RUMFORD – Eleven-year-old Hillary Cayer of Rumford got her first taste of hunting bear over bait this year.

But neither she nor her father, George Cayer – a Maine black bear hunter for 32 years – expected to see a bear as huge as the one that walked under their stand on the first night of hunting season 5 miles from their home.

“I was freaking out and didn’t want to shoot at it at first, because it was really big,” Hillary said recently about the experience of hunting with her dad from a two-person tree stand 15 feet off the ground.

Her father said the bear was 6 feet long and weighed “well over 300 pounds.” But Hillary overcame her fear and fired off a shot with her dad’s 7×30 Waters Thompson Contender gun when the bear stood broadside 35 yards away.

“It was a perfect shot, but the bullet may have been deflected by a branch, because the bear wasn’t hit hard,” Cayer said.

Cayer, 42, said this year was his first year hunting without his dad, Adelard “Ducky” Cayer – a Maine Master Guide for more than 50 years – who died last year. It was also Cayer’s first year of hunting bear with Hillary.

Of the three Maine hunting methods that a November bear hunting referendum seeks to ban – bait, dogs and traps – George Cayer prefers bait.

“If you know their habitat and put the time in, you might get a bear. But over bait, you’re able to pick the bear you want to shoot. You can shoot a mature boar rather than sow bears with cubs,” he said, although either are legal.

By baiting a bear, the hunter is able to make an ethical harvest and ensure that bears without cubs are shot, he said. The hunt with Hillary was intense, her father agreed. “I can tell you, hearing a bear under you, behind you, and to the side of you, but never seeing him, has the ability to peak your senses in a way you never before imagined,” Cayer said.

Although they never recovered the bear, despite going into the woods the next morning to look for it with bear guides and a bear hound on a leash, he said he has seen the same bear feeding at the same baiting station, but it came later at night.

“I guess Hillary educated him, and he won’t make that mistake again,” Cayer said.

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