“I don’t think you’ll need a coat this afternoon, other than to keep the sun off you. Course, if you did wear it, it might insulate you a bit from this heat!” commented Gildas Paradis, owner of Riverside Lodge. “It’s not normally this hot in Manitoba. It gets warm, but seldom does it get into the mid 90s. You’re from Texas, you should be used to scorch!”
I cut him short. “I greatly dislike temperatures over the mid 70s. When the temperature closes in on the century mark at home, I stay inside. In my opinion, air-conditioning was the greatest invention ever. I usually travel to places where the temperature is considerably cooler than at home during the spring and summer months.” Grabbing my phone, I pulled up a weather app. “It’s hotter in Manitoba right now than it is in Texas!”
“Not to worry,” I continued, “We’ll make the most of it. I know you have some of the biggest black bears in North America in your area. There have been bears weighing over 600 pounds near both the Riding and Duck Mountains and we’re between those two areas. Your guide area is home to an abundance of color phase bears ranging from nearly white blondes, to various shades of cinnamon, to chocolate, and jet black. I’ve taken some really big black bears in the past, but never what I personally consider a big color-phase bear. You and I first started talking about hunting together six or so years ago; back then for whitetail.”
I initially knew of Gildas because of his excellent whitetail area. I had planned to hunt with him a few years ago, but unfortunately his lodge burned down a short time before the season opened, so we canceled our hunt together. Now with a new lodge, which he runs with his wife Joanne and his four young daughters, I was going to get to spend time with him, this time to hunt bears, thanks to being part of a new outdoor television show, tentatively titled “Outdoor Legends”.
I did not see a bear on our first evening hunting in a tree stand with a well-used bait, but thankfully, I was not pestered by mosquitos either. I am certain that the Thermacell at my feet helped deter the little blood-sucking vampires. I wasn’t even bother by them when I walked out that night to meet my guide at the end of the lane. Later that night around the campfire, I commented on the lack of bugs. “Thankfully, we do not have black flies in our immediate are,” commented Gildas, “and mosquitos aren’t usually terribly bad either.” The scarcity of bugs enamoured me all the more to Riverside Lodge.
After three hours of sleep, I met Gildas at the boat dock by the lodge in hopes of catching some walleye for an upcoming lunch. I caught one walleye which was unfortunately too big to fall within the slot limits. The unseasonably hot weather was also affecting the fishing. Fish or not, it did not really matter, I mostly wanted to talk with Gildas about bears and some of the whitetail hunting opportunities he has available. We told hunting stories for a couple of hours. Before heading back to the lodge, I made arrangements to return for a whitetail hunt in the fall of 2019. I also asked my outfitter about black bear.
“Before you arrived there were several truly big color phase bears on bait, but with the extreme heat, those bears have gone nocturnal. Once older mature boars start feeding after dark, they usually continue doing so. Unfortunately, long range weather forecasts call for hot weather the rest of the time you’re here” explained Gildas.
“I was afraid of that. They want me to shoot a bear, albeit not a youngster, for the show. I’d really like to help out for a truly huge black bear, or color phase. But I don’t think it would be a good idea to pass any bears in the 250 pound, six feet squared range. And actually, that’s a good bear” I said. Gildas didn’t say anything, but I could see he agreed.
Later that afternoon, I was seated in a comfortable tree stand watching bait. At about 6:30pm, a bear slipped in. I spotted him through the underbrush using my 10x42 Meopta binos. He was a young bear and looked like he might weigh around a hundred pounds. I watched as he fed hungrily upon the bait. Satiated, he waddled into the thick underbrush. For the next hour or so I watched jays and camp robbers flit around the bait.
Around 8pm, I spotted movement on the trail my cameraman, Beverly, and I had walked in on. The sizeable black bear nearly walked under our tree stand. But then he stopped, immediately turned and walked back the same trail he had come in on.
I thought the bear might head to a nearby waterhole for a drink before returning and going to the bait. I was wrong. Moments after the luxuriously coated, jet black bear disappeared I heard Beverly say, “He’s headed for the bait!”
Through the underbrush, I could see a black shape heading to the bait barrel. As soon as he stepped into the open I was sure he would square over six feet (measured tip of nose to tip of tail, added to tip of right front claws to left front claws, then divided by two). I suspected he would weight pretty close to 250 pounds.
“Shoot when you’re ready!” whispered Beverly. I placed the green center lit reticle of my Trijicon AccuPoint on the bear’s broadside shoulder. I quietly slid to fire the safety on my Ruger Number 1 chambered in Teddy Roosevelt’s “go to round”, the 405 Winchester loaded with Hornady’s 300 grain soft point ammo. I gently pulled the trigger. The bear rocked upward and backward, then ran forward. He took six or seven steps before all was silent. A few minutes later we confirmed my “black heat” bear was down. He was of the size I had thought and would make a fabulous rug. His delicious meat would offer a couple of roasts and backstraps, but I intended to have him made into jerky!
Frankly, I can hardly wait to be back hunting with Riverside Lodge for bear and whitetails. Hopefully the next time it will be considerably cooler!
