Chapleau ON spring bear hunting questions
- Thread starter phinton81
- Start date
My trip timing isn’t flexible and might be too early, I’ll be in Chapleau May 4. Needs to warm up quickly as winter up there is still in full force. It will be a learning experience, never hunted bears like this before. Going to try and cover as much ground as possible and find some good vantage points. Should be interesting, have a buddy joining and we’ll be setting up a base camp.
Patrick
Patrick
freddyfour
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Brant County, Ontario
Good luck, wish I was headed up that far north.
I think you will find your early (May 4). When I was guiding we started no hunts before the May 24 weekend (Thunder Bay District}and still cancelled hunt because of snow and poor access to roads. Check any sunny spots with good feed, get a honey burn going, bring some cheap dog food and a pail of fryer grease and keep your eyes open, the bear will appear out of nowhere oh yeah one more thing push your hunt right to last light.. Either way getting a bear is the bonus have fun and be safe.
So you guided 3 weeks?
We hunted for bear in the Sudbury and Gogama areas and had consistently successful hunts from May 1st on... the peak of spot and stalk would be around May 10th thru mid-May (when the blackfies get bad) and baiting just gets better right through the end of the season.
Not sure what your point is, thats a 1000 km difference. just put my opinion out there. come on up and show me how you do it, theres 4' of snow and almost 5' of ice on the lakes. if weather continues as is there will be ice on the lakes for opener (again). carryon!! and nowhere in my post did I say he could not be successful.
This will be my first time out for this kind of hunt so my expectations are low with my desire to learn high. I’ll be farting around with a very good friend who I don’t get to see very often and we’ll be out dawn to dusk each day. I’m quite excited either way but it would be great if the weather warmed up and actually started to signal to the bears that it’s time to come out of hibernation.
Patrick
Patrick
freddyfour
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Brant County, Ontario
Have you spent much time in Chapleau, are you staying at a lodge or camping out?
In have stayed at a camp up there a few times and he is pretty reasonably priced
In have stayed at a camp up there a few times and he is pretty reasonably priced
Now keep in mind that this is just my experience. I do not pretend to be a pro hunter, nor was I ever an outfitter. My observations just come from a lifetime in pretty heavy bear country (Larder Lake, NE Ont.). I've run into bear tracks from mid-March on. When they come out of the dens, they tend to be pretty groggy and don't move around much. For at least the first week, they tend to stay very close to the dens, feeding on whatever is handy, and I haven't been able to get them to come to bait until 10 days or so after they wake up, si it might be good to hunt areas with new grass and little undergrowth. Also, if you wait until later, when it's warmer, the pelts tend to be in pretty bad shape due to rubbing. But, even a bad dau of hunting beats a good day at work.
freddyfour
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Brant County, Ontario
Paturnity......brave man, I was home 3 weeks with my first and quickly realised going to work was so much less work!
You havent dealt with the idiots im forced to work with. Today my kid over flowed a diaper. Passed the nipples. I cut the onesie off. Still better than work. However it smelles kinda like arbys beef and chedder sandwiches so i think im off arbys for life
here is muskoka mike's & mine set up for spring maybe you could get some ideas from this vid
mike has pulled in some true monsters and says he loves early afternoon hunts
muskoka mike never had any success with calls for black bears...
he thinks cause the bears around his neck of the woods don't seem to like meat that much at bait sites
and with the amount of wolves and coyotes around chasing all the small game they haven't quite aquired the taste for meat and chasing wounded animals cause the yotes and wolves prob get to them first or take the fresh or best peices
stick to fryer oil or grease.... seems to be the best thing for em
mike has pulled in some true monsters and says he loves early afternoon hunts
muskoka mike never had any success with calls for black bears...
he thinks cause the bears around his neck of the woods don't seem to like meat that much at bait sites
and with the amount of wolves and coyotes around chasing all the small game they haven't quite aquired the taste for meat and chasing wounded animals cause the yotes and wolves prob get to them first or take the fresh or best peices
stick to fryer oil or grease.... seems to be the best thing for em
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Oh, yeah - if you want to keep the hide, you probably want to get out as early as possible in the season, before they start shedding and rubbing. That isn't prime baiting time, though. Also, the earlier you get one, the less it's been moving, so the meat does tend to be better.
