Bearpaw Season - Fall 2014

[bearpaw]

It's that time of the year, time for the fall Bearpaw topic.

We started our fall bear season today with a bang, actually numerous bangs! 13 bear spotted, several bear out of range so no shot taken, 2 bear missed, 3 bear wounded, 1 bear killed, 1 bear we hope we can find in the morning. It was an exciting day of hunting, lots of bear seen and plenty of action.

All hunters but 1 late arrival shot good on paper yesterday before we started the hunt and the late arrival shot good on paper today at lunch. There's something about putting a bear in front of a guy who has never killed one before that tends to destroy accuracy, it just seems to suffer.

Today the man who was spot on was duffer, a long time member of the forum, a great guy I've got to know and can call a friend.

We have another TV show in camp and I got them set up watching an orchard before daylight. Duffer and I headed for another property and checked a couple orchards and then went for a hike. We weren't out of sight of the truck and Duffer spotted a fresh bear track, then we saw where bear had been working the berry brush. Soon we had worked our way to one of my favorite spots and we sat down to watch.

We were only about 30 minutes into the hunt and we both had heard a squirrel running around in the bushes below and then suddenly a loud snap, pretty soon another loud snap! Awesome, we were on high alert, it had to be a bear to make that much noise. I glassed and scanned repeatedly, Duffer got up and moved a few feet to a better spot and before he could sit down I suddenly spotted a nice black obviously a boar bear standing out in the open. I frantically waved at Duffer and he immediately spotted the bear, dropped down to shoot, got onto the bear and whammo, bear rolling head over heals downhill, what a great sight.

The bear came to rest out of sight in some thick brush and we sat and watched for a few minutes in which we heard two moans, we both figured that was it. I went for the truck to drive into the bottom of the canyon and Duffer sat and watched from where we had shot. I made my way up the bottom of the canyon, pretty soon I was in the right spot, Duffer gave me a couple directions and I found our black beast. I had told Duffer it was a nice boar, but it actually was a little bigger than I had initially thought. Duffer came down and we sat and savored the moment for a few minutes as we notched his tag.

We took photos, gutted, and finally got the bear drug out and loaded and headed back to the house, in the meantime I got a text that the other hunter had seen a nice black bear but didn't get a shot. He would continue to watch while we took care of Duffer's bear. While we were skinning and cleaning up the bear the other hunter shot a nice cinnamon bear at about 100 yards, so we headed up to help look. Unfortunately there were only a few scattered drops of blood that played out as the bear headed up over the hill, we searched for a couple hours or so and had to finally give up. From the description of the shot and the lack of good blood I'm pretty sure it was a flesh wound, that bear will probably heal up and another hunter in the future may get a chance at him. This evening we spotted a smaller black but didn't get him either. It was lively at the dinner table tonight as everyone swapped bear stories.

Congrats to Duffer, his bear skinned out to an easy 6'1", the 6 to 8 year old boar was quite skinny, should have weighed 250-260 but probably was about 30 pounds lighter than that as you can see in the photos. A great shot by a great guy, I love it when a plan comes together!

It's bedtime, I will talk more bear stories soon.

[K357**]

  congrats to the hunter

[carpsniperg2]

Bears sure can get the heart going. Best of luck in the search tomorrow and congrats to duffer!

[Duffer]

Broken record duffer here by phone and I'll say it again:
I have never met a nicer group of folks and am honored to call them friends as well.
And these guys bust their buts to get us on animals! We were up at 3 am for a huge breakfast and some didn't return with their guides until 9pm ish. So we didn't hit our bunks until 10pm. Then dale updates posts and such, Tara is cleaning up dinner and the guides are organizing for the next days 3 am wake-up! !!! All season long!!! And they get up earlier than we do the next the morn! Just the lack of sleep would put me in the ground

I'll post more pics when I get back home down in my thread. Kinda getting misty eyed here.

oh yeah.... I get to fix my signature! No more "haven't killed a big game animal since the '80s"

[Jacque]

Congrats!

[BOWHUNTER45]

Hey that was a good story now ..Congrats to Duffer..Just love fall . Let the hunts begin 

[Gringo31]

 

[combs338]

 

[h20hunter]

Well done. That bear sure is a dandy.

[Ripper]

Nice bear Duffer. Good job Dale and the gang. 

[GotMyTag]

Beautiful bear, better story.  You have made lots of us jealous.  Great Job.

[HUNTINCOUPLE]

Real nice bear! Can't wait to here Duffers side of the story?

[wsmnut]

Dale,
     Thanks!  I always look forward to this thread.
Tell Ray to get busy!

[hrd2fnd]

I'm looking forward to this years thread. Best of luck to the hunters

[bowhunterforever]

I'm looking forward to this years thread. Best of luck to the hunters