49 Degree North for me "upated with pics page 3"

[Ripper]

Batteries are about dead and my phone charger broke. I'll be home on about 6 hours so It will be a while. I tried to post a pic pic but I need to resize.

[Machias]

Alright, congrats.

[jrebel]

Congrats....Can't wait for the story and pics.   

[GrampasGuns]

Congrats ripper!  Can't wait to see!

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

[bowhunterforever]

Congrats

[Typical8]

Congrats Ripper. 
Saw 2 in the Douglas. Just not what I was looking for.   

[Ripper]

Ok, sorry for the delay. Some of us have to work ya know.

[7mmfan]

It looks like you're just posing in the dark 

Good work filling the tag!

[Skyvalhunter]

That's a nice looking moose, or bear or maybe its a deer.

[Ripper]

Ok, so that was a tease. Lets get this story started. I hope I can make this as entertaining as some of our other writers in here. If you have been following from the beginning then you know I have had some hardships but it all came together this time. My sons birthday party was on Friday night so I didn't leave until Saturday afternoon. Time was running out with just 4 days left to hunt, so I put the peddle down. I checked into Benny's Coleville Inn at 10 pm and hit the sack asap. The alarm was set for 4 am and it got there quick. I got dressed and headed out the door by 4:30. It was already getting light so I filled up my thermos with coffee and hit the road. My plan was to hunt a local winter rec area since I got some intel that there was a lot of sign up there. Well for some reason I got distracted and went to see an area along the way that looked interesting on Google Earth. It turned out to be a mistake and I quickly made my way to area number 1. What a cool area it was, I will remember it for future use. Lot's of berry plants up there. if we get a good summer this area will feed a lot of animals. I put on a couple of miles looking the place over then headed to the other side of the hill. It didn't take long to figure out that there was a real problem bear or 2 working over the area. Tree's were in all phases of death from all of the peeling going on. It went on for a couple of miles, this is why they issue these tags.

[Ripper]

Oops, I posted 2 of the same pic, sorry about that. As you can see the area has been hit hard for years.

[Ripper]

 They were staying in a consistent pattern of 10-15 yards below the road.  I got out of the truck at the first sign of peeling and walked the road for a half a mile or so then went back and got the truck. I wasn't sure how my ankles would hold up so I didn't want to push it too much. I drove to where I turned around and set out for round 2. I quickly found a track in the mud which got my heart pounding since it had rained the night before.

[Ripper]

My ankles felt good so I walked all of the way to the end of the road. I sat down and drank some water, did some glassing then followed a trail into the timber. Lots of moose sign but no bear sign. I decided to head back to the truck, it was 1:30 in the afternoon and I wanted to check out another area across the main road that looked promising on Google Earth. I hadn't gone far when I heard some brush break up above me in the timber. I got off to the side of the road and took a knee. I pulled my fawn in distress call made by none other than Bearmanric of RR game calls. There's a plug for you Rick.  I gave a couple of soft bleats and more crunching. Then a little more crunching. I gave 3 more soft bleats and out steps a..................young bull moose! Yes, that's right, you can call in bull moose with a fawn in distress call! We stared at each other for a while about 40 yards a part then I got out my phone and snapped a pic or 2, then  he took off walking down the road. I put on my pack and followed him for a while but there is no way to keep up with them. I don't know how far he went before he bailed off but that was a super cool experience. Sorry for the poor quality cell phone pics.

[Ripper]

When I got back to my truck I decided to check out the area across the main road from where I was then maybe come back closer to dark. It was around 4:30 so I'd come back at 7 or so. I ate some lunch to refuel on my way over and got to the gate about 5:15. It was a nice walk in, nice and warm out, the only problem I could see is the wind was swirling bad. I kept going so I could really see the lay of the land, call it scout hunting. I really liked what I saw, there was a ton of semi open hillside to view across the canyon. This is the type of area that I would go to for any type of big game hunting. I was walking along glassing when I spotted 2 deer on the hillside. I decided to take a seat on a stump and take it all in. They were bucks, I could see some mass but they were to far away to count any points. I was watching them and scanning the hillside for bears when the deer suddenly stopped. they were looking ahead and slightly up hill then they turned and walked down into the tree's lining the creek at the bottom of the canyon. Not long after that I spotted a bear feeding up along the timber edge at the top of the canyon where the deer were looking. I couldn't see much, just it's back and occasionally it's head. Then directly across from me I see and color phase bear feeding. It was a beautiful cinnamon color. I pulled up my range finder but it was too far away. Mine only reads out to 440 yards. I decided that if it got within range I was going to take my first color phase bear. 

[Ripper]

About that time a big blackie walked out and started feeding near the brownie. It quickly became apparent that this was a black boar and a brown sow. He was substantially bigger than her so I decided I would take him if he got within range. I tried to call a member on here to see if they could give me a hand. I got a lot of PM's from people that said to call if I needed help with a pack out. Reception was poor so we couldn't communicate. I texted to see if that would work, it did but they couldn't help. I did this 2 more times and finally Jasnt said if got one down he would be there to help. By now the 2 bears has fed to within 350 yards. They were making their way down to the creek I'm sure. I let them keep coming until the boar got to this little landing on an over grown road. 264 yards. I had the Thompson resting on my shooting stix, my breathing was calm, bear fever had come and gone 10 minutes ago, crosshairs were on the shoulders, breath, squeeze, BOOM, dropped and rolled. Dead bear!