Bear hunter cooks time-tested bait
By: Sam Cook

GRAND MARAIS, Minn. -- On a cool September evening, Kelly Shepard stood in his garage waiting for a theater-size popcorn popper to crank out another batch of popcorn.

It must be bear season.

Shepard, a bear-hunting guide from Grand Marais, was making bear bait. Plastic pails surround him on the garage floor. Twenty of the pails are already filled with Shepard's time-tested concoction -- chocolate-covered cherries, marshmallows, popcorn, used deep-fryer grease, candy hearts, strawberry syrup and brown sugar.

Kyle Anderson of Grand Marais, one of Shepard's assistants, was adding globs of chocolate-covered marshmallow candies to each pail.

"Easter bunnies that didn't make it," Shepard explained.

Shepard, 46, had 10 hunters in the woods on the eighth day of Minnesota's 2007 bear season. While he made the next day's baits, he waited for cell-phone calls from successful hunters. When they called, Shepard and his understudy guides, Kyle Anderson and Casey Foster, also of Grand Marais, would pile in their pickup trucks to haul them out of the woods.

The night was cool, which is good for bear hunting. Shepard had put four hunters from Kansas on fresh baits in an area he has been saving for them. Bears have been active. He expects a call.

A Grand Marais native, Shepard has been guiding bear hunters since 1985. He will guide 20 hunters this fall. They come from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri and Kansas. The rest of the year, Shepard works full time at Hedstrom Lumber Co. in Grand Marais, taking off Sept. 1 for the first two weeks of bear season.

Once a hunter takes a big bear, a lot of Shepard's other hunters will pass up smaller bears, hoping to get a bear big enough for camp bragging rights. Most of Shepard's hunters come every year that they draw a bear permit. Some come even if they don't.

"This year, I wasn't drawn, and I still went up," said Duluth's Bill Taylor. "I like the guys. Kelly kind of has a working man's camp. Everyone pitches in and makes wood, tracks their own bears."

Most of the camp's hunters are archers, Shepard said.

"These are the people you want," Shepard said. "I tell guys, if you really need to kill a bear, I'm not the guy you want to hunt with. I'm not into small bears."

The way you get into big bears is through their stomachs. Most bear hunting in Minnesota is done by baiting. Baiting can begin legally in mid-August, and the season always opens Sept. 1. The idea is to get a bear in the habit of coming to a bait, then hope it will come in during legal shooting hours -- from a half hour before sunrise to a half-hour after sunset.

Over the years, Shepard has refined his baiting tactics. Individual bears can be different, and Shepard tries specific foods and scents to attract a particular animal.

"He's obsessed with figuring out what each bear is doing at different spots," Foster said. "Half the time, I'm thinking, "How's that going to work?' Then it does."

"If I find out what he really, really wants, he's toast," Shepard said.

Shepard and his helpers drive as far as they can, then carry baits to the baiting sites. A lot of bear guides use four-wheelers to bait, but Shepard prefers not to.

"Gas and a human voice are two things a bear doesn't like," he said.

Shepard spends about $4,000 a year on bait, nearly all of it bought wholesale. He uses a system of remote electronic timers and remote cameras to track bear movements and to see how big the bears are. The timers and cameras come down when the hunter arrives.

"I'm not one of these guys who has to go out and get a bear every year," said Duluth's Taylor, "but I know Kelly will put me on a stand where I'll see bears. He'll always put you on an active bait."

Despite the use of baits and high-tech surveillance, the success rate for Minnesota bear hunters is about 25 percent.

"It's not as easy as people think," Taylor said.

The four hunters from Kansas are ready to go into the woods for the evening hunt. This placing of the hunters is a ritual for Shepard.

"Do you have two forms of light?"

"Do you have my number in your cell phone?"

"Call me if you get a bear."

Carrying a fresh pail of bait, Shepard ushers Paul Thomas of Ellinwood, Kan., to his stand. Shepard inspects the previous day's bait -- it's gone. A good sign. He dumps out a fresh meal -- the regular menu plus "one secret ingredient I can't tell you about."

Shepard looks at Thomas, now 12 feet above ground in his stand. In complete camouflage, including a face mask, Thomas is difficult to see. His .30-06 lies across his lap.

"Ready?" Shepard asks in a soft voice.

Thomas nods.

Shepard bangs the empty plastic pail against a tree several times.

"Dinner bell," he whispers.

Then he hustles back to his pickup. The rest of the Kansas hunters go into the woods with either Shepard, Anderson or Foster. The guide and his assistants are making bait at 6:55 p.m. when Shepard's phone rings. It's Thomas. He's hit a bear.

"We gotta go look for one," Shepard said.

He and Anderson, a former college football lineman whose nickname is "House" for obvious reasons, jump in Shepard's truck. It's a 1993 that's seen a lot of narrow roads. Both side mirrors have been folded flush with the truck by trees. The windshield is cracked.

When the guides arrive on the scene, Thomas still is on his stand, right where he's supposed to be. Dusk is deepening. Light rain falls. Thomas points Shepard in the direction the bear went. Shepard begins looking for signs, his rifle up and ready, a flashlight clasped alongside it.

Depending on how well the bear has been hit, this part of the hunt can be dicey.

"I got treed last year. It's not a good thing," Shepard said.

Shepard found the blood trail, and just a few yards farther, the dead bear piled up near a cluster of three ash trees. He called Thomas to come inspect his first bear. It's perhaps a 175-pounder that will dress out at 127 on Shepard's camp scale.

"I'm happy," Thomas said.

Shepard field-dressed the animal. Anderson, living up to his nickname, shouldered the bruin and hauled it out of the woods on his back.

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