He shot a big Maine bear with a homemade rifle

Tom Winland, 47, decided more than a year ago that he wanted to hunt for a bear.

He chose Maine because it is legal to hunt bear over bait. He chose Dead North Adventures in Perham as an outfitter for lodging and guide services.

Then he built his own rifle — a .54-caliber flintlock Ohio-style long gun — a technology that has been in use for 400 years, he said.

Winland of Dresden, Ohio, has built seven other flintlock guns, but this one was the highest caliber, meant for big game such as bear, deer, elk or moose. This particular .54-caliber gun was specifically made for his Maine black bear hunt.

Although the old-style gun is more common in Ohio, it’s rarely seen in Maine for hunting big game. Maine has a muzzleloader deer season, but most hunters use more modern technology such as in-line guns that have a percussion system for igniting the gunpowder rather than sharpened flint.

“A trophy for me is getting a bear with a gun I created, regardless of the size of the animal. Taking the bear with a 400-year-old technology [makes it] special,” Winland said.

Winland, who works as a high school janitor, said he has more than 200 hours into building the flintlock gun and another 200-plus hours on a shooting range learning to be accurate with it.

He had planned to use his .45-caliber flintlock for this hunt, but his mother, who sometimes supports his hobby, got him the lock, 41-inch barrel and brass metal materials at Log Cabin, his favorite gun shop, for a Christmas present.

His uncle gave him a 6-foot-long, 3-by-10-inch maple board from which he cut and formed the stock. He chiseled in designs and included a traditional patch box on the butt.

The gun is 4 feet, 9 inches long, weighs 9 pounds and can shoot a half-inch ball accurately at 50 yards.

“I have sweat, blood and tears wrapped up in that gun,” he said.

Folks back at the Dead North Adventures hunting lodge in Perham couldn’t believe Tom Winland of Dresden, Ohio, (left) had shot a big bear with a flintlock, so Winland laid on the ground beside his kill to show its size. Credit: Courtesy of Tom Winland. Jason Williams, one of three registered blood trackers with Dead North Adventures, was the guide for Tom Winland Williams. Credit: Courtesy of Dead North Adventures.

Winland is self-taught and simply copied the traditional style he liked and was familiar with as a Hudson Bay fur trapping era history reenactor. He has been building guns by hand for more than 2 years, mostly for himself, although he said he built one for a male friend as a baby shower gift.

Hunting with a flintlock gun creates special needs, which Dead North — a hunting lodge and working farm — could accommodate, Winland said. One of the most important was a ground blind so that his gunpowder could stay dry. Wet powder won’t ignite.

Winland didn’t see a bear when he hunted Monday, so he went to a different location Tuesday. After a little bit, he looked through the window of the ground blind and saw a big sow with no cubs around 7 p.m.

His heart rate and adrenaline went through the roof, and the sound of the hammer being pulled back was loud in his ears, he said.

He fired the gun, which sounds like a small cannon and creates a cloud of smoke. He told his guides that he just shot a VW bug to indicate how big the animal was.

The more than 300-pound bear took off after being shot and was found using the lodge’s trained chocolate Lab tracking dog Beretta about 200 yards away in a deep gully surrounded by thick vegetation. He had hit the bear 4 inches in front of the centerline, high but right behind her front shoulder.

The bear dressed out at 295 pounds. The meat will be put on dry ice and taken home to Ohio, he said.

His friends thought he was nuts for pursuing a bear with a flintlock rifle, Winland said. But he had taken his first trophy bear with a flintlock gun he had built. It couldn’t get any better.