When a Bear Guide Goes Bird Hunting
What does a bear hunting guide do in May, before the big baiting push starts for the 25 hunters or so who will invade his Washburn camp in Bayfield County in September? He grabs his wife and goes turkey hunting of course. And if you’re On Wisconsin Outdoors bear expert Mike Foss and better half Lori, you head out of the northern forests and southwest to Crawford County bluff country.
“Lori and I played cat & mouse with these two Toms all day,” Foss said. “They were traveling together. At one point they walked behind our blind with some hens but we did not have the windows in our blind open for that direction. We had three decoys out, two hens and aTom. It took me most of the day to figure out they did not want anything to do with the Tom decoy, so when the two Toms went out of site I belly crawled and removed the Tom decoy. That's all it took. Twenty minutes later we had two gobblers on the ground, it was Lori’s first Tom.”
And quite a Tom too. Lori’s gobbler weighed in at 23 pounds and sported a 9- inch beard. Mike’s bird came in at 20 pounds and matched the 9 inch beard.
Look for Mike’s regular bear reports online and in each issue of On Wisconsin Outdoors beginning in July.
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