Bearpaw Season - Fall 2014

[elkoholic1]

 

[bearpaw]

Another nice buck taken the last week of November in Montana with Nick by young Brantley Ward from Pennsylvania. Congrats Brantley!


message received after trip

Dale,

Just wanted to say thanks again for the fantastic trip to Montana!  Having my Son be able to bag his biggest white tail in the snowy mountains of Montana was incredible.  I can’t say enough about Nick and what a part he played in making the trip perfect for both of us.  We look forward to booking a trip next year!

Michael Ward

[BOWHUNTER45]

NICE ! Some good looking deer 

[bearpaw]

A father "Craig" brought his son "Cole" hunting on the ranch in Montana, halfway through the day after seeing and passing numerous bucks Craig decided he wanted to hunt too. He purchased a license but waited for Cole to shoot a good one first. That evening Cole shot a nice buck and the next morning Craig shot a nice buck. Congrats to Cole and Craig, it was a pleasure meeting and hunting with you both, even though it was only a day and a half, we look forward to seeing you again next year.

[_TONY_]

 

[bearpaw]

I really enjoy any type of hunting but cougar hunting with the hounds is probably my favorite. It's finally that time of year, we've been cougar hunting in Idaho the last week. Conditions have not been very good, we had little or no snow down low where a lot of the cats like to cross and old crusted up snow up high that was so hard in some places that game was walking on top not making any tracks.

Each day I hunted a high mountain basin that has quite a few roads, this was probably the best snow in the area. I saw a few deer, moose, elk, and two different female cougar tracks plus a dead beaver the coyotes had caught, but no tom cougar. Brian hunted several lower elevation drainages, there was no snow in the bottoms and crusty snow up higher. Finally on the 5th morning of hunting Brian spotted some muddy tracks crossing some ice on the edge of the road in the bottom of one of the drainages. Upon closer examination he determined it was a cougar, but it was tough to tell if it was a male or female since all there was were a few blotches of mud from the toes because the cat had walked through the mud before it froze the night before.

We figured we had better try to catch this cat and see for sure what it was, Brian figured it was either a large female or young tom. Brian put the dogs on the track and began following them. The dogs weaved around through a big sage brush field with no snow, every now and then one would bark so he hoped they were doing the right thing. About half way through the chase Brian noticed a little blood every now and then in the tracks, he was thinking one of the dogs must have cut it's foot. The dogs worked their way up a long bare southern exposure slope and began moving the track faster. After an hour or so they got into some crusty snow up higher and that helped a lot, they began moving the track faster and it wasn't too long before they jumped the cat and treed him near the top of the ridge.

I drove the hunters as close as we could get and we set out on foot to meet Brian at the tree. The cat was treed about half way up a big fir tree. The first thing I noticed was the big head and knew it was a tom before verifying the black spot on his hind end. From the ground we could see his front legs were bloody looking. We found a good angle and shot the tom, he dropped out of the tree and hit the ground upright and running, I hollered "Don't Shoot" because it was somewhat towards the dogs, the cat was moving out pretty fast and when the angle changed I hollered "OK Shoot"! The hunters fired gain and dropped the cat as he sprang over a fallen log.

The hounds were going wild, we made our way to the cat and looked him over closely. It was a bigger cat than we had thought when Brian found the tracks, it had apparently made a kill or stolen a kill from another lion somewhere during the night, it had a full belly and had been in a serious fight. It's front arms had claw marks and deep bites with blood still oozing out some of the holes. The cat's head had been bitten pretty good too, there were holes in his head from the canine teeth of the other cat and one eye was handing out about two inches. Brian put the eye back in the eye socket for photos!

After lots of photos we got the cat off the mountain and took it to the taxidermist who began skinning it when we left. He called later and said the skull had been cracked pretty good from the bite of the other cat and the front arms were all chewed up worse than we had thought, he said the cat might have died from the wounds, of course that's hard to say, I've seen some amazing wounds that have healed on animals and the animal was doing fine after the wound healed.

At any rate, this was a really interesting hunt, the dogs did an amazing job, and we had some extra surprises along the way. I am still wondering if the other cat lived or died, most likely we'll never know. Congrats to Trey and Justin, two friends and business partners from Louisiana who both had a license and tag, both shot, but they had agreed before the hunt that they only wanted to kill one cat to put in their office. They got a great trophy and have an even better story to go with it!

(if you look closely you can see some of the scratches and wounds on the left eye, head, and legs)

[Gringo31]

Cool story Dale!

Thx for sharing

[bearpaw]

The weather did not co-operate much later in December. One hunt was cancelled. On the next hunt I started a big tom which went down into lower country without much snow, somewhere the tom got crossed up with a female, I pulled the dogs off the female tracks. We had another tom cross into private land and had to pull the dogs off the track. So that was an unsuccessful week before xmas.

I am cow elk hunting this week, 3 friends and I hunted the last 3 days. I killed the first elk at 610 yards, I like the challenge of long range shooting. We killed another elk the same day at about 400 yards. Yesterday my other two friends killed elk at about 275 yards.

Now I'm waiting for my next cow elk hunters. We also have more cougar hunters coming in January. 

Here are two of the four elk that we've taken so far.

[kentrek]

Good shooting 

[bugs n bones]

Great cat story dale

[Ripper]

Are there any more cow elk hunts available in Utah?

[bearpaw]

Are there any more cow elk hunts available in Utah?

Sorry, the elk tags have been sold out for months. You should plan a hunt before June 1 for next fall/winter in order to get a tag for Utah.

[bearpaw]

This is a fork horn buck killed by wolves in southern Idaho this winter. At first I thought it was a coyote kill but I followed the drag marks back to where the deer was first killed and found that two wolves had ran down and killed the deer. Two other wolves were shot by ranchers in the same area because they were in close proximity to cattle. Maybe the locals will get these wolves before they breed and get a pack started?

[bearpaw]

This was a promising young buck that met his fate with a female cougar in southern Idaho. We find numerous cougar kills every winter while hunting. I find it interesting to follow the path and see where animals were killed, sometimes it's amazing how far a cat will drag their kill, especially if they have kittens. I remember finding where a cat had killed a full grown cow elk in Utah, I followed the drag marks for nearly a half mile. The 80-85 pound female (estimated size from tracks) had quite a collection of bones mostly within a 30 yard circle where she had drug numerous elk back for her kittens to feed on. There was a big rock pile the kittens were living in, I tried to find them in the rocks to take pictures but they were hidden too well.

Sorry, we didn't have a camera when we found the buck. (FYI - It's legal to pick up antlers in Idaho so this is a more recent photo.)

[bearpaw]

We found this beaver that was killed by coyotes. We also find beavers killed by cougar, last year I posted photos of 1 or 2 beaver that cougar had killed. If this was a cougar kill more of the bones would have been eaten, cougar are far more efficient at cleaning up a kill.