunt...but the price includes four plane rides, all your meals, bear skinning, fleshing, salting, prepping, etc. and all the fishing you want to do, shore lunches if you wish, and hopefully you don't HAVE to do a four wheeler ride trying to outrun a fire! The remote wilderness its in is what drives the cost- everything comes in by air...you are really in the sticks here...most of the year you see the Aurora Borealis...that's how far north you are.

Caribou do their wintering in this area because the woods are full of lichen and it draws them down from up North.