Bearpaw Season - Fall 2012

[Hornseeker]

Holy Crap Dale!! What a PITA!!! Wow. You lucked out on the four wheeler wreck man... Last year we had a guy get paralyzed at work when his fell on top of him....

be Careful!!!!!!!

[bearpaw]

Holy Crap Dale!! What a PITA!!! Wow. You lucked out on the four wheeler wreck man... Last year we had a guy get paralyzed at work when his fell on top of him....

be Careful!!!!!!!

I hear you, two years ago a good friend of mine rolled one getting a buck out on his own ranch and broke his back. He had to change jobs after he recovered. I got lucky. 

I missed landing on the trailer tongue by about 2 feet. 

[Duffer]

Aww Dale!

That is some string of bad luck 

Glad you're ok!

Note to all: This guy ain't no city-slicker  True grit here. After all this crap, he still gets the job done! 
Bailing wire, duct tape, whatever it takes! 

[Badge251]

Dag-Gum Dale! Talk about improvise, adapt, and overcome!
 
Sounds like you could teach MacGyver a thing or two! 



Happy you’re G2G, see you next year.

[bearpaw]

Dag-Gum Dale! Talk about improvise, adapt, and overcome!
 
Sounds like you could teach MacGyver a thing or two! 



Happy you’re G2G, see you next year.

I think I need to watch some of those old shows to sharpen my skills, does he teach how to avoid some of my mistakes? 

Badge251, we've had a great season so far, glad you were a part of it, I look forward to seeing you again next year.  I'm offereing a Christmas Special right now where you can book a hunt for $250 deposit.
Take Care, Dale

[bearpaw]

Big one down, story when we get out.

[wsmnut]

Dale,
      I think you've been hanging out with Ray too much.  Some of his bad vehicular luck has rubbed off! 
Really glad you are OK.

wsmnut

[hunting4sanity]

I about fell out of my chair trying to get a good look at it Dale, I hope you don't mind me rotating it.

[carpsniperg2]

There we go!!!!

[bearpaw]

We've been hunting cats a few days and it's been tough, we haven't had much good snow. It snowed a few days ago and we turned loose on two different toms, one race got mixed up with a female with kittens and we ended up with a kitten in the tree. The other race the same day we ended up with a another old barren female in the tree. We left both in the tree and figure we would find one of the toms the next day.

Unfortunately the weather turned to rain and it's been nothing but mud until we finally got a snow storm yesterday. It stormed off and on all day and night, this morning early I cut a nice tom track, it was filled with snow but was better than nothing. Anthony started walking the track a little after daylight and I went to check another road on the other side of the ridge to see if the cat had crossed again. I only made it in there about 200 yards and hit the tom tracks with far less snow. I went back around to where Anthony was and called up the mountain so he could come around to the other side.

This time the dogs were able to smell the track and Tucker opened fairly well. We put my two old dogs and a couple of Anthony's less experienced dogs on the track. It turned out the cat had circled all over the mountain on both sides of the canyon, we tried to help the dogs but found tracks circling over tracks, he was hungry and he was hunting hard for deer and elk. The dogs got mixed up on tracks several times, we got one inexperienced dog back, but my two old dogs Tucker and Chopper along with Anthony's pup Rowdy finally managed to figure out where the cat had gone and headed out of the drainage. We drove around to a location in the next darinage and headed in on foot. It was about two miles in and the dogs were treed about 150 yards from the top of the mountain. As we approached an elk barked at us from only about 150 yrds from the tree, it was as if he was telling us to "kill that cat". We made it to the tree, took pics, shot the cat, built a fire for everyone to keep warm while we skinned the cat, and then hussled off the mountain, we made it out right at dark time. The cat was not a real long cat but his teeth were yellowed and worn I figure he is about 7 or 8 years old.

Chris from Oklahoma is still in shock over the whole deal, he said he never realized how big these cats really are and can't believe how big these Idaho mountains are. 

We've got another hunter to find a cat for so I better get going.

[CementFinisher]

Awesome dale! sounds like a long fun race. good luck keep em coming

[jackelope]

Nice work.

[Machias]

Love seeing the dog photos, great looking cat in and out of the tree.

Careful with them atvs, sure glad you are ok.  I didn't know him but a good houndsmen in MT that alot of my hound friends were real close to, had a strap hanging off his atv, wrapped around the axle and flipped the atv.  He was pinned under the atv, neck snapped.  I believe when they found him they thought he was dead.  He lived for a while, but eventually passed away from the accident.  It was heartbreaking for alot of them.

[bearpaw]

Thanks for everyones concern about the ATV's. You know I have rolled them about 4 times now, all different types of circumstances, between that and a few other things my "9 lives" are running short so you can be assured I will be more careful loading and unloading ATV's in the future. 

On another topic, Tucker is 12 years old now, at any time now he could die. He went through a bad time about a month ago, he didn't hardly come out of his dog house for about a week or two. He has been feeling better so I told myself I was going to get him on another cougar chase. As usual his cold trailing abilities shined, it brought tears to my eyes petting him at the tree. He is pretty sore but seems to be recovering, at least he got to do again what he loves the most "chase cougar" and he got to teach another pup the art of cold trailing. He has been a great hound, we will miss him when he leaves us.

[Skyvalhunter]

Good luck and thanks for posting pics and story