Bearpaw Season - Fall 2013

[bearpaw]

Time to fire up my fall hunting topic. I'm more excited about this season than I have been for a few years. No special reason other than my crew is in great spirits and the new guides I'm hiring seem to fit in well. We've been out doing our last minute checks and we all have good hunts planned for in the morning, I can nearly smell fresh bear meat already. Here's a photo of one bear that we have staked out and with all the sign we are seeing I think it's going to be a good hunt.

I'd like to wish everyone who will be out hunting the labor day weekend good luck.

Cheers,
Dale, Tara, & the Bearpaw Crew   

[bearpaw]

This morning we all took our refresher first aid and cpr class. My first group of hunters all arrived by about 3 pm and we sighted guns in. As usual we found a couple guns that needed some special attention, tightened a couple scopes, etc, we are all good to go in the morning.

  

[Smossy]

This morning we all took our refresher first aid and cpr class. My first group of hunters all arrived by about 3 pm and we sighted guns in. As usual we found a couple guns that needed some special attention, tightened a couple scopes, etc, we are all good to go in the morning.

  

Goodluck to you and your group, Safe hunting and bring back a story!

[bowhunterforever]

Good luck to you, crew and your clients

[addicted2hunting]

good luck!

[Duffer]

Up at 2am. Wonderful breakfast ready for us at 3. Rolled out about 4. Beautiful 1st morning! 

[hrd2fnd]

I'm looking forward to reading about your clients successful hunts and the misses this year.   

[HUNTINCOUPLE]

That sure looks like a dandy bear! Good luck. Hope he's down for the count?

[bearpaw]

Thanks for all the comments. 

We are off to a slow start, many of our feed sources are all drying up and mostly gone now, many bear are not where they are usually located at this time and seem to be scattering widely. We missed a nice big blackie on the first day twice. Yesterday we killed a nice 6+ black bear and a limit of grouse. Headed back out hunting again today.

[BOWHUNTER45]

Nice one ...yeah it is the same over here Dale ...I noticed a lot of berries have died off too ...I could have been hunting a week ago but it worked out for us ... Love hunting those bear 

[bearmanric]

Should be great for my calling. Sitting here one the pass. They are blasting. Nice bear. Made a nice African Blackwood bear call for me.  Will be in Colville tomorrow. Rick

[bearpaw]

Should be great for my calling. Sitting here one the pass. They are blasting. Nice bear. Made a nice African Blackwood bear call for me.  Will be in Colville tomorrow. Rick

The bear we have spotted are all moving looking for food, should be good for you Rick. Cover lots of ground, I am finding tracks widely scattered and the bear are not all in the usual spots for this time of season.

I think the early spring set all the berry crops into growth early, then what didn't freeze off with that late heavy frost this spring has matured early, dried up, and fallen off. It seems like we are two weeks advance with the food sources disappearing like later in Sept most years. I am seeing a lot of rose hips and elder berries, those are normally October foods, it will be interesting to see when the bear start eating them this year. The bear we killed the other day was pretty lean, not much fat, less than half what he should have had. I am a bit worried that we will lose some bear this winter due to a lack of fat reserves.

Yesterday we finally saw a fair number of bear but all were out of range. I have a good feeling about today. I've got two of the properties posted with hunters in what I think are the best spots, lots of bear poo, we are homing in on more bear. 

[Machias]

Good luck!!

[Gringo31]

Always enjoy this thead.   

Good Luck and keep safe.

[bearpaw]

Yesterday we found the tracks of a huge boar and we have been hunting that area hoping to get that boar, his toes are wider than my thumbs, front foot is very wide. I'm thinking he's probably close to being a seven footer. My fingers are crossed for getting this bear.

One of the bear hunters is bow hunting, I think it's his first bow hunt and first bear hunt. He had a bear real close yesterday, this morning he was asking for some extra pistol cartridges, just in case.

Grouse hunting has been pretty good but the bear hunting has been tougher for us than usual, but finally we have another bear down. A 5 to 7 year old boar judging by the teeth. Guide Ray in his usual spirited form came up with a new "Bearpaw Pose"! ENJOY