Yolla Bolly's

Roskee

Member
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5
I'm planning a solo trip to Yolla Bolly's, specifically for bear, during this archery season. Of course, I would like to stay out of the way from the deer hunters as much as possible. If anybody that is familiar with this wilderness has some advice, any response or a PM would be greatly appreciated.
 
Where were you planning to access the Yolla Bollys? I wouldn't worry about deer hunters. The buck hunting has gotten so dismal that there is an excellent chance you'll see more bruins than bucks.
 
Thanks for the response YBO. That's great news! I believe that I will be accessing from the Hwy 162 (Covelo) side; however, I'm open to coming in from Hwy 5, as well. I'll most likely car-camp.
 
LAST EDITED ON Aug-25-16 AT 09:47PM (MST)[p]Listen to YBO for advice. He knows the Yolla Bolly's like the back of his hand. But I disagree with you when he says you have a good chance of seeing more Bruins being great news. It's horrible news. That deer heard is in terrible shape. But I'm glad you want to go after some of those bears. I hope you kill one. I wish 100's of them would get killed. They are a major reason the deer are hurting so bad.
 
Thanks, NECALI. Yes, I agree - my apologies. Great news in terms of bear hunting. Hopefully bear hunters put a dent in the current bear population. It's always good to see a healthy deer herd continuing to grow. Any advice is appreciated.
 
Yolla's have a serious cat problem!!!
I just got back from 5 days roaming around the Yolla's and having been hunting archery there for the last few years. Each year we've seen less deer and more and more cat sign.
This year while glassing early morning on a ridge we look over our shoulder and there's a huge cat walking up on us at 48 yards. We get up, make noise, and he just crouches down. A few rocks later he just slowly walks away not too concerned by us.
So we decide to go hunt another area, next afternoon about 5 miles from the 1st cat encounter my buddy drops into a canyon to get water and on his way out stumbles on a fresh deer kill, he stops to take a pic and hears some noise behind him, small bear coming down the tree. He lets an arrow go but misses, the bear heads down hill into the brush, when he turns to see if he'll come out lower there's a cat at 40 yards staring at him (smaller cat, not same one)so he raises bow over head and makes noise and same thing, cat just crouches down staring at him, after kicking rocks the cat slowly turns and goes into the brush, again not too concerned.
The areas we typically see deer are few and far between anymore! To say there is a cat problem is an understatement! My buddy saw a cat a few weeks before this, around the trailhead, again not spooked by him and ran across two other guys that saw 3 cats that same weekend.
It's too bad, but I'd say the Yolla's belong to the cats now!

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It's been my experience too. If you find a good herd of blacktails you better get on it because it won't be long before the cats move in and they all but disappear.

That fawn is a classic lion kill. I've seen it before.
 
Thanks, guys! I appreciate all of the input. I ended up heading out last weekend, and set up base camp south of Solomon Peak. My observations aligned perfectly as you guys had mentioned. I counted about a half dozen doe, and no bucks - not even a spike.

In terms of bear, I spotted a total of two during the three days. The only close encounter was with a nice color phase bear at 45yds. Eventually, I got busted and it bolted out of the timber.

I did see some huge rope-shaped cat scat that may have been weeks old.

Overall, it was an awesome experience and I plan on heading out again in the near future!
 
I've seen so many cats on trail cameras I can't tell you how many. When the state of Kalifornicated outlawed hunting bears with dogs...the carnage began. More bears, more lions and way less deer. If you see an ex bear hunter who used dogs, belatetivly thank them for the good ol days.
 

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