I hunted last fall near Houlton. I'm not going to mention the guide, because he was debating retiring after last year. I haven't spoken to him this year. There was a record heat wave going on, so it was hunting in 90 degree weather. Even so, he kept up on his baits and had multiple sites with multiple bears coming in. All hunting was in the late afternoon/evening. The site I was on had lots of action, I ended up seeing bears 4 out of 5 days. Leupold junk cost me a bear on day 3, it was at least 300 lbs. An even bigger one came thru about 15 minutes later, but because I was waiting on the guide to come in and track the other bear, I didn't shoot it. It came down the trail and literally put his nose on my ladder stand, I could have pulled a Tim Wells and speared him. He walked out after 5 minutes. Too bad there's only a one bear limit in Maine. After looking for the other bear for 2 hours, we concluded that I must have just burned his belly. Trail cam video on the bait site confirmed. Checked the rifle, seemed fine at 40 yds, thought I shot twice and one was perfect, the other several inches low. Bear fever? Maybe (at least I thought) and spent the next two nights in the same stand, but there were only a couple pairs of juvenile twins coming in. After returning home, further testing proved that the Leupold scope had bit the dust and was randomly moving several inches after each shot.
For me, it was very similar to deer hunting in the Midwest. He got permission to put stands and bait in an area, then hunted the area. All stands or blinds, no still hunting or moving around.
The trip up was nice, even though it was a long drive. Very scenic, I loved the rural areas in Maine and the people were super friendly. I might check in and see if he's offering anything this year, but so far 2024 has been a hard kick in the balls for me and the family, so I may just chill and start again next year. I'm on the fence about going back, given the Maine government wants to remove anyone from their ballot that they don't like (not looking for an argument, I wouldn't care who it is, it's the principle). Same reason I'll probably never go to Colorado.
