Bearpaw Season - Fall 2012

[Badge251]

Looking good Dale, I'll see you guys in November!

[BOWHUNTER45]

Some happy hunters  with some nice deer 

[RadSav]

Anything new to report?

[bearpaw]

Looking good Dale, I'll see you guys in November!

I look forward to seeing you again, hopefully we'll sack up another good buck. 

[bearpaw]

Erlene stuck it out till the end looking for a good buck, unfortunately it wasn't in the cards for her to kill a big buck this year, on the last day she dropped one of the "meat" bucks she had been passing up. Congrats Erlene, that little guy will provide some good eating. 

[h20hunter]

Heck yah....she looks happy as any other hunter. I'd have an antler plaque made out of that guy.

[bearpaw]

That fella did look like the devil .... 

[bearpaw]

Next came the Youth/Senior hunts. We really enjoy these hunts and look forward to them each year. Fred was the first hunter and had his annual piece of meat within 5 minutes in the morning, 1 shot kill as he always does. On Day 2 first thing in the morning Levi and his dad were high fiving within a few minutes with another 1 shot kill. After I was finished cleaning up Levi's deer Iceman happened to stop by for a visit and they hadn't had much luck yet so we decided to go for a little hunt. Iceboy and Icegirl connected and that finished the day nicely. Next up was Fred #2, after a short morning hunt we had his annual freezer fair. My last youth hunter was Tyler. The deer proved to be a little more testy and it took us till about noon to get this last doe but it was a great time and their smiles tell the story. Congrats to all on a great youth/senior hunt, it was a blast for me too. 

[bearpaw]

Unfortunately we did not draw any quality elk tags in any state this year. But we did get hunters on 3 bulls during the general elk hunt, 2 bulls were passed, and we scored on this young 5x5 bull.

[bearpaw]

The day after the elk was taken this mule deer was taken at long range, nice shooting. 

[bearpaw]

Danny and his son Adrian from Australia traveled to Colorado for mule deer where they both took mule bucks. Then they traveled to Montana where they hunted the last 3 days with Bearpaw for whitetails.

We passed from 10 to 20 plus bucks per day but every tome we got onto a good 5x5 he would slip away one way or the other. Finally yesterday we lowered our standards slightly. In the morning I posted Danny with his muzzleloader watching a thickly timbered area. Within 30 minutes I heard the distinctive kerboom of a muzzy so I headed to see what had happened. Danny said a big buck had come down the trail but when he swung to shoot the buck seen him and took off, but a second smaller 4x4 was not quite as smart and paused for his last time. When the smoke cleared Danny said he could see the buck was hit by the way it ran, it only went about 80 yards leaving a huge blood trail and dropped, Danny had shot off the top of the heart with his 420 grain .54 Caliber Hornady HP projectile.

Now we could concentrate on Adrian. At about 4:30 pm I spotted two nice bucks bedded in an opening. The bucks saw us and bolted for the thick timber, this timne the big buck made the mistake of stopping and looking back. I said "he's the big one take him", at the crack of his 257 Wtby the buck dropped. Adrian and Danny were excited that they had both taken respectable bucks and Danny was ecstatic that he got his with his custom .54 caliber muzzy.

It was a bloody good time, we had a blast hunting with these two blokes .... 

[BOWHUNTER45]

Dang ...You guys are getting good at the photos ... Some nice animals and gotta like the old Flintlock 

[bearpaw]

We have been watching for a good mule buck that we have caught glimpses of twice. One of the hunters just smoked a good muledeer, the buck was hot after a doe, she was trying to avoid the buck and came to withing 130 yards, the buck was still hot on her heels. Zach put the smack on him and we are getting photos now. I will post some up ASAP.

On another note: We spotted a big 150's class 5x6 whitetail this morning that we had not seen before. We're going to be watching for him closely. 

[bearpaw]

Here's a photo of Zach's buck, headed to the barn to get him skinned now.

The rut is really switching on here, we have another hunter arriving today, should be another great hunt.

[Michelle_Nelson]

WOW.  That guy is a toad!