Monday morning began with Mike, Paul and I off running baits and getting caught up on world affairs.  We returned back to the lodge, loaded some bait buckets and enjoyed a great meal prepared by Nancy.  This afternoon I lead Paul and Mike to their stands, then returned for Eric, Glenn and Darren.  Kathy was here for some R & R while her husband Eric tried to take his 1st bear.  I had great expectations for the afternoon as a front was to be moving in, with a couple days of rain to follow.  I hoped to have a few tags filled on this day.  It started off pretty well with Paul Butler getting me on cell phone after 5, with the news he had arrowed a bear.  We spent an hour or so looking for some blood , but a heavy downpour had removed whatever blood their may have been.  We then picked up Mike and learned he had seen 1 bear on his bait, but had elected to let it pass.   The others all had not seen any bears on their baits.

     Tuesday morning we headed to Paul's bait to try a daylight search in hopes of finding his bear.  We found the arrow a short ways off, and I concluded after a couple of hours looking over the area, that his shot was a bit off, and the bear would recover.  We then headed back for some lunch and to get ready to head out for another afternoon of bear hunting.  On this day Mike saw 2 more bears, and everyone else saw nothing, but rain drops.

     Wednesday began with rain.  Eric opted to sit for the day, and made a valiant effort.  The others opted to sit in the afternoon, but the heavy rain, remnants of hurricane Katrina made bear hunting tough.  Mike saw 1 more bear, but everyone else drew a blank.

     Thursday began with Mike, Paul and I running baits.  We returned for some lunch and I left with Eric, Glenn and Darren.  Mike and Paul would put themselves out, as they would be hunting a different area than the others.  On this day Kathy joined us, as I had agreed to let her sit on a bear bait and hopefully see a bear.  After we dropped the three hunters off, we ran a few baits, and ended a couple miles from where her husband was hunting on a different bait.  I built a ground blind and we got situated for a wait in the woods.  Kathy was reading a book and would look up from time to time to look at the bait.  I opted to take a nap.  Around 6:30 pm  Kathy tapped me on the shoulder to ask if the shadow near the bait was a bear.  I decided it wasn't, but out of the corner of my eye I saw a bear 20 feet away, but behind us.  I motioned to Kathy who got to view her first wild bear only 20 feet away.  it was a sow, and we also saw two cubs a short distance away in the woods.  They were walking past us.  A few moments later a large bear appeared directly in front of us.  I was able to get a bit of video footage of this bear before it ran off into the woods.  While this bear was in front of us a separate bear was feeding on the bait.  This was a very good afternoon.  Not only did Kathy get to experience sitting on a bear bait, but she got to see 5 separate bears.  We then left to pick up Eric, Glenn and Darren.  We learned that Eric saw 3 bears, Glenn saw a bear and Paul saw 3 bears.  This day we saw a total of 12 bears.

     Friday came with 17 bears having been seen, 1 bear shot at but no tags filled.  On this day Eric decided to sit in the morning and come back for lunch.  I dropped him off and then ran a few baits.  I picked Eric up at 11 am and headed back to camp.  He had seen nothing that morning.  After lunch we headed back out.  When I dropped Eric off it was evident by the lack of bait, that a large bear had visited mid day, while Eric was taking a break.  I then put Glenn out.  When I dumped the bait I caught movement and saw 2 cubs run off.  I told Glenn to be aware that a couple of cubs were in the area, so be sure of your target.  We then got Darren out to his bait.  Darren had up to this point not seen any bears.  I did my beast to encourage him, and then Kathy and I headed back in hopes of seeing a few more bears.  Around 6 pm I was awoken from my nap by the sound of a single gun shot.  I knew it had to be Darren from the direction of the sound, but waited for his call before we left.  Twenty minutes later Kathy and I were at Darren's blind, and 10 minutes later Darren was kneeling next to his first bear.  It was a beautiful 200 plus pound dry sow.  His good shot placement had put it down in just over 30 yards.  After we got his bear loaded in my truck, I check my cell phone and saw that Glenn had called several times.  When we got to Glenn he was shaking.  He had seen at least 6 bears, with 1 running past him at about 6 feet.  The bear he shot was a nice dry sow.  He had put it down about 15 feet from where he sat in his ground blind. After he killed his bear a sow with cubs came into the bait, and he was pretty shook up.  We loaded his bear and headed out to find Eric waiting for us.  He had not shot any bears, but had seen 10-11 different bears on his bait that afternoon.  We later learned that Paul had seen 1 bear, and Mike saw nothing.  For the week we had seen 36 different bears, counting the 5 Kathy and I had watched.  We killed 2 of those bears, but everyone had a great week.