Bearpaw Season - Spring 2018

[bearpaw]

I guess Brian got closer and the bear broke and ran again, somewhere it got crossed up with a young boar that the dogs treed instead of the big bear? The lady hunter had a pretty good hike in and liked the cinnamon color so she shot it and is going to go after another second bear since it was only the first day of her hunt. It's not the big one I hoped they would get but she's happy so it's not all bad. They didn't get back until 7:30 pm, everyone was whipped.

I don't have a photo of this last bear yet but here's a photo of another nice bear taken last week.

[bearpaw]

Another nice big boar recently taken with the hounds. It's been a great year so far!

[redi]

Great bear and awesome coat. Congrats you and the hunter.

[Timberstalker]

Nice bear, there.
 

[Machias]

VERY nice bear, congrats!!!

[bearpaw]

IDAHO
The hunters filled their tags last week, three more bear down, unfortunately none were big bear, but I'm glad they had good success! 

Started a new hunt yesterday, two bear passed yesterday, one was small so that was good to pass, but one bear was a pretty big one, I hope that don't come back to bite that hunter. Another pretty decent bear was missed by another hunter this morning at close range. We are off to a good start on this hunt as far as finding bear for the hunters, Brian and Anthony are doing a fantastic job. Everyone is relaxing now, my fingers are crossed for a fresh gutpile on this evening's hunt! 

[bearpaw]

MONTANA
Guide Bobby has been prairie dog shooting for the last week, it's not quite as good this year, the plague got some of the dogs, but still there was probably never more than 2 minutes at a time all day without shooting, so that's still pretty good.

Some of you who hunted with us 2004 to 2007 might remember Bobby 6'6" (former military) who guided for us 2004 to 2007 and again last year, he is now my partner in Montana and in charge of the Montana hunts. He's a great guy I'm proud to call him my partner and he's based right there with good connections to big landowners.

TROPHY BULL ELK 2019
Bobby found us a gem of a ranch that has bulls all over the place. He spent a few days out there recently and counted almost 80 bulls. The property has hay fields that really bring in the elk. This ranch offers archery elk hunting for 300 to 360+ bulls! Archery is a 30% draw, Rifle tags are about 10% odds to draw, but that's a lot better than most other trophy bull elk draws. Start applying and accumulating points for a real chance at dropping a big bull in the next few years.

COW ELK 2018 or 2019
Lots of elk, we've still got room for more cow elk hunters this fall and tags will be available over the counter later this summer.

ANTELOPE 2019
The draw has passed for this year, archery draw odds have been 100%, rifle is 61% in this unit, better than most of the state due to all the private land. If you want to hunt antelope in 2019 get in touch with me.

MULE DEER or WHITETAIL
This ranch has both species, plus we have another excellent mule deer ranch. The draw has passed for 2018, contact me for 2019 hunts. We limit our deer hunts to only 9 mule deer bucks for both ranches and 5 whitetail, to ensure quality.

COMBOS
We can combo most any of the above species if desired, plus there are prairie dogs and bear.

[bearpaw]

Prairie Dog Hunting
We are done for the year, we want to save the remaining dogs to breed so we have good hunting next year. I know some of this years hunters plan to return, if you want to reserve a hunt for next year please let me know asap.

[bearpaw]

Bear Hunting
Brian called, he said that yesterday morning another hunter missed another big bear, but on the evening hunt they got two bear, one hunter dropped an average sized boar and another hunter hit a big boar. The big bear was hit hard but took off, Brian got "the wonder dog" Ruby and brought her to the spot where the bear was hit, she took off on the blood trail, for a human its tough to follow a bear blood trail because bear usually don't bleed much, but Ruby is a specialist at blood tracking and makes it happen. That little dog is just amazing, she found the big wounded bear even though other bear were in the area and she could have easily gotten mixed up by, but she found and bayed up the big bear which was 10 or 15 times bigger than her until the hunters got close. The bear saw the hunters as they approached and took off, this happened several times and some shots were fired but missed the moving bear, they figured Ruby tracked and bayed the bear for about a mile now, finally they saw the bear again, it was bayed up behind a big rock, they saw his head once so they snuck around the backside, they barely got there and started to sneak around the rock to shoot and the bear came around the rock to run off again, they nailed him at an arms length distance, dropped the bear in it's tracks, they said the whole chase was pretty western, especially the final seconds! LOL The big bear measured 6'3", another great bear, another notch in Ruby's collar!

We really don't know why one ear stands and one don't, now and then she gets the other ear to lift, but most of the time it's one up and one down! 

[pianoman9701]

One question about the dog: does she take her love to town or...? And, where're the bear pics???

[bearpaw]

LOL, Ruby gives her love freely to anyone who will look at her! 

Just got a few photos from Anthony. This is the average sized boar killed yesterday, hunter dropped him with one shot, great shooting.

[bearpaw]

Speaking of love, the love bears...

[bearpaw]

Here's a dandy they've been trying to get...

[bearpaw]

Here's another critter, same location, not open now, we'll look for him during the fall hunt when season opens...

[bearpaw]

If you look at the sky in those last couple photos, they are daytime photos, the camera is just going bad.