Utah Bear Hunt

UGAhunter

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The late winter months of 2011 brought much anticipation as I waited for the Utah DWR to release the Limited Entry Black Bear results. My love for bear hunting began many years ago after my brother talked me into an Idaho spring bear hunt. I decided to go with him, thinking it would be my one and only bear hunt. After all, who would want to do more than one bear hunt, I thought. After five days of bear hunting in the thickly forested wilderness of northern Idaho, I was hooked. I have since harvested several black bears, including a cinnamon, chocolate, and black color-phased black bears over baits in the thick bear woods.

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Over the years I had been applying and accumulating points for a coveted Utah Bear tag. My brother had a friend named Jason who uses hounds to chases bears in southern Utah. Upon his advice I had applied for a spring hunt in the La Sal management unit near Moab. Research and discussions with many people revealed that there was a very healthy population of bears on that unit, and that the warm climate in the region made for easy access and early bear emergence. I was excited to learn a new area and experience the thrill of the chase while hunting with hounds. I believed that I had enough points to draw one of the four non-resident permits. One day, prior to notification by the DWR, internet chatter led me to check my credit card statement, where I pleasantly discovered the charge for the permit. I would be hunting bears in southern Utah in 2011!

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A lot of mental preparation went into this hunt. Studying maps, areal images, weather patterns and snowpack data were daily occurrences. At a friend?s wedding in April, I meet an old-time friend, Bob, who to my surprise was still into hound hunting. He told me that he chases bears in that unit every spring and that I could go hunt with him. This was perfect; I now had two houndsmen to help me with this hunt. Although the hunt officially began on April 9th, a late spring, heavy snowpack, and cool temperatures deterred me from pursuing bears on the opening weekend. It was hard to have patience with a tag in my pocket, but everyone agrees that the hunting gets better later in the spring.

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A spur of the moment call from my friend Bob containing an invitation to go hunt led me to scramble to gather my gear, take care of my chores, and head for Moab. I took my two boys, Jon and Ethan with me. We drove half way, and spent four hours sleeping at my in-laws. We rose at 3:00 am and continued our journey. A flat tire surprise made our trip somewhat more eventful, and delayed our arrival until after sunrise. We piled in Bob?s truck and immediately began the hunt by driving the roads rigging for bear. It didn't take long until the dogs were off and cold trailing a big bear track. After catching up and chasing the hot bear track, the dogs lost the bear, and it began to snow. That weekend was a lot of fun, but didn't result in many bear chases.
I decided to give it two weeks before I would return. The snow needed to melt off, and the bears needed to wake up.

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However, on Friday morning I once again got an unexpected call that we were going hunting. Jason was heading over, and his friend Randy was currently chasing a bear, as we spoke on the phone! Again, I rushed to gather my gear and head for Moab. This time my brother, Marion, went with me. We got stuck on a closed mountain road in a severe spring weather storm. After a long journey, we arrived in bear camp around midnight. After a few short hours of sleep that was often disturbed by barking hounds, we were off to rig bears. Not long after sunrise the hounds were out chasing a track. The bruin had led them down in to the aptly named Hell Canyon, a deep, rugged, cliff infested passage from the 8500 feet pine, aspen, and oak brush plateau to the 7000 feet cedar, sage, desert, red sand bottoms below. The hounds had the invisible bear bayed up in a crevasse on the other side of the canyon. After an hour or so, the bear slipped out and I spotted him across the next canyon heading up the hill. Soon we had the dogs on the trail, and we watched as the bear ran up the draw, just in front of the hounds. I thought we would have a treed bear, but the nasty cliffs in the area provided an escape for the bear. During the chase, two beautiful blond bears flushed from one canyon to the next.

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Carefully glassing the hillside, I finally spotted a lone blond bear feeding in the brush. It was a beautiful specimen. I tried to thoroughly study the bear from a distance to asses its potential size. It proved to be very difficult to determine if it was a mature boar, or something else. Later in the evening, the bear ran back down into Hell canyon. I passed on one shot opportunity as the bear vanished beneath the rock ledges below me. I spent many hours and nights thinking of that ?white? bear?should I have shot it? Only time would tell. It was a cold weekend, only reaching 34 degrees at noon on Sunday and we didn't have much luck rigging any other bears that weekend.


The following Thursday, the whole family went bear hunting with me. They got to experience seeing the hounds rig a hot track on the main road, in an area too steep and rugged to chase a bear. It was hard to drive away from such a strong rig! Some of the houndsmen spotted a nice cinnamon bear in a nasty canyon Friday morning, but we could not get hounds on him. Saturday morning found us rigging the lower canyon. Half way up, the hounds rigged! They continued to rig all the way up to the top of the canyon. Duke, the lead strike dog was turned out on the track. He took the track hard, and soon the whole pack was turned out on the bear. After running up the mountain, they turned back down and crossed the canyon where JL saw the bears and the hounds running. They were chasing a blond sow with two blond cubs and what appeared to be a large cinnamon boar. The pack divided, and headed up the mountain. For a while it looked as though three hounds on the boar were treed. We began to hike up the trail toward them. After a half mile hike, the hounds were on the move, and the bears got away. Spring bears are sure lean and can run, run, run!


Later that afternoon, we spotted a blond bear across the canyon. It fed and meandered, until bedding under a large cedar tree. I decided to hike up the canyon and stalk the bear. The only access to the canyon was up the dry creek bed from the bottom of Hell canyon. A fit hunter could have made the hike in 20 minutes, but it took me nearly an hour to make the trip up through the boulders, thorns, and pollen laden juniper branches entangling the path. Finally, I could see the bear. It was 310 yards away. I decided to close the distance by hiking up the opposite hill side. Zeb and I went plowing our way through the slipping, loose soil, again breaking a sweat finding that we had only closed the distance by 20 yards. On we went, side-hilling the canyon up to a rock outcrop with an excellent view of the bear. Hidden under the braches of a juniper, I set up my pack for a gun rest, laid down and took aim at the resting bear.

Looking through the 18 power scope, I tried to assess the maturity of the bear. Was it a boar? Was it a sub-adult? Was it the same nice ?white? bear I had seen last week? How big are those ears? How did its paws look, as it rolled on its back and stuck up its feet? It stood up in its bed, turned, and dug a bit in the ground. It laid back down for some more sleep. A second time it stood up and gave me good look. I could see him chomping his jaw as he put his snout in the air to smell. It was decision time. ?I'm going to shoot it next time it stands up? I told Zeb as the bear laid back down. Zeb radioed back to the others revealing my plan. Jenn and the kids watched from atop the canyon.

Another 15 minutes or so went by. I was laying still, the rifle settled to a solid rest with the crosshairs on the sleeping bear. Then it moved, shuffled its weigh, and rolled to its feet. There it stood looking straight at us. We had hounds in the bottom of the canyon, and more at the top. They were ready should the bear smell us and run, or should a wounding shot be made. I waited for it to turn broadside. With the crosshairs settled behind its shoulder, I squeezed the trigger. The boom echoed around in the canyon. The bear spun 180 degrees and just stood there. ?You hit him? Zeb exclaimed. In an attempt to shuffle another shell into the chamber, I discovered a minor jam in expelling the spent cartridge. I was getting a bit nervous. Finally, I cleared the jam and got a new shell chambered. Another solid shot sent the bear rolling down the hill. JL jokingly radioed from the top of the canyon ?Don?t shoot, it's a cub!?, as the bear tumbled down the steep hillside. ?Cub my A? Zeb thought out loud as we watched it tumble toward us. It soon came to rest at the bottom of the canyon, just barely in view from our position. It wasn?t moving. I took a moment to locate a landmark while Zeb found a way down from the cliffs. It didn't take long to locate the bear. My anxiety was high, not knowing for sure if the bear was a sow or boar, big or small. I did not want another small bear, no matter how pretty!

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The blond beauty lay rolled up and lodged at the base of a tree. I reached for a paw so I could stretch out the bear. In the excitement, I forgot to make sure it was dead. Fortunately, the bear was fully expired as I pulled it from the tree. It's a boar! It's big! It's awesome! We posed the bear and took some photos. Randy showed up with some hounds which were surprised and pleased to find the dead bear. They barked relentlessly as we skinned the bear. The hike out of the canyon was much easier going down. The rest of the family was waiting at the trail head when we arrived with the bear. We all posed for a picture with the blood-stained bear hide. As soon as I arrived home, I fleshed and washed the hide, which revealed a beautiful, stunning 6-foot blond bear. A real trophy. His skull is nearly 17 inches. Not quite enough for the record book, but plenty big enough.

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This Utah bear hunt proved to be a wonderful experience with new and old friends and family. I learned some new country, saw 4 bears, chased many more, and harvested a great trophy. This hunt may well close a long, memorable chapter of big game hunting in Utah, as this was the last tag for which I have any real chance of drawing. What a great ending!

Thanks to all those who helped me on this hunt: Bob, Adam, Marion, Jason, Kyler, JL, Randy, Zeb, and Raymond! I'm also glad that Jenn, Jon, Ethan and Emily were there to make this hunt a family affair.
 
On the 27th of May I am going to northern Idaho to hunt bears over bait. I can't hardly wait. I will be taking Jon, my 13 year old son. We will both be archery hunting. I'll update our adventures here as soon I we get back.
 
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