Bearpaw Season - Fall 2018

[bearpaw]

It's amazing how time flies, it seems like just a few weeks ago we were finishing up a steller spring bear and turkey season, now fall is here and we've started hunting on our new ranch lease in Montana that has killer elk hunting. Unfortunately we acquired the ranch too late to get many applicants for bull tags this year, we only had a few guys apply and they didn't draw bulls. We will have cow elk hunters and some deer hunters and a couple antelope hunters. This year the bulls get a free pass to get bigger for next year.

Our first cow hunter nailed a nice cow on the second morning. During the hunt they spotted exactly 70 bulls with 5 point or larger racks, six bulls approx 340 or larger, two approx 360-370, and one bull probably 370-380. The 2nd photo is a couple young bulls that were in one of the fields early last night.

We have a busy season lined up with a pretty steady flow of hunters until February for all sorts of game, it's going to be another fun fall and winter.

[mburrows]

Where's the new ranch at Dale? Congrats on the great start to the fall!

[bearpaw]

Where's the new ranch at Dale? Congrats on the great start to the fall!

The new ranch is near Lewistown, dead center in the state. The elk herd is over objective due to all the private land and there are lots of bulls due to bulls being a draw. The archery hunts are what we really want to sell, the draw rate for archery is about 30% nonresidents and 100% residents, the bulls are just crazy thick on this place, it will be amazing elk hunting! If anyone has a few elk points in MT and wants an amazing hunt, give me a call!

This evening the guys (cow elk hunting) were on a herd of over 100 cows, they cut the distance to 150 yards and getting ready to shoot but the storm front moved in and the elk disappeared in fog and rain. It's supposed to snow too, so it may be tough hunting for a couple days because getting around will be severely limited until the roads dry out some.

[bearpaw]

I've still got a handful of mule deer ranch hunts available in Utah this year. When I first got the ranch back in the 90's it had 30 tags a year allocated, there weren't enough 4x4 bucks the first couple years so we cut the tags back to 20 and the hunting got better. About 5 or so years ago we cut the tags back to only 10. Obviously I have to chage more for the hunts, but the hunting is so much better, everyone sees mature bucks now and at the end of season we leave more big bucks standing than what we kill. I'm really anxious to hunt that place this year, it seems to be better almost every year. There is another variable, a huge fire destroyed about 40,000 acres along the Nevada border not far from the ranch, we might have gotten a real influx of deer, if they didn't die from the smoke we might have one heck of a season. It's like throwing a coin in the air, I'm calling heads! 

[bearpaw]

Due to a lack of fall bear hunters we made the decision to not do fall bear hunts in Idaho this year so on the opener my son Brian was not busy with any hunters. One of the neighbors was out deer hunting that morning and ran into a big bear on the trail that he arrowed. The bear ran off and he couldn't find any blood, he was telling another neighbor who advised him to get in touch with my son to see if Ruby could find the bear. It was several hours later but Ruby was able to save the day and the neighbor notched his tag on this nice bear which green scored 19 5/16, it will easily put him in P&Y. Congrats Neighbor!

I really don't understand why WA will not allow blood trailing dogs, Ruby has found so many animals for us in Idaho, it's amazing how much game can be saved from wasting.

[Machias]

Nice!!!!

[bearpaw]

Our first bull of the year, Daniel called this 6x6 bull in and Bill sank his arrow where it counts, he hit both lungs, they waited a bit and tracked a short distance and actually heard the bull tip over just before finding him, great going Daniel and Bill! 

[Machias]

Beautiful bull!!

[bearpaw]

Our Idaho spring hunt is so good that most of our bear hunters have switched to doing Idaho spring hunts, in fact we are nearly booked full for next spring already. We did have three bear hunters on the opener of WA fall bear and two notched their bear tags, here's Ezra with his 6 foot boar taken with Daniel and guide Ray and hunter Ray from Missouri with a nice blackie a little under 6 feet. Our other hunter passed sows/cubs and I have to respect him for doing the right thing, he simply didn't have an opportunity at a good lone bear. Congrats guys, good going on all accounts! 

[bearpaw]

Beautiful bull!!

   thanks Fred!

[bearpaw]

Here's a dandy bull called in to 60 yards, that was right on the edge of effective range for the hunter but he did his best and capitalized by tagging this fantastic bull. The bull green scored 355 exactly. Believe it or not, we've actually seen bulls bigger than this guy this week that we are working on. Big bulls in areas that get a fair amount of hunting pressure are so darned smart it's really a challenge to outsmart them, they are truly survivors. We've still got a couple tricks up our sleeve, I'm fairly hopeful for more big bull photos before season ends, we have a hunter in a good position for one of those big bulls that we spotted this morning as I type this message.

[bearpaw]

Here's another 6x6 taken by Colton from California with guide Nick. They called this bull, about 15 cows, and another 6x6 bull in close, The other 6x6 came by Colton's dad but he just wasn't quite able to get a shot, then this 6x6 strolled right out in the open right in front of Colton, he found the sweet spot, in the video the bull stopped again to look back at what just stung him, meanwhile Nick keeps calling trying to get 6x6 number two to give dad another chance, but that didn't quite happen, that's ok, we'll take a single 6x6 any day of the week. Congrats Colton, you had an awesome experience! Great shot my friend!

[bearpaw]

We have had some great shooting this year, we did wound a bull this morning that hasn't died yet, I'm beginning to think he will heal up and grow older. Guide Daniel called him in, one hunter missed the bull and then his partner hit the bull. They waited and waited and then took up the trail, not much blood but Daniel was able to track the footprints and they jumped the bull but didn't get a shot. They waited again and then tracked again, same thing, they jumped the bull and didn't get a shot. So we had to back off and give him a lot more time, we are going to look again first thing in the morning. The only time we find blood is when he beds down, I'm thinking he's not hit hard enough and will probably heal up, but we are going to give it our best shot again tomorrow morning.

Cougar
We've been seeing lots of cougar tracks and we had a cougar only 6 or 8 feet behind a hunter who was watching a waterhole. The hunter heard a noise and started to turn to look then the growling started, she froze, she was afraid to turn and afraid to move, in fact it scared her so bad she was done hunting the rest of the time she was here. The guide picked her up and she was still frozen, shaking, and in tears. As she told her story at the dinner table tears came to her eyes and it was clear she really was traumatized. She stayed in camp the next day, then went along on the hunt the last day but wouldn't get out of the truck. They are a retired couple and her next hunt is in Kansas and I hope she can overcome this new fear. She is a very nice lady and her husband is such a nice guy, but he is really concerned about getting her back in the game. I was at a loss on how to get her back hunting while she was here, it was clear it scared her nearly to death, literally, I think she is going to need time. On the bright side, with all the cougar tracks we are seeing I'm sure we are up for another awesome winter cougar season.

Mule Deer
We missed out on getting a dandy 150ish buck at only 14 yards, unfortunately the disabled bow hunter had his crossbow slung over his shoulder, when he tried to get the bow off, the buck ran. Weve seen other deer but unable to get within range of most, then we missed two more mule deer. Finally, last night Marvin arrowed this fork horn mule deer just before dark, he's never gotten a mule deer and figured he could check another animal off his list and put some quality meat in the freezer. They were late finding the buck and getting him packed out, but he's in the cooler now! Congrats Marvin, he's not big but anything with a bow is a trophy in my book, good shooting!

[RB]

Nice animals, like the fuzz on that fork buck pretty cool! 

[Gringo31]

Congrats on your early success... love this thread.

Ruby does it again!   

[bearpaw]

Two more cougar spotted tonight at a waterhole, but just a little too late to do anything about it, hunter had to let them walk. One hunter passed two cows. The guy who shot the fork buck had a nice mature buck right in front of him but didn't have a second deer tag. Another very large buck (they estimated 6" outside the ears on both sides) came within 60 yards but either heard the hunter or caught his scent and then bolted too quickly. The big bull we were after didn't show, gotta try something different in the morning. Also have to check on the wounded bull again in the morning if we can find him. We did kill one cow tonight, so more good table fare.

I forgot to mention earlier, when the guys were tracking the wounded bull they found this shed antler, if you look close you will see drops of blood from the wounded bull on the shed antler, what are the odds of that happening?

[JakeLand]

Good job !! I think you need to have a “Ruby “ picture thread for all her successes  seriously !!!

[bearpaw]

At the time we first got Ruby we didn't want her coming in heat so we had her spayed, now we wished we would have never spayed her, we had no idea how valuable she would become to our hunting operation. We are looking for a couple more pups to train like we've trained her so that we have them available for tracking at all my Idaho camps. The amount of game saved is just amazing, in fact several animals every year.

I sure wished I could take the whole Washington Wildlife Commission on one of these outings where she finds the animal that no hunter would ever find. Hundreds of animals could be recovered and saved every year in WA if we were allowed to have blood tracking dogs. Every year i get calls from all over the state from hunters needing help but we can't help in WA.

I attached some photos of a few other animals Ruby has found for us. There are more but this gives you the idea. Many times bear don't bleed much, that's where she really is amazing, but she has found all sorts of wounded game for us including deer and elk. There are plenty of breeds that can be trained to blood trail, but Ruby has a special personality that seems to make half the hunters want to take her home. 

We chased the cougar on old dry snow and the hounds had lost it. We were walking in to help the dogs and Ruby was with us, we noticed she disappeared, next thing we realized she was chasing something, thought maybe it was a rabbit, we didn't pay much attention. Got to the hounds and tried helping them out but couldn't find the cougar tracks due to lack of snow and being an older track. Someone heard Ruby barking down over the hill so one of us went to check what she was doing, she had the cougar treed. We all went to her, as we often do we left her loose when we shot the cat, unfortunately the hunter didn't kill the cat, Ruby chased after and bayed it up in some thick stuff, I'll never forget seeing that cougar grab her, she looked like a rag doll in the cougar's mouth. We killed the cat, Ruby was losing quite a bit of blood and i wasn't sure she would live but she did and ever since that day I've had a great respect for that fearless little dog.

Ruby The Wonder Dog
(elite blood tracker)

[bearpaw]

Turkeys, Turkeys, and more Turkeys
The last two years we've seen good hatches and we have hundreds of birds on the properties we hunt in WA. We've been slaying the turkeys, the last hunter arrived to hunt yesterday from Texas, he is hunting turkeys in every state, by 9am he was filled out. He is headed to Idaho today to get another state checked off his bucket list. Can't wait for next spring, it's going to be killer!

Bear
We are done with bear for the year, had an awesome year of bear hunting. We are almost fully booked for next spring, the booming economy and confidence in our economy has hunters planning hunts further in advance than in over a decade. If anyone is wanting to hunt bear next spring call me asap before we are fully booked!

Cougar
We have numerous hunts planned but I still have a few cougar hunts available. We've seen numerous cougar while we've been archery hunting this month including a couple good ones, and some landowners want me to thin out some cats causing problems, so it should be an awesome year for cats if we get normal snow conditions.

Elk
No more elk photos for now, we lost a bull and a cow that were wounded, unfortunately I didn't have Ruby here where I'm at to find the wounded animals and we simply lost the blood trails on both animals. I'm hoping they heal but you never know. We hope to find a couple more pups to train and help with these lost blood trail situations in the future, unfortunately Ruby can't be everywhere. We have some rifle elk hunts scheduled so will hopefully have more photos. Elk tags are sold out now and we are pretty much booked up in elk season anyway. Lots of hunters are already booking their hunts for next fall.

Mule Deer Hunts
We are gearing up for mule deer hunts that start soon. I've got a couple of my best Idaho and Utah mule deer hunts still available (I have tags available) later in Oct and early Nov if anyone is interested.

Here's photos of some previous bucks taken on the specific mule deer hunts I'm referring to...

[Skyvalhunter]

 

[mburrows]

Dang!

[Jpmiller]

What's the price on your idaho and Utah hunts? I was just talking to a family member who was saying he wanted to try and get after a mature muley.

[bearpaw]

The general season hunts are $2950 guided 2x1 or $3950 guided 1x1. The Utah Private Ranch CWMU hunts and the Idaho Outfitter Allocation Controlled Hunts are $4950 guided 2x1 or $5950 guided 1x1. Lodging and meals are included, additional costs include sales tax and license fees.

[KFhunter]

Those are some nice bucks your staff is helping clients put on the ground 

[bearpaw]

I've been leasing the Utah ranch for nearly 20 years, when we first got the lease there were 30 tags allocated for that ranch but we didn't get many mature bucks, we reduced it to 20 tags and everyone started getting chances at 3x3 or better bucks. About 5 years ago we reduced it to 10 tags per year and the quality has greatly improved, most hunters get chances at quality bucks now. The downside is that I have to charge more for the hunts, but reducing the number of hunts is the only way to improve the quality.

[bearpaw]

Daniel had a muzzy deer hunter this morning in Washington, the hunter just wanted a meat deer and nailed a doe right after daylight, Daniel had the deer skinned and cleaned up within 2 hours of daylight, the guy left and will be home this afternoon. If anyone is looking for a last minute hunt in Washington we still have some fall turkey, muzzy deer, antlerless youth deer, and rifle buck hunts available.

[csaaphill]

  All those deer and Elk daaaaang 

[Craig]

Is this your Montana elk ranch in unit 411? Are rifle hunts sold out for this year?

[CaNINE]

Love the pics of Ruby posing with her trophies!

[bearpaw]

We've been busy, like usual not everyone has been successful at notching their tag on all our hunts, but it's been pretty good, we've had some fun hunts and still right in the middle of it all so I don't have time to type up many stories but thought I would post a couple photos and quick stories.

First Buck For 14 Year Old
On the second day of his Utah mule deer hunt Jack nailed this big 3x3 buck, his first deer ever. He is having a European mount done, it should look great, congrats jack!

[bearpaw]

Utah Long Range Buck
On the first morning of this hunt we passed a 24ish inch 4x4 at about 350 yards, the buck was a decent buck, pretty tall, but not real heavy, we almost shot and then decided to wait and look at more deer, he was in a bachelor group with several other smaller bucks. We figured we could always come back to this buck if we didn't find what we really wanted. As it turns out the 24" buck was one of the better bucks we saw that day out of 38 bucks and about 130 total deer that we spotted. The 2nd morning we ended up taking a smaller 4x4 with eye guards, it was a long range shot that was just too enticing. We had all the time in the world to set up, Brian dialed in and squeezed the trigger and the buck went down. He was very happy with the 700 yard shot even though it wasn't the biggest buck we saw. Sometimes the experience is more important than the size of the trophy.

[bearpaw]

The Last Chance Bull
This young lady's nickname is Chance and this is the story of her "Last Chance Bull". Guide Nick had Chance on numerous bulls, they were holding out for something special, something 300"+, and we had been seeing a few bulls in her hunt area that were in the 330ish to 360ish range, but it's amazing how tough it can be to find certain bulls again when you want to end their career. Finally a big 300-320ish bull came into close range, at only about 25 yards Chance pulled the trigger of her 270 and the bull whirled. The hunters waited a short bit and then started tracking. There was good blood every yard and it appeared the bullet had exited, there was blood coming out both sides of the elk. After a bit they started finding globs of coagulated blood like the bull was hucking it up to breath. After several hundred yards it was completely dark and the bull was still going strong so they decided to back off until morning.

The next morning they took up the trail again, they followed the bull for several hundred yards further and then the blood started to diminish. The bull had been going downhill, now he was going uphill, they continued tracking until dark, by now it was getting hard to follow the bull, in fact in some places the bull had quit bleeding and they were finding only tracks. They backed off at dark and figured on taking up the trail again in the morning. It had not rained in this area since late spring but mother nature decided it was time to rain, so it rained and it rained hard, it rained so hard it washed away any blood and all the tracks, they were not able to track the bull any further the next day. In desperation they spent hours searching the area in case the bull had died, finally they simply had to give up due to not knowing which direction to continue searching.

Having to give up on the bull was a pretty sobering event, but there really wasn't another option. So the decision was made to start hunting again, they continued to hunt the same area in hopes of finding birds, but that never happened. After a few more days of hunting the hunters were beginning to run out of time, something needed to happen and happen real soon, finally the next morning the bulls were on fire again and the hunters nearly closed the deal on another big bull. Later in the day a pretty decent 5x6 came into close range, Chance decided to pull the trigger again, the bull whirled again, they waited a bit again, and then took up tracking again, but this time the bull only went a short distance and dropped. This wasn't one of the biggest bulls in the area by any means but this probably was Chance's "Last Chance Bull" and she made it happen. Congrats to this young lady who stuck in there through the good, the bad, and the ugly, and was finally able to find success in the end.

[bearpaw]

Washington Turkey & Deer
We've had some good Washington hunts too, we've had more fall turkey hunters than ever before, hunters from Washington and hunters from the deep south and hunters from points in between, all have taken birds, most have filled out on the first or second day they hunted. Yesterday, opening day of rifle deer season, we had three buck hunters and one young doe hunter, all four hunters notched their tags yesterday, the first day of the hunt. We've still got openings scattered through the season, if anyone is looking for a good deer hunt, we've got more bucks than hunters on our properties, that's something a little different than hunting crowded public land in Washington. Here's one of the whitetails taken yesterday, congrats to John on an excellent shot!

[bearpaw]

Another bull arrowed, this nice 5x5 bull was taken in our Idaho hunt area, awesome job!

[bearpaw]

Huntingmoon
Every year or two we get a couple who plan a huntingmoon (a hunting honeymoon) with us. This year Lindsey and Matt planned an Idaho huntingmoon but Matt said he wanted to focus on getting Lindsey a nice buck and that he didn't want a deer tag, he wanted Lindsey to be the focus, one of his wedding gifts to her. We had a big storm come through the night before season opened and it snowed 14 inches in the high country. Guide Nick, Linsey and Matt jumped in one of the Vikings and headed out well before daylight to get into the area Nick wanted to hunt. Not too long after daylight Nick located a nice buck, this area can produce some really good bucks so they discussed whether to shoot this buck or not, they decided to take the buck and Lindsey put the hammer down on this dandy buck, one shot, buck down, great going Lindsey. Unfortunately deer tags are sold out so Matt was unable to get a tag now but Nick took them sight seeing throughout the area and trout fishing, they had a great time. What a beautiful couple you are, it was our pleasure meeting you and helping to make lifetime memories for you both.

[Machias]

Awesome deer, what a great Huntingmoon!

[bowhunterforever]

Nice critters 

[csaaphill]

 
Daaang Nice bucks and bulls 

[Wacenturion]

 

[bearpaw]

More photos to share, season has been busy, the economy is strong, people have confidence and are hunting more than in a long time. Don killed a nice bear with us this spring and booked one of our Utah ranch hunts for this fall. He took this buck with his muzzleloader on the second day of his hunt, nice job Don! 

[bearpaw]

Titus nailed this buck with guide Daniel, the first buck he shot at, dropped him right there, good going Titus! 

[bearpaw]

I've got more deer and elk photos to post when time allows. We still have room for a few more cougar hunters this year if anyone is wanting to go? We've already started cougar hunting, this is our first cougar hunt.

[bearpaw]

Another successful lion hunt...

We nearly lost a hound on this hunt, the cats have had the advantage with very little snow and mostly bare or icey conditions under the trees. This tom was back and forth across a large creek and one of the hounds got swept under a log jam trying to swim across. Guide Brian fortunately came through and saw the nose of the hound barely out of the water swimming like mad between the logs, he dove into chest deep water and was able to get her out of the log jam. Fortunately the lion treed not far from there, the guides and hunter made it to the tree, arrowed the lion, and were back out without any toes suffering frostbite.

[bearpaw]

Horseback Drop Camp
These guys hunted bear with us in Washington a few years ago. This year they came back to hunt Idaho elk and mule deer. We packed them in and dropped them into our camp, on the second hunt day they got a spike bull and texted me to pack it out, on the fourth day they killed a big mule deer, they also spotted 7 other bulls but only managed to get the spike bull, but on the last day they found a nice dead head, and then we packed them back out. The hunter who found the dead head is a big shed hunter and said finding the head was almost as good as a kill, he was only missing the meat.

[Skyvalhunter]

Sounds like a good time and a great trip