Bearpaw Season - Fall 2015

[bearpaw]

Love the pict's, keep em coming. As well as the success stories, cool stuff.

The trail cam pics are a limited commodity as are our trail cams, we were planning on checking them all again just when several fires started and probably burned several of them. We can't even get in yet the areas are closed to access, but we're almost certain some of the cams burned!

We've still got several areas that are untouched and we've seen good animals so it should still be a great hunting season. 

[gaddy]

Well good luck to you, and your hunters.

[bearpaw]

Well good luck to you, and your hunters.

Thanks to everyone wishing us a good season. 

[wsmnut]

I always look forward to this thread!  Thanks for sharing the stories and pictures Dale.  We're glad you're keeping Ray busy

[actionshooter]

I always enjoy this thread.....keep the stories coming.

[Mark251]

Great post.  Thank you!

[mburrows]

Love the velvet buck, good start to the season!

[elkhunter1977]

Good luck this season Dale! 

[bracer40]

Some great looking Bulls! That herd of elk is pretty impressive too!

[bearpaw]

Yesterday afternoon we saw more sows and cubs, seems to be a lot of cubs this year after the mild winter, we even saw a sow with 4 cubs just before season opened. Daniel and his hunter saw one good bear but it was pretty far off and didn't hang around for a dirt nap.

Bearpaw Guide School
Joe and Keith are here from Vermont attending guide school, they both recently graduated from high school and used scholarships to partially fund their schooling. Rather than offer a summer guide school like most guide schools, we conduct our guide school just before and during hunting season so that our students are involved with the work, preparation, and scouting before the hunts start, the execution of the hunts, trophy care and meat handling of animals taken, talking with the guides and hunters so they learn to be comfortable around paying clients, and experiencing the guiding profession as our hunting season progresses. We usually accept only 1 or 2 students in camp which ensures the highest quality experience for everyone involved and certainly it's a once in a lifetime experience for the students.

Joe and Keith received all the paperwork in advance by email, they studied game laws, guiding laws, and land agency rules for 4 western states before arriving so that all the paperwork learning was done in advance before their arrival. Since arriving they have spent their time with Guide Brian helping in our preseason preparation and scouting, with guide Daniel and myself scouting for bear and deer, and now they are hunting bear. We also allow the students to hunt so they experience being guided by a guide too. I think it's important for them to experience guiding from a guide's perspective and from the guided hunter's perspective. If they continue on in the outfitting profession they can reflect back on all these experiences in the future.

During the first 2 days of bear season Joe has filled his bear tag and Keith has successfully stalked to within 20 yards of a coyote with Guide Ray. Today I sent the boys on their own to find locations I pointed out on the map, hopefully they see and get another bear in the process, they will take photos of where I sent them and I'll see how they did when they return for lunch.

Photos of Joe's bear and Keith's coyote:

[Jonathan_S]

I like the trail camera pictures  I've been seeing more elk calves up your way this year than I can remember in recent history.

[bearpaw]

Good luck this season Dale! 

Thanks again for all the best wishes by everyone. 

I always look forward to this thread!  Thanks for sharing the stories and pictures Dale.  We're glad you're keeping Ray busy

Thanks wsmnut, Ray is out trying to round up another bear right now! 

I like the trail camera pictures  I've been seeing more elk calves up your way this year than I can remember in recent history.

We've been old school and haven't used cams a lot. But all my hunters have commented about the cam photos I've been posting on the bearpaw facebook page, so we are going to ramp up the trail cam photos. We actually ramped it up already but pretty certain some of the cams burned before we could get them.

Elk and fawn production is good in areas that don't have too many predators. There are a few areas with so many cougar that we see cougars pretty often. This year in those areas we have noticed a real low fawn rate and in one historically excellent area the whole whitetail population is declining in spite of good winters. I have 3 guys in camp with cougar tags, I keep praying one of them will see one of those cougars! 

We have been seeing a lot of bear, especially yearlings and it seems like every sow must have 1 to 4 cubs, I can't help but wonder how many fawns all these bear are getting in the high bear density areas. Mother nature may make a correction this winter, there are tons of cubs and yearlings but food is pretty tough this fall after the dry summer. The bear we killed so far have had a fair amount of fat but I'm wondering if some bear are going to go into hibernation a little lean with the food shortage, if that happens and we get a hard winter then a good percentage of the bear might die during hibernation. Hard winters after lean summers can really reduce a bear population, it will be interesting to see what happens this winter. If it's a mild winter we will have an awful lot of bear next year! 


I heard from Brian a while ago, they were checking some sign and Brian spotted a bear that walked up at 40 yards, he whispered for his hunter to shoot but as he looked back realized his hunter had left the rifle in the truck. The bear hung around for a while, they finally were able to get the rifle and moved on the bear which got in the middle of the cows, so they couldn't shoot as the cows were running around trying to avoid the bear. Finally the bear was out of sight so they set up waiting to spot him again. I'm hoping for a 2nd chance at that bear, they think it's still close to them as it never ran off and just wandered through the cows and into the brush patch! 

Just got a text from one of the other guys, grouse down! 

[Duffer]

Man, Dale

You taught me that lesson! When bear hunting, you got a be ready at a moment's notice!!!

My young friend Allen & I are still planning on staying with you all that 1st week of muzzy deer. Looking forward to it!

Hope you are in town then 

[bearpaw]

Man, Dale

You taught me that lesson! When bear hunting, you got a be ready at a moment's notice!!!

My young friend Allen & I are still planning on staying with you all that 1st week of muzzy deer. Looking forward to it!

Hope you are in town then 

Hey Duffer good to hear from you, unfortunately I think I will be gone that week. We are seeing lots of deer, it's going to be a good hunt this year! 

[bearpaw]

One of my guides "Charlie" who had this week off so he could do some hunting for himself, who arrowed the whitetail on the first day, just stalked and arrowed a nice bear with his bow today. Congrats Charlie, nice going buddy! 

Now you have to go to work!