The Ansel family started bear hunting around Marquette Michigan back in 1973.  We were invited to spend a week hunting the Dick Baldwin property by Dicks son Gary.  We met Gary through Herm Fowler, who happened to be my dad’s boss.  Herm knew my dad Norm loved to hunt, so when Gary passed through Monroe heading to the U.P. Herm introduced him to my dad.  As they say”the rest is history!”  Over the last 35 years we’ve become good friends with the whole Baldwin clan.  How blessed we have been to share their camp, and actually become part of the folk lure and hunting mystic of the fall bear season!

My dad only was able to hunt for five years, as God called him home in April of 1978.  Dad took two bear during those years, and his six sons have continued to tromp the hills of Marquette each season a permit allows us to.  Between the brothers, and a few select friends, we have harvested over 40 bears from camp, and a few area’s beyond.  This story is about the biggest (weight wise) of any bear hung from the game pole during these last thirty five years.  My brother Darryl did shoot one with a bear recurve that had a bigger skull, but weighed about 40 pounds less.  At one time his bear ranked No. 2 bow killed bear in the state!  I’ll do that story at another time.

The year I took the “monster” in the above picture was 1989.  I had been hearing stories about a huge black bear that was giving Albert Beauchamps fits.  Albert was a good friend of Dick Baldwin’s, and was asking Dick if one of the “bear hunters” could help him out?  It was a long and tedious drive to Albert’s sawmill/swamp, but I figured it was worth checking out.  I set up a time to meet Albert two weeks before season opened, at his camp near Deerton.  The big bear had just helped himself to Albert’s martin bird house, by bending a 2″ galvanized pipe to the ground.  That might not seem like much of a feat, but he also pulled up three foot of concrete buried in the ground!  I was impressed to say the least!

I had brought about 1500 pounds of bait with me, as I had 5-6 spots to “chuck” up before I made another run.  Now you know your a serious bear hunter when you’ll drive 500 miles, one way, just to set some baits out.  Albert was going to check my bait every other day, and give me updates when I’d call.  It would be about 9 days before I returned to “freshen” the baits, and see how promising our hunt looked.

Ok now I have your hunting instincts going, but you’ll have to wait, for the next installment, of the conclusion to this exciting hunt.  Its big, its black, its “Bearzilla!”

Mike

• Herm’s Wonderful Adventure
• Bearzilla Continued
• Brad’s Bear Almost!
• Introduction
• The Armchair Blind

May 05, 2008 | 2 comments | Uncategorized | By 4bigbucks

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...