Idaho bear hunt recap

[TKRanch]

So good to hear this! I hunted bears several years in Easter Washington back when you could hunt with hounds there. A friend of mine talked me into it.... Man am I glad I did, IT WAS A BLAST!! Watching those dogs work was amazing! Seeing them hold their breath to listen to the strike dogs to get the direction was intense. They are true athletes! We didn't have such good GPS stuff back then so had to follow closer on foot and that was tough, but so rewarding! Several of us went mulitple years and killed really nice bears and treed some big cats as well.

Great recap! Looking forward to the rest!!! Thanks.

[Hockley]

Awesome.

[rladner]

in for the rest of the story. Congrats so far

[Roger]

Thursday Evening

After a pretty eventful, and exhausting, morning treeing Micah's bear, Hunter and I headed out to sit on the same baits we've been on the prior two nights. To date, I've seen noth8ng but chipmunks, really cool looking squirrels, and a raven (man those things are huge. crowzilla)

Let's get my hunt out of the way. Nada, zilch, nunca, squat. The bears on this bait have went nocturnal a few days before my arrival and seem to be staying that way. Likely due to it getting really hot that week and the lower elevation of this bait. No worries. Having a blast.

Now to Hunter. Here is his scene. He is set up in a ladder stand about 10 feet off the ground. At least from where the base of the ladder touches earth (same level as the bait). At the tree, you are now about 18 feet up and a foot or two from the back of the tree it's a 25 foot drop. Did I mention some of this country is steep? The bait is only eleven yards from the ladder. Talk about close quarters, and the bears generally come up a trail literally 2 yards from the base of the ladder.

He's seen small bears here both prior sits. There is a giant all black boar that's been on this bait. Based on trail camera, outfitter and guides say he's around 400 lbs, which is a heck of a big bear up there in the spring. All I know is he looks like a Volkswagen on camera. Apparently he is smart, and aggressive. They have tried but haven't been able to kill him yet. He is in an area where running him with dogs isn't practical. Our guide wants him dead! As she said, he's scary. She was in a ground blind with a female client and he came up behind the blind and sniffed them for a while. Must have been intense knowing he's as big as the blind. He then dissapeared and so did the guide and client! He has trashed that ground blind and carried one of the chairs to the bait the first day she took Hunter in there. She pulled the ground setup out.

A little side note about mine and Hunter's guide. I did say she. She is a 20 yo from Wisconsin who went to a guide school when she was 18 so she could get a job out west as a guide and explore new things. Carries a big 'ole 40 cal semi on her hip and was 100% awesome. She's probably 5'3" at best and maybe 130, only because she's all muscle. This description will become very relavent later on.

So Hunter watches the same little reddish blonde bear snatch bait and run down the hill to eat it multiple times as hr does each day. That bear then leaves and doesn't return. Hunter catches movement in his peripheral and right below him, he is there. He said he can now appreciate what a truly massive bear looks like. No judging or questioning needed, especially when it's practically right under your feet.

The bear is very cautious and will not go on in to the bait. It kind of spooks and drops off the shelf and back down the hill, circling around behind Hunter. Because the mountainside is so steep, the evening thermals carry Hunter's scent above the bear, but it knows something isn't right. Finally it comes back up the same trail. Once it reaches the level shelf, which places it about 5 yards from the base of the ladder, it turns toward Hunter and stands up on it's hind legs staring right at Hunter. I would have peed my pants. Hunter said all he was thinking was "he's already spooked. Don't blink or twitch or he will blow out of here." Pretty calm for a 21 yo. He was in kill mode! F8nally the bear walked near the bait but wouldn't go in and turned to leave. He gave Hunter a broadside shot at 8 yards. Draw, settle the pin, squeeze the shot!!! Arrow buries in a tree above the bears back. It hops and then lumbers away, stopping 20 yards away in an opening and standing broadside for a minute or so looking around. Hunter already has another arrow nocked and ready. Second chances on animals like this don't come often. And they didn't this time either. The ladder stand had an arm rest sticking out on it that was completely blocking his ability to shoot that direction. If he stood enough to clear the arm rest, limbs were in the way. He watched the bear lumber down the hill. It circles around under him again, but this time didn't come back in. Smart old bear was going to wait until darkness now. So close to a giant, yet so far. Hunter recovered the arrow but there is still a 125 grain, four blade SlickTrick magnum buried in a lodgepole pine on a hill in Idaho. He said he had to lean out as far as he could for the shot, without falling, to get outside that arm rest. Figured he just didn't get everything in position and shot high. The shiny new divot in his bottom cam we found later told a different story. His cam had clipped that arm rest when he shot. Dang it! At least it was a clean miss. That was not the bear to go after wounded.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[Landrover]

Oh yea!!!! Now a thread worth keeping up with. Looking good sir, really good. Congrats!!!!

[rladner]

Think my F5 is broken

[Hardcortex]

Great write up, in for the rest of the story!

[Paycheck]

Enjoying it.

[Roger]

I’ll pick it up tomorrow. Old folks need their rest……

And you can tell by all the typos when I redid it that I should have just went to bed as well! I have to edit every other word using this dang phone to type.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[Roger]

No Rest for the Weary

While I'm keeping an eagle eye on chipmunks, and Hunter plays a game of chicken with a giant old bear, the outfitter speaks with the landowner who checks those trail cams and puts out the bait for them frequently. We are hunting on public on these two baits, but they lease access through this landowners place to get to it via road. If you can call those little mountain trails roads. Guy says a good sized bear thats been hitting my bait in the middle of the night was there at daylight this am. The big boy was also at Hunter's bait that am. Something had them moving. Since the big bear wasn't really spooked much after Hunters encounter, we decided to try a morning play on them. Yeah! Bedtime at 12:30 pm, up at 3 am. Days are 5:30am to 10pm up here. Long!!! This bear hunting sure is relaxing!

Brook tells us we'll only sit until about 8 am, if no one shoots a bear before. No point staying any later. Neither of us see a bear on the morning sit, but knowing of the aggressive bear, Hunter's prior evening encounter, and the fact that my ground blind had also been worked over by a bear, when we went in on Sunday for the fist time, all gave my imagination plenty of fodder to work with, sitting there in the dark and waiting on daylight!

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[Gunswayne]

Awesome read so far!

[UncleBubba]

Tagged to read later

[cbd10pt]

Nice

[Johnny Dangerr]

In for the rest

[DaDust]

Great write up, in for the rest of the story!

X2