Well, there it is, another season under our belts. It was a lot of work but well worth the effort. First of all, I would like to thank my staff for busting their butts this year and thank those who came as clients and left as friends. Here’s how it went…..

April 25th- This is the usual time to set up the baits after a long winter but this year proved to be one of the longest. It just didn’t seem to want to warm up. Can’t leave for Leaf Rapids yet….

May 5th- I arrived in Leaf Rapids to find it cold and windy. There is still too much snow to set up baits but it’s melting gradually and it shouldn’t be long now. On May 9th, I woke to a foot of snow and couldn’t even drive my truck to the hunting area. We tried to set up baits on snowmobile and after 7 hours of effort, we gave up. I returned home again to wait it out. I arrived in Winnipeg to a 9 inch snowfall on May 11th. Not good.

May 15th- Steve and I returned to Leaf Rapids to stay for the season. We were still not able to get into the bush until May 17th. We plowed our way through the snow to set up baits and managed to get them out. According to the locals, no one could remember having such a late spring. This was definitely a freaky year.

May 24th- Our first group of hunters arrived in camp. The lake we normally camp on was still frozen like a brick so we set up camp on our property closer to town so we could have a place to fish. We saw a few bears early in the week and the fishing got better and better. Ryan Garzanelli connected on the first bear Tuesday and after 5 ½ hours of tracking, we found a nice black scoring 17 8/16 P+Y. Thursday brought another good bear scoring 18 6/16 P+Y shot by Mike Garzanelli. Friday was the topper at over 400 pounds, 6 feet and a skull scoring 19 4/16 P+Y shot by Mike Rogazio. Everybody got bears and went home with a limit of pike and walleye too. Awesome week!

May 31- Week two was a little better for weather and the fishing was good too. Frank Maas shot a nice black on Tuesday that measured 5 ½ feet. We passed on a lot of smaller bears and lots of sows and cubs too. Andy Beissel shot a good quality bear on Thursday that squared 5 ft 8 inches. The baits seemed to be dominated by hungry sows and cubs all week. On the last night Dave Maas from North American Hunter Magazine had an opportunity at a monster boar after having passed bears all week. With the sights on him and the safety off, the bear presented no shot. When the bear finally offered a shot, it was already 5 minutes after legal shooting light and Dave passed on the bear. That’s hunting! Can’t wait to see the size of that bear next year!

Look for Dave’s version of this story in the spring issue of North American Hunter Magazine in 2005.

The hunting was slower than last year but everyone said they had the best time. The ultimate compliment for us was that some of our clients had such fun that many rebooked on the spot for 2006!

We all saw bears, caught a lot of fish and made many new friends too. We will be looking forward to taking some monster bears this fall and making more good friends along the way.

PS. Team Canada would like a rematch in the Canada vs. USA « Bocce Ball » World Finals. We’ll be waiting..

The second week of the fall bear season, Pinecone Outfitters was the subject of the "Doc Gieger's Outdoor Adventures" show based out of Talsa Ok. We were extremely proud to do this show with the crew. We were able to do a fishing show as well as a hunting show. I'm being told from the producer, Ed Goggin, that the show will be their best one yet, and will air mid Dec in Oklahoma and later in 2005 on the Sportsman channel. Keep an eye out for it, and let us know what you think.