[at-l] Huniting on the AT

[Snodrog5 at aol.com (Snodrog5@xxxxxxx)]

"...were different than the bear hunters you find up in Maine (which I don't 
think one does during thru-hiker seasons).  Rather than baiting the bear with 
stale donuts and such like they do in the state where life is the way it 
should be, those I ran into were running down the animals with packs of dogs"

 Bear season starts in Maine the last week of August. Bear baiting* endangers 
hikers because bears are conditioned to associate human/food stank with easy 
pickings. Bears love easy pickings. ATers in Maine aren't immune to the 'with 
dogs' bear hunters, not even inside Baxter State Park. About 5 miles of AT 
inside the Park traverses a hunting-allowed section. Every now and then, a stray 
bear dog will run yelping through Katahdin Stream Campground, and The Birches 
lean-tos are only a crow mile or so from the hunting zone.
 *Hunting bear over bait is a big business in Maine. A guide will drag bags 
full of rotting meat behind his ATV in known bear habitat every day for weeks, 
and start leaving piles/buckets/bags of butcher waste or bakery goods in 
likely spots as soon as the law allows. The guide will pare down his drops to the 
most active and increase the amounts of food left while tweaking the timing. 
That way bears learn that at sunrise by the big stump there will be goodies 
every day. Then, with a "sport" in tow, the guide will play pretend creeping 
through the woods the long way around, acting out a scenario that convinces the 
client this sort of hunting is sport. Often the shot is taken from less than 100 
feet, from behind a constructed blind along a trimmed range. The guide 
services advertise guaranteed successful hunts, and snag several hundred dollars up 
front, imply the need to heavily tip the staff, and then sell taxidermy and 
shipping charges to the hunters. Guides around Greenville call clients 'Bills.'  
As in 'Thousand Dollar Bills'.
 Don't get me started on Moose "hunting"...