Bearpaw Season 2009

[washelkhntr]

Now thats a heavy load. Gotta be some sore legs after that pack out.

Congrats on the hunt!

[bearpaw]

Thanksgiving weekend was productive, we had a husband/wife team bowhunting for doe deer and turkey in Washington. The wife missed a few deer and then connected on Saturday, her husband hunted turkeys while she deer hunted and he connected too. It was her first deer with a bow and I believe his first turkey. 

Also had 5 other shotgun turkey hunters, all were successful, and for two of those, a father and son from British Columbia, it was their first turkey. 

"I love it when a plan comes together."

[bearpaw]

Started cougar hunting today in Idaho, only minimal snow coverage on about 30% of the ground in the trees, that makes for tough hunting.

We found 11 sets of tracks, one of them was a whopper, but the freshest was probably a day old as it was heavy with frost and froze solid, we tried running the dogs and they could take it through any snow patches but every time they hit bare grond it was just too old of track.

Brain and Anthony walked 3 hours all over the bare ridge trying to strike up the cat in the general area but couldn't find a fresh scent. I circled around with the truck and checked every road I could find hoping to find where the cat may have gone but nothing fresh. I guess that is why they call it hunting and not shooting....

Part of my hunting area got just a light dusting of snow late this afternoon after we quit hunting, hopefully there's enough to show the print of a track, we have our fingers crossed for in the morning.

[bearpaw]

We are still cougar hunting everyday, almost no snow but doing what we can to try and be successful. Dogs struck a cat this morning but we found the track and it appeared to only be about 40-60 pounds, too small to waste time on.

[Houndhunter]

you should get some decent weather here in the next few days, i wanna see a 180lbs or better

[bearpaw]

thanks hound....but I think you have too high of expectations for us....

At this point that 40-60 pounder better not eat too much deer meat....no, just kidding. 

Our hunter would be very happy with any representative cat, so we are just holding out for an adult cat that's fresh enough to catch. We have seen a ton of old tracks, but the night time temps have been from 0 to 10 degrees for the last several days and nothing except that little fellow has moved. Each day we are getting closer though...

[LittleJohn]

Good luck!!! Sounds pretty cold to me

[bearpaw]

Well it's been very cold but we finally recieved a little snow and finished our first cougar hunt successfully on the last day of the hunt. After several days of hunting cold weather and almost no snow we recieved a little snow fall and the cats moved, we hit 4 different fresh tracks the next morning, 1 female and three toms. We picked out what we figured were the best two sets of tom tracks and put the dogs on them. They were not far from each other and both races were fairly long because the tracks had been made early in the evening and the cats had hunted all night long.

About 10AM we heard the dogs treeing on both tom's. We worked our way into both trees simutaneously. One cat was on top of the mountain and the other was in the bottom of a huge steep canyon. About 1 PM we killed the first cat and about 2:30 PM we got the other one. The first tom weighed about 120 pounds and skinned out a little under 8 feet. The second tom was the skinniest cougar I have ever seen. He had the body frame of about a 150 pound cat and he skinned out 8 feet 9 inches, but he only weighed about 120 pounds. He seemed perfectly healthy and was in country with plenty of game. We can only surmise that he had been hunting females so hard that he had run himself down. If you look at the photos, the biggest cat (the skinny one) is the one laying and you can see his shoulder blades and ribs in the photo. The smaller cat is actually the one being held up in the bear hug. The smaller tom is the cat in the tree photos.

We did not get pictures of the bigger tom in the tree because just as we got to the tree the big tom started to come out. Brian hollared at the cat and frantically grabbed dogs to keep them out of harms way in case Dick only wounded the cat. I helped Dick pick out a shot on the nervous cat and I also managed to video the shot and video the cat hitting the ground and running off down the canyon.

Brian ran after the cat as I waited for him to let me know if the cat was down or if I needed to cut the dogs loose again. Suddenly one dog got loose and headed after the cat, I hollared at Brian that a dog got loose as I visioned the wounded cat grabbing Pam and biting her head. Pretty quick I heard Brian hollering back that the cat was dead, whew that was a relief.

We later found that Dick had made a heart shot, we photographed and videod the dead cat and the successful hunters. By the time we got both cats and everyone back to the trucks it was after 11 PM at night. The hike back out of that big canyon was a tough one, the cold weather and high winds took it's toll on all of us. We were coughing from burning our lungs breathing all the cold air. I thought I might have frosted my cheeks, but today they felt fine so apparently I didn't. One thing is for certain, you always appreciate and remember the tough hunts the most. Dick was ecstatic over his lion and so is Anthony, both will be headed to the taxidermist. I will attach a few extra photos of the country, the dogs, both cats etc.

[bearpaw]

more cougar hunting photos

[bearpaw]

First photo is the smaller of the two toms, the other two photos are the big skinny tom.

[coop2424]

Awesome work once again...  Nice cats..

[LittleJohn]

That is awesome!!!!! Taking a hunt to the last day and both hunters scoring is great. Thanks for posting 

[saylean]

Awesome work Bearpaw! Grats to the hunters and I am sure, the happy hounds~

[bowhunterforever]

Thats awsome bearpaw,Congrats to you and your hunters!

[Houndhunter]

Sweet!