Bearpaw Season - Fall 2022

[bearpaw]

Enjoy the break and holidays with your family Dale. Please say hi to Brian, Daniel and the crew for me.

Thanks, will do!
Merry Christmas to you and your family as well! 

[Boss .300 winmag]

The last lion hunt was a bust, the only cat that moved for several days was a female with kittens, mostly cold weather, wind, and drifting snow, it's possible other cats moved but with the drifting snow it must have completely disappeared their tracks. They were worried about getting home to Oregon for Xmas, the gorge was closed a day, so we stopped the hunt early and they are coming back next year.

I get a little time off for the holidays, last night I slept over 10 hours, LOL.

Thanks for the ride, always enjoy your hunt stories Dale. Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year. Get some rest.🎄👍

[bearpaw]

Glad you guys enjoy the posts, thanks a lot for the comments! 👍🏻

[bearpaw]

Matthew’s lion that was taken with Bearpaw in December 2021, I called it the “subdivision eviction” in my topic last winter, the big cat was seen stalking pets in a subdivision, residents had photos of the cat on their porch cam, we chased it right from the subdivision, it weighed 164.4 and has been officially scored at 15 3/16, taken with a long bow, P&Y says its the largest cougar for this award period, Matt will get an award at the awards banquet. Congrats Matt!

[carpsniperg2]

Most excellent

[pianoman9701]

Beautiful cat!

[Machias]

Toad!!!

[bearpaw]

We started a new hunt two days ago, the first day they passed a female, yesterday in the same area there was a tom, a female, and a small female that is probably a yearling, they all crossed two drainages multiple times, Tyson and Zach tried to catch the tom but it was a maze of tracks, plus the wind was drifting tracks, in the end none of the cats were found and they still weren’t sure where the tom ended up? They will be out looking for him again today, my fingers are crossed. I’m currently stuck in the office doing year end paperwork! 

[Twispriver]

Were they able to catch one for him?

[bearpaw]

Were they able to catch one for him?

No we didn't get one, we found a couple females again but that tom didn't give us another chance. We have checked back in that area quite a lot but have not found that tom again.

[bearpaw]

We chased another tom a couple times, I think it was the same tom both of these times, first time the dogs trailed all day on his cold tracks but the tom was covering country and never laid up long enough for the dogs to get close, we had to catch the dogs at dark and let the cat go.

I tried to find the same tom the next day but didn't find him, on the next day after that I found him again, I'm 99% certain it was the same cat, there was also a female in the area, both cats were hunting and making circles on the mountain, as you can imagine we had dogs going different directions, and again we didn't catch up with the right set of tracks.

We spent several more days trying to find that tom again, but he must be on a deer kill in an area where we can't find him.

[bearpaw]

We passed on several small tracks and finally tried catching another pretty decent cat three days ago, dogs were taking the track great, the cat topped out going over the top of the mountain and the chase stopped cold, the wind had drifted the snow and the tracks were gone.

In the meantime we had also located a couple other decent looking older tracks so we were also watching for those cats to cross again too. Finally yesterday one of those cats was back hunting and crossed about 6 times, by chance Daniel was trying to sort out which tracks were the freshest and found his deer kill so at daylight he started the dogs near the kill. It was a maze of tracks on that mountain, older tracks from earlier in the night in the same area.

Not too far after releasing the dogs they split and we had two chases going on, one pair of dogs seemed to be headed for where the cat had crossed earlier when it was still hunting. I went up there and waited for the dogs, meanwhile the other pair of dogs were working a track up towards the top of the highest ridge, fortunately there was a road there too, Daniel went to see what was happening, he ended up getting the dogs off another older track. We now had all four dogs and went back to the deer kill to start all over again, this time most of the dogs stayed with what we hoped was the right track, one dog got off on a different track and I picked her up where that track crossed the road, we thought it was an older track so I loaded her in the dog sled box.

Meanwhile the other dogs were moving along pretty good, a couple times they got hung up at rock outcroppings for a while, cats usually jump up and over rocks that the dogs can't negotiate, usually one of the dogs gets around the rocks and finds the track and gets the chase moving again. Finally the chase made a tight little circle and went straight downhill then stopped, I had a good feeling this time, we waited a short while to make sure the dogs were locked into one spot and then headed in hoping to see the cat that had circled the mountain so many times.

On the hike to the dogs a couple other lion tracks were spotted, so we think there is another cat or two hunting that same area. Sure enough the dogs had the tom up a huge thickly limbed fir tree and Nikolas was able to get the job done. It had been a full day, but well worth the effort, congrats Nikolas!

[huntnfmly]

Nice work 👍

[bearpaw]

I’m not really a shed hunter, but when antlers are laying in the middle of the snowmobile trail they are pretty hard to miss.

[bearpaw]

We haven't been lion hunting in a while, its been really cold, below zero at night for the last week plus, got some snow today and it warmed up quite a bit, should be some good hunting for a few days, contacted a hunter I had on call but he can't come until after the 18th!