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            Monday began for me as it always does, rising early to run some baits and quickly returning to the lodge to eat lunch with the guests prior to heading out to the stands for the afternoon's hunt.  After lunch I headed out with the first group of hunters, followed by getting the second group out.  Around 3pm everyone was in their stand.  It did not take too long for things to begin to happen.  Helen Brown called me on my cell phone about 6pm to let me know she had shot a bear.  I headed out to track her bear and we found it in no time at all, as she placed a great shot on the large boar.  We field dressed the bear and placed her tag on it, and headed back to the lodge, we would need some help getting her bear out of the woods, as it was very large.   After shooting hours ended that evening I learned that Helen's son Darris had also shot a large bear, as well as Murray Caudill taking a nice bear as well.  Delmis brown had heard a bear popping its jaws at him.  Jeff Worth had watched a bear on his bait, but chose not to shoot it.  So on the first night we killed 3 nice bears, and had action on 2 additional sites.  A great start to the 2006 season.  It was a late night though, as it took until 1am to get all the bears back to the lodge.

          Tuesday came early once again with me running a few baits and hurrying back to have lunch and get the 4 hunters that were still hunting.  Today everyone was out by 2:30pm, and I headed back to the lodge for a quick nap.  Today right around 7pm Shawn was rewarded with the sight of a large bear on his bait.  He placed a great shot on the bear, and it dropped where it stood.  Jeff saw another bear on his bait and Dick saw a small bear on his site.  Delmis did not see anything tonight, but had an enjoyable afternoon in the woods.  So now we had 3 hunters that would be going out on Wednesday.

          Today I ran some baits once again, and we had a photo session with the bears we had taken thus far.  We had lunch and I headed out with the final 3 hunters.  At the end of shooting time I learned that Delmis had an opportunity to watch 2 different bears on his bait, and Dick had a close encounter with a large bear that came out right next to his ground blind.  Jeff didn't see anything, but was looking forward to getting back out on Thursday.

          Thursday morning found me running baits once again and then heading back to get the guys out for the afternoon's hunt.  I got everyone out and headed back to the lodge to wait for the hunters to either call or for it to be time to pick them up.  When I picked Dick up he had passed the day away with no bear sightings, but Delmis had seen a very large bear, that noticed something amiss and walked away from the bait before Delmis could get a shot.  Jeff had placed a good shot on a nice bear on his bait, and we quickly found it and got it in the back of the truck to head back to the lodge.

          Friday found us with two hunters still looking for their bear.  I placed the hunters out that afternoon and went back to the lodge to skin Jeff's bear.  As the end of shooting time approached I decided to finish the afternoon attempting to sneak into a ground blind and watch for bears while I waited to pick up the final two hunters.  Just as I got into position to see the bait after a slow approach, my cell phone rang and broke the silence, this caused the bear that was on the bait to run off as I stared in disbelief.  Oh well better luck next time.  When I picked up Delmis and Dick, I learned they had not seen any bears that afternoon.  Well we had a great first week with 5 nice bears taken and a total of 14 bears sighted.