Author Topic: Bearpaw Season - Spring 2016 (Read 54197 times)

Motorjosh · « **Reply #105 on:** June 03, 2016, 10:40:34 AM »

That's a awesome bear!!

annie_oakley · « **Reply #106 on:** June 05, 2016, 07:13:08 AM »

This hunt was so much fun and I finally was able to notch my first bear tag. Thanks for all the hospitality Dale.

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steen · « **Reply #107 on:** June 05, 2016, 09:25:59 AM »

Quote from: bearpaw on May 23, 2016, 07:56:40 PM

We found several fresh peels, but this was probably the freshest peel, I think we jumped the bear off the peel, he had just started down low and hadn't finished scraping the cambium layer with his teeth, there was fresh poo next to the tree that hadn't discolored (darkened). You can see the horizontal marks at the bottom of the closeup tree photo where the bear ripped of the bark with his paw before going up and down vertical with his teeth to scrape off the sweet inner cambium layer. The lack of many horizontal marks tells me it's very easy for a bear to rip the bark off. We decided to see why the bear like this stuff so much. Blaine scraped some cambium off the tree and we all tried it. It tasted like a sweet pine tree, not real good but better than I expected and probably better than anything else in the woods right now. If it's all you could find I think you could survive on it for a while. (At least until you developed too much turpentine in your system!)
Thanks for posting the pictures and the info on the cambium. I have never read anything on it before. It was very interesting!

bearpaw · « **Reply #108 on:** June 05, 2016, 09:55:31 AM »

Quote from: steen on June 05, 2016, 09:25:59 AM

Quote from: bearpaw on May 23, 2016, 07:56:40 PM
We found several fresh peels, but this was probably the freshest peel, I think we jumped the bear off the peel, he had just started down low and hadn't finished scraping the cambium layer with his teeth, there was fresh poo next to the tree that hadn't discolored (darkened). You can see the horizontal marks at the bottom of the closeup tree photo where the bear ripped of the bark with his paw before going up and down vertical with his teeth to scrape off the sweet inner cambium layer. The lack of many horizontal marks tells me it's very easy for a bear to rip the bark off. We decided to see why the bear like this stuff so much. Blaine scraped some cambium off the tree and we all tried it. It tasted like a sweet pine tree, not real good but better than I expected and probably better than anything else in the woods right now. If it's all you could find I think you could survive on it for a while. (At least until you developed too much turpentine in your system!)
Thanks for posting the pictures and the info on the cambium. I have never read anything on it before. It was very interesting!

It's pretty interesting looking over those peels, some of them were peeled up to 7+ feet. I had never seen so many peels in one area, there are literally hundreds of trees peeled, mostly larch from 6" to 10" diameter. There were several sizes of poo so I'm sure there's more than the bear we killed peeling trees in that area. I've been told that cubs will learn from a sow, those cubs grow up and peel, their cubs learn to peel, and so forth, this is learned and continues with each generation of bear, they'll all likely peel trees. Generally it's a bigger problem on the westside, that's the most aggressive peeling I've ever seen anywhere in NE WA. It's usually far more random in the NE and not so concentrated.

bearpaw · « **Reply #109 on:** June 05, 2016, 09:57:58 AM »

Quote from: annie_oakley on June 05, 2016, 07:13:08 AM

This hunt was so much fun and I finally was able to notch my first bear tag. Thanks for all the hospitality Dale.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

annie_oakley it was our pleasure having you here, I'm so glad that you got such a beautiful bear.

bearpaw · « **Reply #110 on:** June 05, 2016, 10:05:56 AM »

Over in Idaho Brian's second hunter killed a nice color phase bear the first day of his hunt. They had a great chase with the hounds and Mike from Wisconsin notched his first bear tag. I'll post photos when I get them. Brian has our next Idaho bear hunter out hunting with the hounds now, I'm hoping to get over there and join the hunt if they don't finish before I can get there.

bearpaw · « **Reply #111 on:** June 07, 2016, 08:14:05 PM »

Photo of Mike from Wisconsin with his color phase the first morning of his hunt.

bearpaw · « **Reply #112 on:** June 07, 2016, 08:19:01 PM »

This is a little sow that give the dogs a heck of a run on a wet morning, didn't think they were going to catch it, then after all those miles she treed right by a road, too bad it was a little sow that we left in the tree, the pack out doesn't get any easier than that.

bearpaw · « **Reply #113 on:** June 07, 2016, 08:24:20 PM »

Our last hunter killed his bear yesterday morning with the hounds, he only wanted to hunt hounds. Will post photos as soon as I get them. Put out a trailcam at a bait, here are a couple bear that are hitting that bait. We are out of hunters for now, so nobody to hunt them, I guess they will keep getting bigger.