Wenaha snow report

[Chesapeake]

Was up in the Wenaha getting a lay of the land and seeing what the weather and plant life was doing this weekend. We saw lots of deer, mule and whitetail, as well as lots of elk, some bulls still packing, a few sheep, but no bears. The plants look to have just started to grow up past 4000 foot or so. Nothing much up high was green quite yet. The road was still buried just below Godman. The road out to Teepee camp was buried. We hit first snow on the 64 just above Bluewood and were in and out of drifts/snow all the way up from there. The 64 beyond the 46 looked to be solid snow and the 46 had some drifts I wasn't willing to try.

Pictures worth a 1000 words......

These are from Godman looking south and shooting east to west.




These are just east of the 64/46 intersection looking south, shooting east to west.

[pd]

Great reporting! But no bears?  Keep at it!

[Timberstalker]

Go back in three weeks.  They will be out in full force.  I was up at 5400' this weekend and saw some digging of onions on the lower ridges.  Plants and such are further along than years passed, but I didn't see any bears (even after 9.8 miles on the GPS).

Good luck.  Hope you kill a dandy.

[Timberstalker]

Also, if you are limited on time, I would hunt the week of the 18th.  That's a magic time to be in the woods chasing spring bears.

[trophyhunt]

Thanks, my dad and I will be heading out in a week n a half!

[Chesapeake]

Yeah, I'll head back up in 2 or 3 weeks to try for real. This trip was to do some scouting as far as access points and to look around at the area. I already had the time off scheduled for a family camping trip on the turkey opener so just adjusted my camp location about 4 hours east when I drew the bear tag. I figured the snow levels would let me look around, but knew I was a bit early for bears.

This is the only sign we saw. Was on the pavement right around the last cabin on the 64 below Bluewood. (that's my finger for size reference )

[SilkOnTheDrySide]

I don't think it's too early for bears.


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[Chesapeake]

I don't think it's too early for bears.


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There are bears out and about, and no doubt a guy could find one if he looked hard enough. Even more so at the lower elevations. I didn't look at the Oregon side of the Wenaha, things might be more greened up down there. I saw on the other thread you boys were headed in on the 24th. I don't doubt that you'll get her done.

[fastdam]

Start where the farm country meets timber....then move up in elevation. A little.  When I hunted down there we didnt go very high before we started seeing bears

[Chesapeake]

I'll add a "tick report" for those that care.

We hosed all our cloths down with permethrin spray. We still each found a tick or two crawling on us and managed to introduce them to the RV and vehicles.

Cant say if that means anything about the performance of the spray or not. It clearly wasn't a 100% solution.

[SilkOnTheDrySide]

I'll take a tick or two over the 50+ each we had last year.


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[180-GRAIN]

I was up there opening day and seen 2 bear. They were not the right bear so passed them up. The next 4 days after that were really slow for bear with no sightings. Took the shotgun out and managed to blast a nice Tom.

[Chesapeake]

We did Thursday through Sunday, guess we got the slow days. We did a lot of glassing, but didn't get more than 500 yards from the truck and were easily distracted by elk, sheep, turkey, and any other critter that came into view. I wouldn't use our lack of sightings as an indicator of how a guy actually hunting bear would do.

A guy would have to consider the number of ticks we found on our short jaunts from the truck to glassing spots and gauge how many ticks a backpacker actually hiking might encounter. I've done the 50+ ticks crawling on you after you brush against a bush deal before. That's why I tried the permethrin. Once I find one of those things on me every little twinge and itch is inspected. Mental issue, I know.

 

[180-GRAIN]

Oh yeah bring your wolf spray! That were howling outside the tent for about an hour one night.

[Magnum_Willys]

Flew low over Three Forks Thursday, saw lots of everything but bear.  What was snow and brown Wednesday was starting to turn to green and flowers by Sunday.  Another week should be bear buffet out there.