Outdoors
The BDN outdoors section brings readers into the woods, waters and wild places of Maine. It features stories on hunting, fishing, wildlife, conservation and recreation, told by people who live these experiences. This section emphasizes hands-on knowledge, field reports, issues, trends and the traditions that define life outside in Maine. Read more Outdoors stories here.
Fourteen years ago, Matt Knox shot his first bear. It became Maine’s current state record for a bear killed with a firearm, with a live weight of 699 pounds.
Even more impressive, it was taken over bait.
“They said it couldn’t be done,” said Steve Monroe, Knox’s guide.
After seeing photos of the bear, a Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife biologist told him they’d never get it over bait. The only way they could do it, he was told, would be to trap it or pursue it with hounds.
“I worked some magic, and we got him in,” Monroe said.
The sizable bear was known to be there early in the season. It consistently visited the area but always came in at night.
“That’s just what those big bears do,” he said.
The 12-year-old male was harvested near Greenville Junction with Grand Slam Guide Service, which was co-owned by Monroe and Jim Webber.
Knox, a Pennsylvania resident, had never hunted bears or been in the Maine woods.
He was going to shoot the first bear he saw, as long as it wasn’t a cub or a sow with cubs, he told his guide.
“He wasn’t fussy,” Monroe said. “I put him on the big bear because I knew he was there.” Monroe thought it would be neat for a veteran to take the animal, and Knox hadn’t been home from Afghanistan for very long.
For four days, he sat in a stand without seeing anything and grew discouraged. On the final day of his hunt, with only four or five minutes left before dark, the giant finally appeared. Knox took the bear at 20 yards with a Marlin .45-70.
The bear initially weighed 705 pounds at Indian Hill Trading Post in Greenville. When Monroe asked whether the scale was certified, they didn’t know.
He panicked.
After calling around, he found a certified scale at Herring Brothers Meats in Guilford, where it was officially weighed at 699 pounds.
The bear surpassed Maine’s previous state record by 19 pounds, a 680-pounder taken in 1993.
“I think it took him two days to realize what he really accomplished,” Monroe said of Knox, who was in shock.
Several other bears shot that week weighed 600 and 522 pounds, also over bait. Poor natural food conditions that year contributed to high nuisance activity and ultimately a very successful bait season, when prime-age males were more vulnerable to harvest.
When there’s plenty of natural feed, bears don’t begin hyperphagia — non-stop binge eating — until later in the season. That’s when larger, older and more experienced bears are less apt to visit sites during daylight hours.
Fourteen years later, Monroe hasn’t seen another that compares. Several bears weighing around 200 pounds are visiting his sites, and there may be one around 400, but nothing comes close to Knox’s.
So what drew it into the bait? Monroe won’t disclose that completely.
“It’s kind of a secret mixture I made up,” he said.
But he did offer one hint.
“It might have a little to do with Moxie.”