Bearpaw Fall Season 2011

[400out]

thanks for the update! I have loved following this thread 

[Machias]

Awesome!

[Badge251]

Good times indeed! Thanks again Dale for a great hunt in Montana. My second time hunting with guide Anthony and I look forward to hitting the hills with him/Bearpaw again!

[bearpaw]

Just smacked a Tom, story later.

[pianoman9701]

Just smacked a Tom , story later.

Cool, Dale. We want pics for sure.

[BOWHUNTER45]

Hurry up dang it ... I am cooking elk breakfast sausage and pancakes ... the boys are headed back hungry with some ducks ... so them and you better hurry up before the football games start ....I do not like being kept waiting 

[TeacherMan]

One of these years I REALLY want to do a mule deer/Bull Elk combo with you! Maybe if I schedule one out for 2015 or 16 I can start a payment plan 

[bearpaw]

We got back in about 10pm but I fell asleep in the easy chair, I just woke up, I must have thought it was time to get ready to go hunting.

The last 4 days we have been hunting in nonstop rain and snow, the higher elevations have 30 to 40 inches of fresh snow, the lower elevations have homes that are flooding from the rain. During the storm we have only seen a handful of deer and elk, nothing has been moving. Finally last night the big guy in the sky turned off the tap. We headed out early this morning looking for tracks and sure enough found a tom track right at daylight to put the dogs on. It was a short race, the cat headed down off the mountain from where we started him and straight toward where the truck was parked. I couldn't believe it, the dogs sounded treed halfway down the mountain really close to my truck.

[bearpaw]

After a couple of the long chases we've had this year, we were happy to have an easy one. We rode the machines back down the mountain to the truck and hiked in about 100 yards from where the truck was parked to the dogs who were going wild. The tom was halfway up a leaf tree and didn't like us being there at all. He was moving around quite a bit so just before it looked like he was going to jump we told Gier to shoot him. He was hit hard but landed on a run getting out of sight quick, we cut the dogs loose again on the blood trail, but the dogs only went about 50 yards to where they found him dead under a brush pile.

Geir was pretty excited, the whole experience of hunting through all that nasty weather while wondering if we'd even get a break in the weather, then the high of finally finding a track and chasing it, made his trip from Norway well worth it. We drug the cat out to the truck and headed for the house.

[bearpaw]

On the way back home after getting Geir's cougar I told the guys we better take advantage of the good weather and go after the elk that Geir wanted. Bull elk season has been closed for a long time, but a friend of mine has a high fenced elk ranch so Geir was hoping to kill a big bull to take home with his cougar. We dropped off the cougar and headed to the ranch. This elk ranch is pretty good sized, it took nearly 8 miles of fencing to fence it all in so I wasn't sure if we would find the bull we wanted in one afternoon or not. On top of that it's up in the mountains and not at all on easy ground like most elk ranches and I knew we might have trouble with the snow.

We started in with the snowmobiles and a ranger with tracks. I wanted to make it all the way to the top where we could sit and spot. We had the whole afternoon so I figured we could spot a bull Geir wanted and get to him before dark.

Mother nature had different plans for us, we kept getting stuck in the deep snow and never did get to where I wanted to glass. Finally we gave up and headed back down to a road near the bottom. We headed around the bottom looking up the draws. We finally spotted a decent bull but not as big as Geir wanted, probably a 310 to 320 bull. We headed eastward then we spotted a moose on a distant ridge, we were watching the moose as we drove closer and suddenly a big bull broke out of the brush next to the road and headed up the hillside.

Geir kneeled down in the snow and put 3 quick shots in the bull with my 257 Roy, the bull dropped. We had to hurry to get pictures, it got dark as we took photos and we dressed out the bull after dark. Then we got him back to the trucks and headed for the house, it was about 10 pm when we pulled into the driveway and our butts were whipped, but it was a heck of a great day for Geir and he gets to take two nice trophies back to Norway.

[carpsniperg2]

Thats great dale! I had my fingers crossed for your guys

[Machias]

Congrats, great photos!!

[pianoman9701]

nicely done, Dale. Great Pics.

[BOWHUNTER45]

AWESOME Dale !!! I love looking at those big boys ... sweet pictures and looks like one happy customer !!

[bearpaw]

You can see how much snow this last storm dumped by looking at these moose. There was no snow here before the storm started.