A bear that tipped the scales at 559 pounds was shot near Babbitt.
According to a story in Outdoor News and Facebook posts, Laura Gaulke harvested the bear on Sept. 2, the second day of the season.
Gaulke, of Cloquet, told Outdoor News she saw the bear on opening day but after shooting hours. On day two the bear came in 10 minutes before shooting hours ended.
“I thought, well you either shoot now or you don’t shoot,” she told Outdoor News. She landed two shots before the bear stumbled off and into the brush.
Gaulke texted her son, Ken Bissonnette, a guide with Back Country Guided Hunts, that she’d hit the big bruin. While she was confident in her first shot, the party that accompanied her son decided to wait a few hours before searching for it. When they returned to the site, they tracked blood and eventually found the bear at around 1:30 a.m., according to Outdoor News.
“He ended up only 40 yards from the bait. … He was over this log and the front half of his body was hanging off of (about) a 10-foot drop,” Gaulke told Outdoor News.
She said additional help was needed to get the bear out of the woods and that when it was loaded on a four wheeler it cracked the frame.
“The whole hunt from start to finish is an experience I’ll never forget. Thank you so much..Ken, Mike and Jared! I’m still in awe of what you guys do and how much you guys absolutely love doing it! Shout out and thanks to the group of hunters that were willing to come and help get him to the shed!! He sure didn’t make it easy,” Gaulke wrote in a Facebook post.
