Bearpaw Season - Fall 2017

[bearpaw]

One of the two moose that I was on this year had wolf worms too Dale.  This one came out of the Black tail drainage.  The game department says they are safe to eat.   What are your thoughts on that?

Anything is safe to eat including wolf itself if you cook it well done! 

[WA hunter14]

What did the hide measure on that tom?

[bearpaw]

Yesterday we started a tom and female at daylight. The tracks were hot, the dogs struck in the dog box, we found a couple foot prints in a little snow but started the chase on mostly bare ground and was on bare ground quite often during the day. We're not sure how long the cats stayed together but the chase lasted until after 2:00 in the afternoon. We were treed or bayed at least a dozen times and the cat(s) would jump and run again. About 2:00 pm Brian made it to one of the trees before the cat jumped but the hunter didn't get a shot, the cat headed back down the mountain toward Chuck and I, they came within a couple hundred yards and bayed up, I could tell by the dog barking the cat was bayed on the ground, then the cat broke and ran 100 to 200 yards and went up a tree about 100 yards from the road where we started the chase on. This time the hunter made it to the tree and shot the cat as it was getting ready to jump again. We ended up with the female rather than the tom but Scott was happy, he had already killed a tom with us on a past hunt. Here's a photo of Scott with the cat and a photo of Ruby and one of the hounds. Sorry about the low quality pics, sometimes cell phone pics aren't very good.

[bearpaw]

What did the hide measure on that tom?

We didn't measure that one but it probably skinned out somewhere around 8 1/2ish feet.

[bearpaw]

We are tagged out and waiting for our next hunters. The boys were out scouting around this morning and found 4 cats, 2 were toms, one is a really good tom! They are trying to get his approximate whereabouts pinned down for the next hunt. @Rainier10

[Rainier10]

We are tagged out and waiting for our next hunters. The boys were out scouting around this morning and found 4 cats, 2 were toms, one is a really good tom! They are trying to get his approximate whereabouts pinned down for the next hunt. @Rainier10

  I am sooooooo looking forward to this hunt.

[wheels]

some nice cats there

[WA hunter14]

Right on sounds like a good time, you sure you don't want to hire another lion guide  ?

[Jpmiller]

What's your average success rate on the lion hunts?

[bearpaw]

What's your average success rate on the lion hunts?

My goal is to be 100% every year, we run 70% to 100% most years, last year we were 100% shooting opportunity, 13 for 13. Over the last few years we have greatly expanded our hunt areas, we now have multiple hunt areas in northern and southern Idaho, if snow isn't good in one area we can usually hunt a different area, this year we are just getting started, 2 cats for 2 hunters so far. I still have some openings this winter if you want to go cougar hunting, wolf can also be taken if seen, and during bobcat season bobcat might also be taken. You are welcome to contact me directly for specific questions?

[pianoman9701]

Looks like you have a lot of happy customers, Dale.

[Machias]

We are tagged out and waiting for our next hunters. The boys were out scouting around this morning and found 4 cats, 2 were toms, one is a really good tom! They are trying to get his approximate whereabouts pinned down for the next hunt. @Rainier10

  I am sooooooo looking forward to this hunt.

Good luck!!!!!

[Timberstalker]

We are tagged out and waiting for our next hunters. The boys were out scouting around this morning and found 4 cats, 2 were toms, one is a really good tom! They are trying to get his approximate whereabouts pinned down for the next hunt. @Rainier10

  I am sooooooo looking forward to this hunt.

Nice. When is this occurring?

[Britt-dog]

Really enjoy following this thread.

I am always disappointed to hear about missed opportunities or worse, simply because people refuse to practice with, or zero their weapon.

Do you think it would work for you to have a policy making it mandatory your hunters check their zero after arriving at camp?

[bearpaw]

We had a great time hunting with Rainier10 and his two buddies. There are four of us cougar guides, we also had one other hunter in camp "Scott" who is also a great guy. A lot of cats had moved between hunts, before Rainier10 got here and after the last hunt ended. We hunted hard and after about three slow days we started finding fresh cougar tracks, even before we got fresh snow, unfortunately we simply had terrible luck, I can only think of one other hunt through the years where we had worse luck and that hunter eventually killed a nice tom with me in Idaho, but he had a lot of days into that cougar.

The days sort of run together in my memory but the guides and hunters tried walking at least three big toms and couldn't gain on the tracks, the cats were moving covering country, one of those a really big tom marked 26 spots that they saw as they followed that cat before having to give up and come out. We ran one tom that got crossed up with another tom track and ended up with the guides and some of the guys walking in to recover the mixed up hounds off the mumbo jumbo of tracks. My hunter and I turned loose on a cat that we thought we had treed at the bottom of the mountain by the river. One of the guides was down listening from across the river, he waded the river and hiked 500 yards up the mountain to find the dog hung up in rock bluffs. It was bare ground, he searched the area well but no cat, so he waded the river again and brought out the hound.

On the last evening of the hunt my hunter and I had gone to the top of a mountain, we turned around and headed back down, I told him that it was late in the day to be turning loose but if we see fresh tracks in our recent tire tracks we'll run it. On the way out we found a female with a kitten, the tracks couldn't be an hour old but wouldn't you know, we couldn't go after them obviously. We drove a couple miles and I said it again "if we were lucky enough to find fresh tracks in our tire tracks I think there's still time to run a cat", we didn't go another hundred yards and there they were, fresh cougar tracks, looked like a young tom! Time was short, we had less than two hours to chase the cat, catch the cat, get to it and kill it. You cannot legally hunt cougar after regular shooting hours. I called two of the other guides who said they would come and help, they themselves had been on an all day hike on a big tom that they had to pull off of because it still had snow in it's tracks so they were still at least 12 to 15 hours behind it so they had to quit and come out, but they came to help us.

I prepped the hounds as quickly as possible, the dogs were crazy excited, I think they could smell the cat before I took them to the tracks. Immediately they blew up upon sniffing the first track, I cut them loose, they struggled to get up the super steep cutbank and the hillside was one of the steepest around but they were going and barking loudly. I said "that cat can't be far"! In about 20 minutes we were treed, we drove a short distance and could hear the dogs well, probably a couple hundred yards up the cliff like hillside. My hunter headed in, I was gathering additional gear, the two younger guides arrived and one of them immediately headed up with the other two hunters. They all got to the tree about the same time but couldn't find the cat. They searched all the trees and I told the other guide to make a big circle around the outside of all the tracks to find where the cat might have left. He did it and nothing! I told him to follow the back track of the hounds, sure enough he found the cougar tracks where it had jumped out and back tracked on the old tracks. Looking back I think the cat jumped when the dogs first treed it before they were locked in on the tree, otherwise the dogs would have seen it jump. these cats have learned all kinds of tricks in order to survive in wolf country.

Twice Daniel leashed up the dogs, took them to the tracks and both times they went back to the tree, they just knew the cat had been in that tree. Daniel was going to leash them up and follow the tracks with the dogs on leash for a few hundred yards and then turn them loose again. By now it was starting to darken, I looked at my phone clock, there just wasn't time to run the cat, get to it, and kill it within legal shooting hours. It was a tough thing to do knowing we could quickly catch the cat again, but to stay within the law I had to call off the hunt. 

Fortunately earlier that last day one of the guides had caught a cat for Scott, it jumped three times before he could shoot, but they finally got it in the fourth tree. So we only got one cat and that sets our success this season back to 50%. Hopefully Rainier10 and buddies can come back again later in the season for a few days so we can try to fill their tags.

The next morning the guys left, I went on top of a mountain to get cell service and take care of a few things. Coming out I got stuck pretty bad, I shoveled a bunch but was working the 4x4 pretty hard trying to get out and blew up my front drive line cv joint. uuugggghhhh  I had to shovel snow and chip ice for nearly two hours but was able to get the truck out and off the mountain in about 15 inches of snow in two wheel drive. I felt very lucky to get out without having to leave the truck in the middle of this huge snow storm. I was afraid it might get snowed in so bad I would need snow removal equipment to get it out. It's supposed to dump 3 to 4 feet of snow up high. After getting out I went to town and found out all the parts parts are not available in the whole northwest, they are back ordered already and a week and a half out on delivery.

Fortunately I was able to order a whole new front driveline from rockauto.com and it should be here in three days. I could use a suburban to hunt but right now we are waiting for the storm to stop, it's dumping snow so fast nothing is moving and by morning any tracks that were made are covered by too much snow anyway.

Here's a couple photos of Scott's cat.