When Monday arrived for the hunters it had the feeling of Christmas morning.  Everyone was excited.  After lunch I left with the first group of hunters to get placed in their stands.  Once they were out Nancy met me with the second batch to place in their stands.  By about three o'clock everyone was out.  The rest of the afternoon was fairly quiet for me until it was time to pick-up the guys.  Then I learned that a couple of shots had been taken at bears, and now it was time to look for the bears.  It was a late night on Monday, we had two shots taken and two other bears seen, but no bears taken this first evening.

      Tuesday arrived with everyone anxious to get back out to hunt.  We had another great lunch cooked by Nancy, and then I left with the first group of hunters to get them in stand.  Today was quiet for awhile then my cell phone started ringing. around 4 pm.  I had a bear that was shot.  I drove to the site and picked up the trail, but after a couple of hours I had to admit that the bear was not going to be found.  When I got back in my truck I learned that Billy Evans had shot a bear with his muzzle loader, and he was waiting for help to get it out of the woods.  I picked up Shawn on the way and we went in to get Billy's bear.  Once back in the truck we headed of to help Rich Bielen with his bear.  He had taken a beautiful bear with a well placed shot.  Our next stop was home to camp for some food and stories.

     Wednesday arrived with two hunters tagged out and six others remaining.  We had another great lunch and then we went back out for the afternoon.  After the hunters were out, I ran a few baits and soon I had a cell phone call from Nancy telling me that Dick had shot a bear.  I drove into his stand area and after a few minutes found some good blood, and soon we had a nice boar bear to get back to the truck.  Dick and I got it to the truck and learned via cell phone that Tom Gibilterra had shot at a bear on the "bone yard" bait.  This bait has produced some great bears in the past and we soon learned that this was going to be another good bear.  Tom had taken a beautiful 300 pound boar bear.  Boy were he and Sue excited.  We had fun during the rest of the week with Sue demanding a rug and Tom wanting a full body mount.  Sue "won" out.

     Thursday arrived with us having four hunters now tagged out.  After lunch we headed to a new area to see if we could fill the remaining tags over the next two days.  I put Tom Hackney, Shawn, and Clint out in their stands.  When Ed and I walked in to his stand we saw a bear on the bait.  We dropped down to watch the bear to see if it was a shooter.  Eddy saw a second bear there and so he passed on the shot, because it may have been a cub with a sow.  I left him on his stand and when I picked him up later that afternoon, learned that the sow and cub had returned.  Tom also saw a sow with cubs on his bait.  The others did not see anything.

     Friday we opted for a full day hunt.  Nancy made lunches for the guys and I took them out and put them in stands.  Today Ed saw a sow and 2 cubs on three separate occasions.  Shawn saw a sow and 1 cub shortly after he arrived on his bait as well as a LARGE bull moose.  Tom past the day with no bears to speak of.  Finally Clint saw a sow with two cubs.  The details of Clint's sighting are so unbelievable, that you will need to ask him to share them with you.  Suffice it to say that the cubs wanted to steal his lunch.

      We ended the first week of bear season with 100% of the hunters seeing bears and 50% actually killing a bear.  As hosts for this group of hunters, Nancy and I had a week filled with laughter and fellowship and are looking forward to 2004 when Eddie, Shawn, Dick, Clint, Tom and Sue will be returning. We also will have Shawn's son with us and two other guests.  We can't wait.