Washington Spring Bear Hunt - Part 1

[Timberstalker]

As some of you may know I thoroughly love hunting bears, specifically during the Spring. I've had the Spring bear tag a few times in the past and I've learned their habits, haunts and gained an overall understanding of where they'll be during the season. After the Spring Bear special permit results were out, I got a phone call from a good buddy Jordan. He indicated that him and his boy Taiton had been drawn together for Spring Bear. I was excited, as they were. I was even more excited when he asked if I would help them with their hunt.  Hell Yea was my response to his request. Fast forward to early May and we were glassing the open ridges. The first weekend would find Jordan and I alone in the mountains. Taiton had other commitments, however the season was far from the prime time. He wouldn't miss much on our first trip. We saw a real good black at first light, however the fog was on the bear's side on that day. We managed to scrub up one other bear on day 1, but he was small and would get a free pass. Our first trip allowed us to understand where the action was at; There were bears moving however it wasn't hot yet. We needed a couple more weeks of weather to get the grasses growing.  Additionally, there were some onions out but in a couple weeks they would be in full bloom and the Bears would be digging for sure.

Moving ahead to the 13th of May, found all three of us headed for the mountains. I was beyond excited to potentially be apart of a first kill. Most of you know these are by far the most cherished moments. As any good trip would start, we made it almost to camp and were welcomed with a flat tire on the camp trailer. We made short work of changing it and made it to camp just before dark. We ate a great dinner and solidified our plans for the morning. We all were ready to hunt; however Mother Nature was going to throw us a roadblock. The weather system headed for the mountains was less than enthusing; up to a 1/2" of rain predicted for Saturday with high winds. I knew that we would have to hunt and capitalize any breaks in the weather we may get.

At first light, we were 5 miles from the truck and were all ready to cover even more ground. It didn't take long for the first bear to appear. Taiton had spotted the bear on a small finger, but it turned out to be a wow with a cub. She got a free pass but we all welcomed the first sighting at only 30 minutes into our first morning. In the next 20 minutes we would see 2 more bears. One being a great chocolate that we couldn't close the deal on. We spent the next several hours glassing the country. We could feel the weather change headed our way and evidently so could the animals. What started as an epic morning, began to fizzle as the rain and wind started. We would be faced with roughly 4 hours of rain, wind and bearless ridges!  It wasn't until 4:30 that we would be offered a weather break and what a break it was!  Knowing that the bears would likely move around with a decent weather break, we all went to glassing. In a period of less than 10 minutes, we would find 5 bears. One was a damn good bear and the race was on to cover a little over a mile of ground to get within range of the bruin. All three of us were on the move. The bear was feeding on an open hillside, which would make the sneak less than ideal. We covered the country and before too long we were within 250 yards of the bear. He was unaware, by the lay of the land would not allow for a shot. The wind was fairly consistent so the decision was made to close the distance. Over the next 15 minutes, we would not only close the distance, we would get to a range that would be considered uncomfortable- 19 yards. There wasn't a normal heart rate amongst any of us. All 3 of us were 19 yards from a mature boar. This was without a doubt one of the greatest moments of my hunting career and I wasn't hunting and a round hadn't even been fired yet!  As we sat on the hillside and waited for the bear to lift its head, the thoughts ran through my head; will the wind change? Will he turn and be gone? In what seemed like an hour, the bear picked his head up and Taiton dropped the hammer!  Bear down!  Congratulations were exchanged and we all realized we had a long night ahead of us. We were 6.8 miles from the truck and light was fading fast. We went to work on processing the bear. Just as we finished loading the packs, the rain started. It stayed with us for the entire pack out. 41 degrees and pouring rain made each of us miserable. The camp trailer never looked so perfect.

Taiton was a champion through the entire hunt!  He took an awesome bear and filled a tag on a difficult hunt. It was a great hunt!

[ShaneTyTrey]

Awesome, great work Dan!

[Kit Carson]

Great story 

[Tschaefer72]

Great looking bear! Thanks for sharing your story of the hunt!

[BullPacs]

Love that spring bear hunting... Great job!

[Euro mount]

Thanks Danny it was a hunt Tait and I will never forget !

[stew pidasso]

Beautiful bear.

[Timberstalker]

Adding a few more pictures of the hunt.  Here is a small black colored bear we spotted on our first hunt....  he got the pass as he was a younger small boar.  He needs to change his ways though... He was napping in the wide open

[Timberstalker]

Here is a good basin we watched on our first hunt.  The weather was just about on the bears side at this time.

Amazing that it was 85 degrees in town during this trip and 36 where we were hunting.

[Timberstalker]

Here is a picture of the Sow and Cub Taiton spotted first thing in the morning on his hunt.  It was a long shot with my I-phone and I'm a bad photographer and even a worst videographer!  There's more to the videographer story that I will share later.

[elkrack]

That's awesome! Congrats to the hunter. 

[pashok23]

Congrats,well done 

[Ripper]

Nice job guys, great story. What unit were you in?

[bowhunterforever]

Beautiful bear and great story Congrats

[cbond3318]

Awesome work to all! Great write up Dan, I'll give you a shout when I draw I guess!