Bearpaw Season - Fall 2012

[bearpaw]

Well it saddens me to post that the bear that was hit the other day got away. But they tracked it straight down into a canyon and then right up over the top of a ridge. Just before the bear reached the top of the ridge the blood played out and they lost the tracks. It was no more than a 150 yard shot, but apparently he missed the vitals, a brown one too! That's two lost bear now! 

We've seen a few more bear and we managed to sack up another bear. Scott was here last year and shot a bear with Brian, this year he killed another bear with Brian. It had to be shot more than once, then it ran way up high in a big old tree and then suddenly fell out stone dead, all the way to the ground. Wow, that would have made some good video. 

Congrats Scott! 

[h20hunter]

Congrats to the hunter....nice looking coat on that bear.

[Ripper]

Dang, that sucks, 2 lost bear! Well Dale I hope you get some hunters who are better shot's! I know things happen, but it still sucks!

[bearpaw]

Dang, that sucks, 2 lost bear! Well Dale I hope you get some hunters who are better shot's! I know things happen, but it still sucks!

Definitely sucks, in both cases the bear went uphill and quit bleeding, so I am hoping they had flesh wounds and heal up. Just goes to show that a person can never practice shooting too much.

New hunter in camp today, we just finished a long session of range practice as he was a bit green at shooting. Was missing the paper completely, we have him shooting 2 inch groups now. The guy is pretty new to hunting and these new rifles have such stiff triggers and long travel that they require a lot of skill to stay on target. I bet with a good trigger job the same hunter and gun would shoot 1 inch groups.

Had a bear spotted 30 minutes or so ago in a guys yard, I sent a hunter over to the homesite and he's posted on the property watching for the bear now, supposed to be a nice sized bear, my fingers are crossed for more pictures.

[Ripper]

Good luck I hope he nails it.

[bearpaw]

Bad Luck Buck
I have a bow hunter who was sitting on stand last night and just before dark he arrowed a 4x4 whitetail, the arrow passed through and had good blood, but the buck disappeared into the brush so Ray let him sit for a while to die. It was dark when Ray started looking and in an hour he could only find two drops of blood about 60 yards apart and then nothing, so he let the buck go overnight.

At first light several of us were on location looking for the buck. A little more blood was found here and there but it was very tough tracking, soon a little more blood was found, but the guys couldn't track very fast. After about 4 hours they jumped something real close in the brush, thinking it was the deer that jumped up they moved forward quickly to try and see it, there they found the buck laying dead. Amazingly it was all too clear what had happened.

This buck had a seriously unlucky day, after being arrowed he had ran quite a ways and into the thick brush and either ran into a bear or had bedded down and a bear tracked him down while he was still alive. But it was obvious the bear killed the deer by biting it in the back and lower neck, the wounds showed heavy bruising and bleeding. Then the bear had ripped open and nearly gutted the deer and then ate nearly about half the deer. We were able to recover the two rear legs, part of the back straps and part of the neck. We figure that when approaching the deer it was the bear that was heard running off. Judging by the tracks and fresh scat, the bear is probably about 170 to 200 pounds.

You can bet we will be watching for this bear.   

Here's a couple photos of what was recovered from the buck.

[BOWHUNTER45]

Crazy .... Nice buck !

[bearpaw]

We've got two more dead bear this morning and more stories to tell, should have pics and stories rounded up soon. 

Here is a bear that Bill passed this morning, Bill has killed 5 bear with us in prior seasons so this year he is waiting for a bruiser, now he has passed 7 bear during his hunt this year and even though this is his last day to hunt, he let this bear go. 

We need more hunters! 

[bearpaw]

Here's the pic of the buck that the bear killed....

[bearpaw]

We shot a bear yesterday that we think killed this buck in a heavy brushy draw on private land that should not have had any bow hunters hunting. This is a different deer 15 miles from where the other bear killed the other buck. To our knowledge there was nothing wrong with this deer. The bear had been living near an apple tree and heavy berry brush, it appears this deer stumbled onto the bear in this heavy brush.

[KFhunter]

bear taking a healthy adult buck?

wow

[bearpaw]

We had been seeing a good bear on two different properties including one we nicknamed "wobble butt" and another big bear on a small property with limited habitat. The first group of hunters missed "wobble butt" and they didn't like the smaller place so we gave those two places a rest. DeWayne and Mike was in our second group of hunters and had been hunting another private ranch without success for 2 days so we moved them to hunt the two properties we had rested.

On the 3rd day, DeWayne who was at the small property spotted a good bear and made an 80 yard shot, the bear went tumbling head over heels into the canyon, roaring and growling (not moaning) all the way into the bottom. Anthony was sitting with Mike at the other property watching for "wobble butt" when the phone rang. DeWayne said he hit a big bear and it was growling and roaring in the canyon below so Anthony told him to hold tight and give him a chance to die while he left Mike and headed to meet DeWayne. Anthony was there in about an hour and they started tracking. They immediately found a dead buck that the bear had been eating on right below where DeWayne had shot and it appeared that the bear had killed the buck when it wandered through the brush where the bear had been living in the canyon.

While tracking, Anthony just happened to spot the bear crossing a field about 1/4 mile away so they hurried down. The bear was laying down every few steps and then would get up and go another few steps then lay down again. He was pissed off and roaring and growling a lot, more than any black bear we've ever seen do that before. The bear made it through the field and into the next canyon and crossed the creek. The guys said when the bear went through the creek that water must have got into the shoulder wound because the bear was roaring again, then it headed up the other sidehill and was about to cross into the neighboring property when DeWayne was finally able to get in the finishing shots. The bear growled and roared until he expired, none of us have ever seen a black bear that pissed off before.

When we skinned the bear we found a broadhead that was grissled up in the shoulder. I checked his teeth and would guess him to be about 15 years old, he was nearly a gummer. I think this bear had been around.

DeWayne also decided that he wanted the dead buck's head even if he had to burn his archery deer tag so he could have the skull cleaned to go with his bear mount. I confirmed this with the local warden and DeWayne will get to keep the head since he is willing to tag it. (FYI - Apparently you can't keep antlers that are on a skull unless it's been tagged.)

Congrat's DeWayne.... 

[bearpaw]

"Wobble Butt" Escapes Again
While Anthony was helping DeWayne with his bear, things got interesting for Mike who was still at the other ranch watching for "wobble butt". He kept hearing a bear working the area in front of him. He listened, he watched, and he waited, pretty soon out pops a black color bear about 170 yards away. Mike pulls down on the bear and drops him, the bear rolls a short distance and starts moaning, pretty soon it stopped and Mike repositioned himself a little and was able to see his bear laying there dead. A couple minutes go by and then he spotted another bear, then another, then a sow and cubs, and then more bear. All in all there were 8 other bear (including 2 cubs) that moved around the area before Anthony got back to help. Mike said one of the bear was a toad, we figured that was "wobble but" getting away again. 

Anthony took care of Mike's bear and they headed back to the home place with two nice blackies. Job well done! 

[Gringo31]

Love this thread and look forward to it every year. 

What a start!  Can't believe how many deer kills you are running across up there....Keep after em Dale!

[bearpaw]

I am a little worried, I heard about a farmer who has found numerous dead deer on his place, deer in the field at night have gone from 42 to about 10. I mentioned it to the game warden and we are going to try and get a tissue sample for the biologist to check out. Hope it's not blue tongue.