First bear ever - BIG boar down!

[yakimanoob]

 

[jbeaumont21]

tag

[b0bbyg]

tagging

[LDennis24]

 

[O. hemionus]

Holy smokes that is a big paw.

Looking forward to the story.  At the request of multiple members you are hereby banned for 5 days, enjoy the time out and be sure to post that story and photos when the ban expires on Monday.

That ought to teach him a lesson. 

So....if I got back from camp early, does that mean you still want me to wait until Monday?   

[Scheindogg]

Lets see it now!!!

[O. hemionus]

No, no. Gotta wait for Rainier10 to lift the ban first....sorry 

[Duckslayer89]

Tag

[Jpmiller]

Lol come forth with the photos and story

[BreezyBear]

There should be a time limit

[O. hemionus]

Ok ok! Sorry - I started to write everything up but then got reprimanded (rightly so) at home for not unpacking first before I hopped on here to see everyone's successes from the first half of deer season, and then got caught making dinner...I'll write this up in spurts while I finish making dinner.

[O. hemionus]

One of the things that made this hunt so memorable was that this was the first time my dad and I had hunted together since I moved to Idaho in 2011 and then subsequently moved down to Alabama. I only returned to Washington this past winter. We had always been hunting partners, and my dad had not hunted since I left. With all my seasonal jobs and schooling out of the way (I think), I decided I could afford to take a full week off from my new permanent job for deer season. We both got off work early on the 13th, met at our former deer camp near Cle Elum, promptly set up camp, and began hunting early the next morning. However, after two subsequent days of hard hunting, we had only seen one doe and very little deer sign in general. My younger brother was planning on joining us Tuesday morning when he got off his work shift, so my dad and I decided to make a day trip to one of our other hunting areas closer to Ellensburg, hoping that we could find some fresh and ample deer sign for my brother. Despite putting in several years as a weekend warrior, he had yet to harvest an animal of any sort. We were really hoping this was his year to get a buck.

[O. hemionus]

We hunted hard all morning and into the afternoon. We had a good setup at daybreak, where a doe and her yearling funneled down a draw no more than 30 yards from us. The arrowleaf balsamroot covering the hillsides was extremely noisy (usually to our disadvantage) and gave them away as they crept down the draw, and we thought we heard another deer following their same route a few minutes later, but nothing came of it. By mid-afternoon, we had finished glassing and working the set of big ridges and draw between them that we had started on earlier in the morning, and continued hiking the ridges and draws to the east. We eventually stopped at a small outcropping that has been a favorite glassing spot of ours in the past and spent roughly an hour scanning the opposite hillside and the open slopes multiple ridges over. Finding nothing, our planned route took us to the next subsequent ridge.

[O. hemionus]

AND...to be continued. Will have to finish tomorrow. I know I didn't get much written down tonight. Sorry to leave you hanging all week and then draw this out so long - wasn't my intention!

[lokidog]