Bears like elk too!

[antlerrick]

Just an interesting little story that happened this weekend: My son shot his elk Saturday night about 5:30 pm. He and his wife cleaned the elk and halved it to pull it out to the road. They drug both halves down the steep hill to where they first come out of the trees and it started to level off and decided that they were too heavy to each pull one. They split the hind quarters and hauled them down across the meadow to the creek. They went back and decided to take the front quarters off but leave skin across the back to make them one piece and son threw them on his shoulder to pack out. He got 150 yards down the hill and his neck and shoulder started to cramp up. (hurt it a week or so ago). By this time the snowstorm had hit and it was now a white out and couldn't even see the truck. They were both soaking wet and getting really cold and shivering, so they decided to leave the front shoulders there and take out the backstrap and come back Sunday morning. He called me and I rode back up to help. His wife and I got the hind quarters to the truck and my son went to get the front quarters clean off the neck meat and cut some ribs from the carcass. He found the shoulders and then walked up to get the rest. We were watching thru glasses and he go to where the carcass was and couldn't find it. Finally we seen walk to the north over to the trees. Then he turned and headed down the hill rather quickly, and about 100 yards down the hill turned and went back and messed around the same area for a few minutes. He never loaded anything and came down and got the front quarters and came back to the creek where we met him and helped get the rest to the truck. He says a bear had found the rib cage/carcass and had drug it up into the trees and away. He said the ground was bare where the carcass had been and the tracks were really fresh as were the drap marks in the snow, so it hadn't been a very long time since the bear had been there. We probably would have seen him if we would have looked across there when we first pulled up. Says he wasn't about to go fight the bear for the carcass without a gun, haha... Anyway, there were two coyotes he seen run off from the gut pile area, and the bear that found dinner that morning. Kind of eerie huh?
Looks like the storm has the predators out searching for goodies for the coming winter!

 

[AWHOLELOTTABULL]

Geez Rick, where's your sense of adventure. Nothing wrong with a little bear wrestling. Been in that situation before and it's a little nerve racking to say the least. A couple of years ago there was a sow and a cub hitting every gut pile. We had killed a bull earlier in the morning and my other hunter killed another bull in that same area that night. The whole time we are hunting that night I am thinking that we need to get past that gut pile and up the mountain before it gets dark. I didn't want to stumble across that gut pile in the dark with a sow and a cub on it. Well, we killed a bull not 1000 yards away from the other kill site and we had to go right past that site to get back to camp. By the time we got the elk cleaned and prepped for a night in the cold it was well after dark and snowing. As we got to the spot where we had killed the other bull there were bloody bear tracks in the snow crossing our trail. Needless to say the pace got quite a bit quicker. My hunter wondered what was up and was having a hard time keeping up (good for me). After a 100 yards or so I stopped and told him of my concern and the tracks we had crossed. He didn't have any problem keeping up after that. My wife always wonders why I don't watch scary movies or go to haunted houses. I walk out of too many places in the dark to have my head playing tricks on me. Just a big woosey I guess.


It's always an adventure!!!
www.awholelottabull.com

 

[OldJake]

Great story Antlerrick!

AWHOLELOTTABULL, your story reminds me of an old joke. You know the one about having to outrun a bear.

Did the hunter turn to you and ask if it was possible to outrun a bear? And in reply did you say "I don't know if it's possible to outrun a hungry bear, but all I have to do is OUTRUN YOU!".

Great storys guys. It's a little "pick-me-up" on a Monday morning.

 

[antlerrick]

Jake, when ya takin me deer scouting, or hunting?
I'm glad I wasn't with him and the bear, cuz he'd have been able to out run me...at least with my step/skip! haha...
Of course, I'd have certainly knocked him down first!!!!

 

[Gotlost]

We were hunting in the Thorofare and I killed a bull just at dusk. We were a good 3 miles from the horses and they were another 8 miles from camp. the bull was in dark trimber and a nasty hillside. we did a fast gut job and got him opened up to cool then covered him with some pine limbs.
this was in the earlly 80 ds and the Grizzly's were there but not near the problem they are today.
we got back to camp about 11:00 pm ate a cold supper and sacked out. the next morning I had to help another guy pack his bull in before I could get back to My bull so I did not get to him till late in the day.
we could get the horses within a 1/2 mile of the bull, then approched the bull from above just incase a bear had taken over the carcuss.
Making as much noise as we could we walked down to the bull butt still saw the flash of a black bear leaving the carcuse.
It had tore up the shoulder that the bullet had come out but and not messed with the hind quarters.
By far the fastest quarting job I ever did and the job got harder because we decided to have one guy stay with the horses after we got the 1st quarters packed up near them.
By the time we got back to camp and had the meat hung up it was well past midnight. Made for a couple of long days but well worth the work.

 

[CAelknuts]

Great story, Rick. If you want some more bear adventure, you can come out my way. I've got one I'm going to try to kill with my bow a little later this fall. He's living on the ranch where we hunt blacktails and turkeys. We can't bait, so the best option will probably be to predator call for him. Either that, or shoot him over a deer gut pile!

I could really use a guy to help out, so long as he runs slower than me! You'd be perfect.

 

[antlerrick]

Geez Dan,
Thanks! No wonder you want me to come out!! LOL..
You just said you can't bait!!!!!! haha!
YOu never know, by then I may be able to out run you! I'm getting pretty nimble.... I only fell once dragging out the elk. Those damn clumps in those meadows suck, especially when they are under the snow...
Hope you get a chance at that bear. That would be fun with a call...

 

[Silentstalker]

Great story Rick!

We lost a cow elk last year on the wasatch to a Sow blackie and 2 cubs. A member of our group had hit a cow right at dark, decided to take up the trail the next morning. Well, as we came upon the elk, I noticed what I thought were crows/ravens hoping around on the carcus. We got within about 25 yards before it registered in my small brain that those weren't ravens! What I was watching was the cubs jumping and climbing over each other to get their next big bite of meat! Well, no bows, no guns, just knives and backpacks! I grabbed my kids and wife and told the rest of our group to hold up and slowly back away. When the sow became aware of our presence, she turned tail and ran. The only problem was, 1 of the cubs went up a tree! We ended up waiting a few more yards away. The cub eventually came down and we were able to go find what was left of the cow. They had really put the hurt on the meat! Most of the hind quarters were gone, and some of the shoulders as well. Good lesson learned that day! We no longer wait until morning (we rarely did before anyways) and we always take at least 1 bow. Anyways, glad you weren't hurt or chased!

Ca,

Good luck on your predator calling adventure! My friend killed a great bear here in Utah calling it in and shooting it with his bow. He recommended Wayne Carlton's tape on calling bears. If you have not seen it, you may want to look it up. He said it worked to perfection!

I have 6 bear points for Utah and am looking at a hunt next year. Hopefully I can let the air out of one! Good luck!

Chad

 

[BIGJOHNT]

Which mountain were you on rick ? By the way we have crossed paths a few times.
John

 

[OldJake]

Antlerrick,

Deer huntin' time is coming very near. Keep in touch, we'll be heading out soon! I need to call your son to see when he wants to go too! We're all getting pretty excited around here!

 

[vichris]

LAST EDITED ON Oct-14-08 AT 11:03PM (MST)[p]They also like Moo cows. Last year while scouting I found a dead cow on top of a mountain that had had a recent burn. I was in that area hunting about a week later when I came across a couple of guys up there on their ATV's. I stopped to talk to them and they told me that that mtn was one of the only places they had good cell phone coverage. Sooo.. the next day after hunting I head up there to call my wife. It's just getting dark but I take off my pack and lay my bow on a stump and start chit chatting with my wife. While I'm talking I see some crows fly off over by the dead cow and decide to go check it out. Well when I get to where the cow is/was I can see its been moved into the edge of the timber. I walked right up on it and was about 15 feet from it when suddenly a bear lifts its head from behind the carcass. Well I decide I better back off a little and start backtracking. I also made the mistake of saying to my wife "whoa.... there's a bear". Well she's freaking out and the bear decides to standup on its back legs..... I guess to look bigger. Well I decide I better get back to my bow pronto and start moving a little faster back to my stuff. About that time the bear drops down on all four and start coming toward me and I of course had to tell my wife "its coming after me". Now she's really freaking out. Suddenly it dawns on me "what the heck am I doing". I turned around and lifted up my hands and yelled and growled at the bear. Well "she" decides I'm more than she bargained for and turns to run. That when I noticed the cub that was with her. They both run off into the timber. Well I go back to talking with my wife and she's thinking that I got attacked because she heard me yell and then heard me growl and thought it was the bear growling. I had to spend an extra half hour calming her down. I've had a couple of close encounters with both bears and mtn lions but this one made me think a little differently about bears.

So this year I bought a bear tag. I got a little revenge on that bears cousin. Here's a link to the pic. Last pic of three.

http://www.monstermuleys.com/photos/PhotosID22/81.html

 

[antlerrick]

Ol' J....I can bet you are pretty anxious to get going. Just give me a call and I'd love to go anytime I can get away. It looks like J will be working Monday thru Thursday for a while so he has the weekends free. We need to get down and look over the buffs anyhow. Have you been down hunting a lot yet?

 

[AWHOLELOTTABULL]

Rick....when you go down on the Henry's shoot me an email. I would love to know what you see. My buddy's dad finally drew his buff tag after having max points for several years. He's 70. It should be a really fun hunt.

It's always an adventure!!!
www.awholelottabull.com

 

[antlerrick]

Will do Jim!