Hunter bags 552-pound black bear as Maine’s season gets off to booming start

Pat Saling of Ohio shot this 552-pound black bear while hunting out of Tylor Kelly's Camps in Allagash. Saling was hunting with houndsman Mike Hubbard. Guides have been seeing the bear on trail camera photos for years, and had taken to calling it "Barrel Crusher." It was the largest bear taken by hunters at Tylor Kelly Camps in 35 years of bear hunts. (Courtesy of Tylor Kelly's Camps)

BANGOR, Maine — Earlier this year, wildlife biologist Randy Cross predicted that a relative lack of natural foods would make bears more eager to approach baited stands come bear season, and that equation could result in an advantage for the hunters.

With less than two weeks left in the state’s season for hunting bears over bait, that appears to have been the case, Cross said.

About 3,000 bears are typically shot by hunters each year, and as of Wednesday, that number sat at 2,157. And the hunt started out with a bang: Youth Bear Day hunters tagged 63 bears on Aug. 25, compared with the 23 taken by junior hunters on their special day a year ago.

To read the rest of “Hunter bags 552-pound black bear as Maine’s season gets off to booming start,” an article by contributing Bangor Daily News staff writer John Holyoke, please follow this link to the BDN online.