LAST EDITED ON May-12-09 AT 03:26PM (MST)[p]My friend Cody invited me to go on a black bear hunt with him this year. We went up Thursday through Saturday of last week. We had never hunted this area in the past. After multiple times getting stuck on the wheeler we finally started to figure out where we could and could not go. By the early afternoon we hadn't seen any sign or any bears and were starting to wonder if this was going to be a positive experience.
That afternoon we found an area that allowed us to glass a lot of country. We hadn't sat there more than 5 minutes when we saw our first bear. He was a long ways off, but it was very clearly a bear. He was only in an opening for a few minutes until he tucked back into the timber. This was a big confidence booster to at least know that there are bears in the area and that we have a decent chance of seeing another one.
Friday proved to be very much the same story as the day before. We didn't glass our first bear until the afternoon. We did have opportunity that day to get within range of a few bears, but nothing was quite big enough.
Saturday arrived and it was our last day. We spent most of the day glassing, but were seeing few bears. It was around 5pm when I decided I would glass an area that didn't seem very "beary" but not much else was going on. As I was looking at the area, I noticed a black dot that was either a beef cow or a bear. It was out on an open side hill. Neither of us ever thought that a bear would be down so far, but I thought it was worth getting the spotting scope out. I put the spotter on it and sure enough, there was a bear on this open side hill. According to google earth, it was 4.18 miles away from where I was sitting when I first glassed it. We watched it for a few minutes and decided that it was a bear worth going after. We had to get on the wheeler and get down the mountain. It took us almost 45 minutes to finally reach an area we could park the wheeler and start hiking to where we last seen the bear.
As we started our hike we both realized that we were going to have to cross a river and there was no bridge. We made our way to the river and tried to find the safest area to cross. The river was high from spring runoff and pretty chilly to say the least. After taking it slow and our legs getting numb we finally made it across. Now it was time to head straight up the mountain. We started to hike and realized that our boots were a few pounds heavier from what we remembered since they were full of water. All worth it if we could get on the bear.
We got within 700 yards of where we last seen the bear. He had either tucked into a very small patch of tall bushes or he made his way into the next canyon. We weren't sure, since we had been spending the last hour traveling rather than glassing. The wind was working in our favor to make our way around behind where we last seen him and hope to set up before he came out again.
Everything worked perfectly. We made our way to within 200 yards of where we suspected where the bear was and were set up. We sat there and waited, and waited, and waited some more. No movement and it was starting to get dark. It was now or never. We decided to continue our stalk towards the bushes. We were behind the area where we figured this bear was and actually worked to within 30 yards before we saw movement. Between us and the bushes walked out a deer. If that bear was still in the bushes, the deer was no more than 10 yards from him. We watched the deer and he was acting very suspicious, in the direction of the bushes. He continued to walk and then stop, constantly looking into the bushes. At this point, we both felt confident that the bear was still there. It was pretty funny when the deer finally caught a glimpse of us. Not only did he have a bear 10 yards away, but he had two hunters only 20 yards on his other side. Luckily he didn't spook and worked his way out.
We continued to work our way towards the bushes expecting at any moment this bear, if he was even there, would bust us. He didn't. We made it all the way to the bushes, within 10 yards of where we suspected lay a large black bear. In reaching this area we knew we were so close that we entered the bears fight or flight zone and it could get interesting. At that moment all heck broke loose. We heard a bunch of crashing luckily going out the other side. We ran around to the other side of the bushes to find a huge black bear 50 yards away wondering what the heck was getting so close to him. When he saw us he bolted. Cody fired the first shot when he was on a dead run at 150 yards. It hit him, but didn't slow him down much. Shot number two rang true and the bear started to slow down. Shot 3 hit him in the front shoulder and finally brought the bear to the ground.
We stood there and looked at each other and made comments like "did that really just happen." Needless to say it was one of my favorite hunts I've ever been on. I have a great respect for these animals. We both feel very fortunate to have been a part of such a great experience.
That afternoon we found an area that allowed us to glass a lot of country. We hadn't sat there more than 5 minutes when we saw our first bear. He was a long ways off, but it was very clearly a bear. He was only in an opening for a few minutes until he tucked back into the timber. This was a big confidence booster to at least know that there are bears in the area and that we have a decent chance of seeing another one.
Friday proved to be very much the same story as the day before. We didn't glass our first bear until the afternoon. We did have opportunity that day to get within range of a few bears, but nothing was quite big enough.
Saturday arrived and it was our last day. We spent most of the day glassing, but were seeing few bears. It was around 5pm when I decided I would glass an area that didn't seem very "beary" but not much else was going on. As I was looking at the area, I noticed a black dot that was either a beef cow or a bear. It was out on an open side hill. Neither of us ever thought that a bear would be down so far, but I thought it was worth getting the spotting scope out. I put the spotter on it and sure enough, there was a bear on this open side hill. According to google earth, it was 4.18 miles away from where I was sitting when I first glassed it. We watched it for a few minutes and decided that it was a bear worth going after. We had to get on the wheeler and get down the mountain. It took us almost 45 minutes to finally reach an area we could park the wheeler and start hiking to where we last seen the bear.
As we started our hike we both realized that we were going to have to cross a river and there was no bridge. We made our way to the river and tried to find the safest area to cross. The river was high from spring runoff and pretty chilly to say the least. After taking it slow and our legs getting numb we finally made it across. Now it was time to head straight up the mountain. We started to hike and realized that our boots were a few pounds heavier from what we remembered since they were full of water. All worth it if we could get on the bear.
We got within 700 yards of where we last seen the bear. He had either tucked into a very small patch of tall bushes or he made his way into the next canyon. We weren't sure, since we had been spending the last hour traveling rather than glassing. The wind was working in our favor to make our way around behind where we last seen him and hope to set up before he came out again.
Everything worked perfectly. We made our way to within 200 yards of where we suspected where the bear was and were set up. We sat there and waited, and waited, and waited some more. No movement and it was starting to get dark. It was now or never. We decided to continue our stalk towards the bushes. We were behind the area where we figured this bear was and actually worked to within 30 yards before we saw movement. Between us and the bushes walked out a deer. If that bear was still in the bushes, the deer was no more than 10 yards from him. We watched the deer and he was acting very suspicious, in the direction of the bushes. He continued to walk and then stop, constantly looking into the bushes. At this point, we both felt confident that the bear was still there. It was pretty funny when the deer finally caught a glimpse of us. Not only did he have a bear 10 yards away, but he had two hunters only 20 yards on his other side. Luckily he didn't spook and worked his way out.
We continued to work our way towards the bushes expecting at any moment this bear, if he was even there, would bust us. He didn't. We made it all the way to the bushes, within 10 yards of where we suspected lay a large black bear. In reaching this area we knew we were so close that we entered the bears fight or flight zone and it could get interesting. At that moment all heck broke loose. We heard a bunch of crashing luckily going out the other side. We ran around to the other side of the bushes to find a huge black bear 50 yards away wondering what the heck was getting so close to him. When he saw us he bolted. Cody fired the first shot when he was on a dead run at 150 yards. It hit him, but didn't slow him down much. Shot number two rang true and the bear started to slow down. Shot 3 hit him in the front shoulder and finally brought the bear to the ground.
We stood there and looked at each other and made comments like "did that really just happen." Needless to say it was one of my favorite hunts I've ever been on. I have a great respect for these animals. We both feel very fortunate to have been a part of such a great experience.
