Guide and outfitter Zack LaFreniere of Howland, Maine, had set a bait barrel in a remote part of Penobscot County in early September. He monitored the bait site with a cellular trail camera, and noticed when an oversize bruin began hitting the bait regularly.
“In Maine we can lawfully harvest bears several ways: with bait, hounds, and also with snares,” says the 33-year-old outdoorsman, who guides bear, deer, and moose hunters through his Wild Ferns Guide Service. “Leg conibear traps can’t be used, but snares can. They require a good bit of effort and skill to set them right to fool a big old black bear … I use the camera to make sure only a large bear is coming in before setting a snare for it.”
LaFreniere said it took six days of monitoring his remote camera photos to confirm a giant bruin was hitting the bait. Then he baited and set a snare. LaFreniere digs a hole to hold a pipe, places bait at the bottom, and positions the pipe near a mature tree to anchor the cable. The snare is also fitted with a “cub stop” — a special device that prevents smaller bears from accessing the setup.
“I cut way back on the bait at the site. When a bear comes to the half-full barrel, but smells more bait deep in the pipe, it goes for the pipe bait.”
Late on Sept. 15, a trail camera photo confirmed he’d snared the big bear.
“I called three buddies and we went in very quietly to the bait site,” LaFreniere explained. “We didn’t want to spook the bear and walked in very stealthy for about a quarter-mile … We didn’t use flashlights because [the] moon [was] bright, and we pretty much slipped in.”
As they approached the site, they switched on bright lights.
“The bear was laying down at the pipe snare, and when the lights came on it stood up,” LaFreniere said. “I immediately shot it with a 250-grain Hornady bullet from my 35 Whelen rifle. It dropped dead right there.”
LaFreniere said the bear had just about worked its way out of the snare, with the cable loop barely holding the bruin by a claw.
“If we’d gotten there just a little later the bear would have been gone.”
In loading the bear onto a drag sled they realized the bear, a big sow, was a giant. It was so heavy that LaFreniere decided to field dress it to lighten the load. He also didn’t want the meat to spoil before they could get the animal out of the woods and on ice.
“It was 4 a.m. on Sept. 16 when we [finally] got my bear to a tagging station,” LaFreniere says. “They didn’t have a certified scale for weighing it. So, we drove to The Village Market in Carmel. It was weighed there and verified by state biologists at 358-pounds. “The official estimated live weight of the bear is 429.6 pounds.”
LaFreniere’s bear is now officially the state’s largest sow taken in Maine, both by dressed weight and estimated live weight, he said. Boar black bears are larger and are in a different state records category. The Maine boar bear weight record is 699 pounds.
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“My bear had a lot of fat, but we got plenty of roasts, hamburger and sausage from it,” he explained. “I’m also gonna have a full-body taxidermy mount of the bear made. It’s pricey at $5,000, and I don’t know where I’m gonna put it, though. We have so many deer, moose and fish mounts at home I think we have to build a lodge or hunting headquarters for all of them.”
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