Ep. 510: He Won’t Scout Before Opening Day, and He Kills Bucks in Week One w/ Lucas Benoit

Beau Martonik sits down with Lucas Benoit, a bear houndsman and guide out of central New Hampshire, with Johnny Stewart in the co-host chair. Recorded live at Huntstock.

Lucas got into hounds around fourteen with two accident-litter beagles, bought his first two finished bear dogs off a guy who was quitting, treed about sixteen bears that first season, and has since had a year of just over a hundred. Ask him which he’d rather do and he says deer hunting, a hundred percent.

He has killed mature bucks on September 21st in back to back years. Johnny spends most of the episode refusing to let him call it luck.

The argument underneath it is worth the listen. The first week of the season is the best week of the year to kill a mature buck, because if you can find what they’re feeding on, they aren’t far from it. December gets almost that good, and he’ll tell you he still struggles then. The reason most people never cash that first week is that they go scout it the week before and blow the place out. Lucas does not pre-scout. He finds sign in real time and sets up on it the same day.

Then it gets specific. Ten white oaks on a hilltop spine, three or four of them producing, one or two acorns under each, and bucks routing through to check every one. How to look up into an oak and read whether it has produced in the last couple years. The stand he hung over a pattern he called a slam dunk, then left and came back the wrong morning. Blowing a buck off a hill on opening day, staying out five or six days, then parking a mile away and climbing a steep hemlock face because it was the only way the wind worked. And a 170 inch buck that stood up at fifty yards, crossed a clear cut, looked at six dogs and three men for five minutes, and bedded back down.

In this episode:

Beagles to bear dogs, and why hounds are the honest way to manage a bear population

Why running dogs is the best deer scouting he does all year

The rub line he found on a bear chase, and the buck that walked it in daylight

A 170 inch buck that bedded back down in front of six dogs

Why the first week of season is his best week of the year

Why he doesn’t scout the week before opening day

The slam dunk stand he hung and then didn’t sit

Same spot, same date, years apart

Reading which oaks are producing before you ever look at the ground

A September buck killed in the morning, on a spot he’d already blown out

How long to stay out of a spot once you’ve bumped a buck

Five bucks on the last day of the season, and whether that’s luck

Lucas' IG: @nhbearguide

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