Soon and very soon

[Duffer]

 

Really looking forward to hunting with Dale, Tara & The Boys over at Bearpaw again in a couple weeks 

I had an awesome time last year. I can't wait!

Got my 300WM all tuned up at the range last Thursday. Been hitting the gym regularly all year so I'm about as 'tuned up' as I can be also (for my age!)   

Updates to follow 

[bowhunterforever]

Good luck on your hunt

[kevinlisa06]

Good luck on your hunt should be fun!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Duffer]

Headed east in the morning. 

I'll spend Saturday restocking feeders and pull the camera cards on my own property (which has no bears) and then head up to Dale's for the night.

Sunday will be gettin ready and maybe some scouting and formulating of plans

Monday morning we'll get on 'em!

Good luck all    be safe out there

[Duffer]

What a day! Absolutely pissin at home when I left but 7 smooth hours to get here. Jumped a group of turkeys at the turn in. Pulled my chips and took supplies to refill my deer feeders to find that a bear has tore down one of my feeders!
Looked thru chips and sneaky bugger did it at night and the camera never even got him.
Then bucks! Big bucks! Big for my property anyway! !!
Pics after I get back.
oh yeah... I'm sitting waiting for dale to get home and a doe walks down the driveway right behind my truck!
I stopped at big-R and they had waaaayyyyyy more ammo than cabelas plus the holster I was looking for.
Man i love it over here

[Duffer]

Bear down! 

pics when I get home

[deerhunter_98520]

Awesome! Let's get a story also 

[Watimberghost]

Right on!

[Duffer]

Pics n story for sure
still limited service plus only phone

[Fowlweather25]

Congrats duffer!!

[Duffer]

So, I pulled out all loaded up about 4am Saturday morn. And its raining. of course. Like the kid who gets pressured into pissing on an electric fence over and over, I decided to take HWY-2. Duh. How many times will I think, "its friggin oh-dark-30. There won't be any traffic to hold me up!" I'm such an idiot. It took no time at all before I'm stuck behind some putt putt car. Here's an interesting psychology question. What is it that makes these fools REFUSE to pull off in the slow rig turnouts so that the mile of cars being held up can just get on by? and then when we finally hit one of the few actual 2 lane passing sections, he speeds up. Alot. I had to push my cummins to 85 in order to get past this pest.

but then I get out of the rain. The sun breaks again. and it's beautiful. Soooo many different environments on this 7 hour trip. As much as I hate Liberal Seattle politics I cannot ever argue that Washington doesn't in fact have the most amazing, varied terrains!
So I drive on

and on

and I see a sign. This HAS got to be good news!


and I drive on


and finally Bearpaws!


continued.....

[Duffer]

Now since I'm a day early I had planned on pulling the game camera cards on my own piece of ground over there. fresh batteries. refill feeders. I've never had a bear pic on my property. I still don't, but as I'm humping another bag of sweet feed up the hill I notice something strange about one of my feeders. Its a 30gal barrel with one of those solar/battery/programmable dispenser wheels..... and its gone! The barrel is hanging there but its missing something vital on the bottom. I'm thinking THIEVES! so I panic check all my cameras and they are all there. Nothing else has been messed with. so I get closer and there on the ground is my dispenser. The barrel is chained to the tree but its been spun around the trunk too! BEAR! Dang

note the claw marks


so some may ask, "why dont I just hunt my own ground?" Biggest reason? Game feeders! I feed for deer. As much as I want this bear to go away I'm not staking out my feeders in order to do that.

We'll see if he comes back. Somehow my camera missed him too. Sneaky bugger.

Side note: that was my 1st bear encounter on my own property but I also finally got A BUNCH of nice buck pics! really happy about that. Pics later in game cam thread

[Duffer]

Then gun fun. I brought my troubled 300WM plus this 270 Weatherby Mag I had traded for but never shot that I thought Dale might want to buy. I had spend that last couple weeks at the range deciding that the 300WM had scope mount probs and fixing that.... to find out at Dales while checking sight-ins that it was actually the scope that's screwed up. Bugger

So a couple shots from the weatherby and its a tack driver! It's now my favorite rifle!!! 

I'm gonna cheat here and let Dale tell the story of the hunt and just post some pics:

http://hunting-washington.com/smf/index.php/topic,159909.msg2112863/boardseen.html#new




me...

and Dale...

Dale doing all the musclin'

and all 6 foot 1 inches of him 

[bowhunterforever]

Nice bear, Congrats