San Juan Bear Success

Smokepole · Sep 7, 2015

LAST EDITED ON Sep-07-15 AT 11:26AM (MST)[p]I was finally able to connect on a good bear on the San Juan. Went there three different times and met up with Kurt McFarlane, Mason and Randy Pixler and their dogs. It was tough finding bears this fall. We ran one the first day until it started to rain hard. After that between the rain and heat we just could not get on any good ones. Then last Saturday Randy was able to see a track crossing the road. Even the dogs didn't hit on it. We knew it was made since midnight when the rain had let up again. We let the dogs out and after a few minutes they were on him. After a good hour of chasing they had him treed. We dropped down into the canyon and after navigating some ledges we were almost to the tree when the bear had had enough and he came down out of the tree and took off. The dogs were right behind him and up the canyon they went.

We hiked out of the canyon and back to the truck and drove to get as close as we could to again hike in to the treed bear. This time it was up the mountain. The bear this time was way high in the big pine, Randy and Kurt gathered up the dogs and let me know it was finally time to shoot. It took a couple more shots than I expected to bring the big boar out of the tree but, Kurt informed me that he was not going to climb it to get the bear out if it got hung up.

Thanks to Kurt, Mason and Randy for all your hard work and time you put in to help me get this great bear!!

Smokepole

nfh · Sep 7, 2015

Nice work on a great bear!!

oilcan · Sep 7, 2015

Nice looking Bear

kk · Sep 8, 2015

Hey Mike thanks for letting us tag along, we had a good time.

ForkWest · Sep 8, 2015

Wow, he was really up there wasn't he! Nice bear.

Elkfinder · Sep 8, 2015

Congrats on an awesome bear!!

SlimShedy · Sep 8, 2015

Congrats on a great bear. Those full height pics of the tree are awesome.

eldorado · Sep 10, 2015

Beautiful bear. Congrats.

Eldorado

Smokepole · Sep 19, 2015

Thanks everyone! KK - couldn't have done it without you and your dogs, again thanks!! It amazed me as to how high he climbed up that tree too. KK made sure I brought him down out of the tree with my shots because there would have been almost now way to climb up there and get him out of the tree if he'd wedged himself on a branch.

You want to have a great time, go chase bears with someone who has awesome dogs. BTO will do what it takes to get it done for you! Beautiful country too, plus all the elk, deer and turkey we seen made it all the more enjoyable.

This is the second big bear that Randy has helped us get. My daughter shot a monster a couple years ago with his help.

Smokepole

Gator · Sep 19, 2015

That's one fine looking bear. Happy to see another good one taken.

"I have found if you go the extra mile it's Never crowded".
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