I drew a spring bear tag for 49 degrees north. First thing I did was hop onto my favorite forum and did a quick search. I gathered from helpful members on this sight that the best time to start hunting would be the first or second week of May. then I called my brother-in-law, who lives outside of Newport, to see if he would be available to help me find my first bear. We set up a hunting trip for the second weekend in May.
If not for the thousand plus dollars in fuel and the hundreds of miles hiked that I have invested into getting a bear over the past 4 years, I might have felt guilty for how easy this hunt became.
So I got to bil's place Thursday evening and he gave me some hunting options. We both wanted to check out the ski resort area, but when he saw what sorry shape I was in from a really nasty cold, he thought that we could start off easy and give me one more day of rest.
We woke up early on Friday, had coffee and hit the road by 4:15 am. We arrived at our destination shortly before 5:00am. game plan was to take a short, level ground hike to an area that we could do a lot of glassing and sitting. Game plan changed because we only walked a few hundred yards before we spotted a bear. The bear was only 100 yards from us but laying down and I didn't have a shot. the bear looked right at us, stood up and resumed eating. I took the shot and rolled the bear. We had the bear field dressed and loaded into the truck by 6:00.
We got the bear over to the neighbors house and boned, ground, and wrapped the meat. Cape was saved for our Mom who wants a bear mount for her front entry. We had all the meat in the freezer by 10:30am.
Then we spent the next couple of days building a front entry roof for my sister.
Sunday, our parents came over from Priest River and we had a great mother's day celebration.
A very special thanks to my lovely wife who sent me off with her blessing to hunt, guilt free, over mothers day weekend. I hadn't realised that the weekend we planned to hunt was mothers day until one week before the trip. Special thanks to also go to my sister and brother-in-law for hosting me, feeding me like a king, and finding me a bear.
Also, I would like to thank all the helpful members of this forum. I have learned a lot and am a better hunter because of this fine community.
I got back home today, Gig Harbor, and it sure is good to be back with my family. Now I gotta go cook my wife a gourmet dinner.
