What do you give your dad when he turns 75? A bear hunting trip. At least, that’s what I did. My father turned 75 in July 2021 and I wanted to do something special with him. We had been on hunting trips to Maine before with my brother, hunting bears over bait from a stand twice successfully. But this time I wanted to do something different, a once in a lifetime experience; that’s when this story begins.  

I started researching outfitters in Maine, but there were so many choices and I didn’t know where to start. I decided to begin by asking a Maine guide and taxidermist who I know and respect who he would recommend. He said, “You won’t find a harder working bear guide than Dan Wagner.” Dan owns Great Northern Outfitters in Allagash, ME, and offers a variety of options to hunt bears, including a “warranteed” trophy hunt with hounds. After speaking with Dan, he explained what to expect, how he is able to target mature boars using his hounds, and how he guarantees his week-long hound hunts. I was sold, and after talking with my dad, I booked a hound hunt for that September.  

When we arrived in Allagash for that first week of hound hunting in Maine, we joined three other hunters, all who had hunted with Dan before and killed trophy bears. There was also another surprise: Dan was walking with a crutch because he had injured his hip the week before. But as a true Mainer, that did not stop him from going out with us each day; he just had extra guides in camp to help handle the dogs and the bears. My dad and I had a great week hunting with Dan and his Plott hounds. The dogs love hunting and worked really hard for him, treeing or baying bears almost every day. On Wednesday, my dad got his chance. About a mile off a logging road in a dense fir forest, he took a beautiful 300 lb boar that had to be quartered and packed out with the help of the guides and houndsmen. I was fortunate to have the dogs put me on several bears, but unfortunately none that were mature boars, so I vowed to come back and try again.  

Two years later, I found myself contacting Dan again and booked a “warranteed” hunt for the second week of September. The first night, I was the only hunter in camp. Hurricane Lee had decided to travel north towards Maine and make landfall in Nova Scotia that Saturday, disrupting the travel plans of another guest. Monday morning, we headed out early and checked all the cameras, and while we had pictures of a lot of bears, none were Monday “shooter” bears. By the time we returned to camp, the other guest, BHM’s very own Kolby Morehead, had arrived. Kolby was planning to do both a hound hunt and trap a bear, so we made a plan and headed back out to set the foothold snare.  

Tuesday it rained all day, which limits the ability for the dogs to work, so we all took the opportunity to rest, including the dogs. Wednesday after checking all the cameras, we finally let the dogs out, but the bear had walked a dirt road (which doesn’t hold scent well) and the dogs struggled to follow the trail. By Thursday, we were all ready for a productive day and at the first camera, we had pictures of two bears from a few hours earlier—one of which was the mature boar we were after. So, Dan dumped the tailgate and walked the dogs down to the bait site in order to get them to follow the two different tracks. Two dogs took off together on one track while the other four he set off on the other track. We decided to follow his best-nosed dog, Mavi, on the track she was on, convinced it was the bigger of the two bears, especially since the other four dogs had their bear treed fairly quickly (according to the GPS tracking collars), which is often the sign of a smaller bear.  

After almost an hour of following Mavi, we decided to head back and collect the other four dogs so we could add more dogs to the pursuit of the bear Mavi was tracking. We had to hike around three quarters of a mile to where the dogs had the bear treed, which included crossing a small brook and navigating a very dense forest of fir trees. As we got closer, I started scanning trees for a glimpse of a bear, but I noticed there were only a couple of larger trees and I could not see a bear. At this point Dan realized this was the large bear and it was not treed, it was bayed. As we crossed the small brook we heard a low growl, then a scuffle, and then saw the dogs all scatter, but we still could not see the bear.  

The dogs did not run far and Dan spotted the bear and had me step up onto a hummock to try to get a clear shot. The bear was so close I could hardly make it out in my scope, but Dan remained calm, encouraging me to take the shot. After a few intense moments, we had a big bear down. Dan estimates I was 11 feet away when I shot and that the bear weighed between 300 and 400 lbs. He also said we definitely had some divine intervention on our side for a number of reasons. First, the small brook was too wide to jump and too deep to walk through, but Dan found a spot with a flat tree across it, making a perfect bridge. Second, that bear had been bayed in that one location for a long time, like it was waiting for us to show up. Third, the bear did not run far when we bumped it and it let us walk to within 11 feet of it on the ground. And fourth, getting a clear shot through all the thick trees was challenging, except where we were standing.  

We had to quarter the bear and pack it out because the woods were so thick, which was a whole other adventure. Let’s just say that Dan had super strength, carrying out three of the quarters and coming back to relieve me and carry the hide and skull the remaining 500 yards to the truck. Also, thank goodness for Kolby, who brought hiking poles that he let me borrow, carrying one of the quarters and helping get me up off the ground when I got hung up by a tree. After we were all back in the truck, we had to go collect the other two dogs. We eventually made it to Mavi and the other bear, which was also bayed, but it did not let Dan and Kolby get as close and was not a trophy bear. My two-year wait for an amazing bear and hunt with hounds was over. As Dan said, “I may shoot a bigger bear, but I’ll never have a more memorable hunt!”