A "How To" guide for west side spring bears (Updated w/pics 3.24.12)

[saylean]

Glad to see it got sticky'ed. It was my pleasure.

[Button Nubbs]

Awesome! I'm sure ill read it a few more times before my monroe hunt! Should be some good draw karma for you next year! thanks!

[boneaddict]

Nice write up Saylean.   Thanks for sharing some of your past harvest with Idabooner.  VERY COOL!

[SemperFidelis97]

Thanks for sharing there are some good pointers on there.

[Ripper]

Thanks Saylean, I appreciate you taking the time to help us out. Karma points for you. I will be out there in Monroe with Button Nubbs and the others who drew Monroe. Maybe between us all we can help the Timber Co's by removing a few tree killers. I'm uber excited!

[saylean]

Thanks Saylean, I appreciate you taking the time to help us out. Karma points for you. I will be out there in Monroe with Button Nubbs and the others who drew Monroe. Maybe between us all we can help the Timber Co's by removing a few tree killers. I'm uber excited!

I'll be out there too...just with my camera and on foot! 

Good luck you two.

[billythekidrock]

Saylean,
Do you have all of this saved as a Word doc or PDF?

[saylean]

Saylean,
Do you have all of this saved as a Word doc or PDF?

Nope, but with the exception of the youtube clips, it wouldnt be too tough to do. Send me a PM if you want me to email it to you, or whatever.

[MuleDeerCrazy]

Another thing to note is what elevation you're seeing bears at during your hunt... at least on the eastside, can't imagine the westside is all that different.  They will follow the green-up, up the mountain.  As the snow melts and the local vegetation/food of choice starts sprouting they will feed almost exclusively on it, and almost appear to track the "green-up" progression up in elevation.

For example, we saw five bears on my daughters hunt last year and all five were within a few hundred feet of the same elevation, located in the same type of vegetation, same aspect... identical in every respect.  Once we started to notice a pattern, we honed in on that exact habitat and had much better luck locating bears.  In our case, 4,000' was the magical elevation.  We never saw any sign at 3,000' and everything was just melted with no "green-up" at 5,000'... but every open ridge with their preferred forage sprouting was all dug up by bears feeding all over them.  Obviously that will vary with variatons in snow melt/green-up any given year, but just a reference.

Here are a couple example pics of what we started honing in on, again just to give you some ideas.

[reason2live]

Thanks for the tips. I need all the help I can get. Thank you for taking the time to put it together...

[ICEMAN]

Great post. I learned a lot! Thanks for taking the time to write this up!

[billythekidrock]

Saylean hit a lot of great points on what to look for so I will add something a little different.

Here are some "peels" that you should not spend much time near.

These were done by porcupine but the reason I found them was a site member called me and swore he found a ton of bear peels. It was easy to see that bears were not the culprits.

There are no claw marks or large teeth marks and the bark is torn off in little chunks. Besides, bears don't crap tiny balls or drop quills.









I posted these pics in a Poll during the spring of 2009 and until just before I locked it the response was 2-1 bear. I should have locked it before I posted the answer.
Here is a link to that thread if you want to see some of the responses. http://hunting-washington.com/smf/index.php?topic=25542.msg293600#msg293600

[saylean]

Great examples Billy and Muledeercrazy.

[billythekidrock]

Thanks.

Here is a link to more peel info and pics.
http://www.callingbears.com/peels.html

[grundy53]

Saylean hit a lot of great points on what to look for so I will add something a little different.

Here are some "peels" that you should not spend much time near.

These were done by porcupine but the reason I found them was a site member called me and swore he found a ton of bear peels. It was easy to see that bears were not the culprits.

There are no claw marks or large teeth marks and the bark is torn off in little chunks. Besides, bears don't crap tiny balls or drop quills.

  If you look closlely it should be pretty evident.