Deklan Taylor, 12, and his grandfather pursued a large bear the youth nicknamed “Pie Plate” for four years.
They monitored game cameras to figure out his movement patterns, and bemoaned that he liked to show up between midnight and 1 a.m.
But Deklan of Mars Hill finally had success this year on his birthday, and brought down the 392-pound boar that made pie plate-sized paw prints.
It’s not Deklan’s first special bear. Last year he killed a 360-pound sow and the year before the state pulled a tooth from his bear and aged it at 32 years old, said Ed Richard, the boy’s grandfather.
Deklan has harvested four bears, three deer and two or three turkeys, he said.
On the evening of the hunt, a 180-200-pound bear came into sight at the bait, but Deklan had his heart set on Pie Plate. Suddenly the first bear ran off, and the big boar came into the bait around 7:30 p.m., about 20 minutes before legal shooting time ended.
Deklan, who was up 14 feet in a double tree stand with Richard, shot the bear at 30 yards with his .243-caliber rifle. The bear made two jumps into the cedar swamp and dropped about 50 yards from where it was shot. He had hit the bear right behind the shoulder, accomplishing a double lung shot.
When Deklan and Richard located the bear, they could see that Pie Plate seemed to be an older bear and a scrapper. He had a big blocky head, was missing a middle claw, had a ripped ear and scars on his nose and butt.
“I was almost crying, I was so excited,” Deklan said. “They were happy tears.”
Deklan’s father took the bear hide to Maine Big Woods Taxidermy and Guide Service in Mars Hill for a shoulder mount.
The young hunter was under a little pressure too. He was about to start his soccer season in Junior Varsity at Central Aroostook and wouldn’t have as much time for bear hunting. He also works for Penobscot McCrum picking rocks and golf balls off the conveyor belt carrying the newly harvested potatoes into the processing plant where they make potato chips and other products.
Crows and ravens apparently steal the golf balls from a nearby golf course and drop them in the fields, trying to open them, Richard said.
Deklan’s grandfather is very proud of his grandson’s accomplishments in Maine’s outdoors.
“He is a fisherman too. He is quite the sportsman and is patient and not greedy. He has kept our outdoor heritage going,” said Richard, who has 12 grandchildren. “The best part is I have gotten to enjoy it all being a gramps and he’s so very sincere, even when we don’t get lucky hunting and fishing. He will tell me on the way home, ‘That’s OK Gramps, it’s all about the memories.’”
Deklan is also just starting in archery.
What’s next for Deklan?
He wants to get a trophy buck deer, and eventually a grand slam of a turkey, bear, deer and moose in one year, but his favorite part of hunting is being with his grandfather, he said.
