Bearpaw Season - Fall 2022

[bearpaw]

This has been the busiest year of my life, I have always heard when you get older things start to slow down, lol, some things might be slowing down, but I've been busier than ever before. We've been working on ongoing projects between hunts and my son started building a new log home which I've tried to help whenever I can.

One of the toughest issues this year has been guides, meaning several of my guides have gotten new and better jobs because they are willing to work, thus they have no vacation to come and guide for a few weeks. So I've been guiding way more than usual and trying to do a lot of my paperwork late at night! 

We had a great spring season but I was a little worried about fall due to low ungulate numbers in so many areas. The good news is that the fall season has gone a little better than expected so far and we've gotten a few nice critters, success is still lower than I like on several hunts, but we are getting through it the best we can. The guides that were able to work have done a great job at getting hunters on as much game as possible.

We had a few nice animals spotted early that we hoped to find:

[trophyhunt]

Sounds like you are doing a great job!  Hope there is a big bull moose out there for the wife!  Heading back over Nov 17-26! Good luck the rest of the season, drinks lots of coffee!!

[bearpaw]

Sounds like you are doing a great job!  Hope there is a big bull moose out there for the wife!  Heading back over Nov 17-26! Good luck the rest of the season, drinks lots of coffee!!

I hope there is too for her! 

[bearpaw]

More

[bearpaw]

More

[wheels1]

Very nice

[boneaddict]

Good animals to be excited about.

[bearpaw]

We started off with bear season in August, first morning out I came across a water trough a bear had been cooling off in, we must have just missed him, the ground was still sopping wet, the first two days we jumped a couple (I thought might be bear) but didn’t see them. It was a good year for bear, there was a ton of berries.

[bearpaw]

On the third day we still hunted along an old mountain road, we were only 30 minutes into the morning and my hunter heard a noise in the brush, we stopped and watched and listened for a long while, after 5 or 10 minutes a nice blackie walked out of the thick brush, pulled down a lone berry bush and was busy eating berries, he was broadside, Charles was on shooting sticks it was perfect, I whispered take him, mentally I had that bear about half skinned and then I noticed Charles was trying to pull the trigger but nothing was happening!

He tried recocking it but no luck, he tried recocking again and again, and then it grabbed another cartridge out of the 10 round clip of his AR, so he dropped the clip out, meanwhile I'm watching the bear, with all the metallic noises going on he had quit eating and was looking right at us, when the clip dropped out of the gun that was it, the bear ran as fast as he could straight away and into the thick brush to never be seen by us again. We finished the hunt with some exciting moments, he saw a moose, elk, deer, turkeys, lots of wolf tracks, a bear, and learned a fair amount about spot and stalk bear hunting.

Next Hunt
Zach took the next bear hunter out and they had a good vantage point. Right off they saw a yearling that came within 30 yds, Bill decided to pass that bear since it was the first day. They saw a good bear at moderate range but Bill didn't have enough time to get on him. late in the hunt they saw the little guy again but not enough time or he would have been in the crosshairs that late in the hunt. So another hunt with no dead bear!

The Last Fall Bear Hunt
We had three guys for a weekend, I don't normally take anyone for that short of a hunt because it's just not enough time. We tried to make it happen, we saw deer, elk, wolves up close and personal, a cougar (season doesn't open until Sept), but no bear taken, so we finished August bear with our heads hanging in shame!

Washington Archery Deer
I had to leave for Idaho, Zach had one archery deer hunter, they saw quite a few deer deer and numerous bucks and closed the deal on the last evening, I think it was his first archery deer, congrats Mike, well done! It's unfortunate, when we were bear hunting we saw a giant whitetail with probably a 23 or 24 inch spread three times just before archery deer opened, but could not find that buck after Aug 31!

Bear Time
Meantime a bear started coming in to the apple tree in my yard, they had to put a strobe light on the tree and the side of the shop to keep it scared away all night, that did work and we were able to pick our apples weeks later when they ripened!

[bearpaw]

Meanwhile in Montana Derek was plotting to get one of those mule deer in the trail cam photos I posted with our one and only bowhunter in Montana this year. Brandon has hunted with us numerous times in Idaho, Washington, and once in Montana rifle deer hunting. This time he wanted an archery buck!

They stalked a lot of good bucks but most of the time couldn't get close enough, the dry weather was not perfect for stalking, lol. Finally on day three the stars aligned and Brandon made an excellent shot, the arrow went to the right spot and Brandon had his buck, it wasn't the big one they were after, but Brandon wasn't going to pass up an opportunity at this buck either. Congrats to Brandon and Derek!

[bearpaw]

Because yesterday was the Montana rifle opener I'm going to skip forward to yesterday.

Ben and Johnny were our first Montana rifle deer hunters, Derek was expecting a slow day, they glassed a bunch of deer and spotted a good one that they nailed right off, Derek did some quick work and they were back after it, with a bunch more deer spotted and another successful stalk they ended up tagged out by 10am with two very happy hunters! Great job to Ben, Johnny, and Derek!

[bearpaw]

Meanwhiile in Idaho we finally had a fall storm yesterday, more than half the hunters came back mid day but Paul, Chris, and their guide Russell stuck it out in the wind and snow. Russell parked up high and they worked their way down a ridge, one of the guys dropped into the bottom of the canyon, he saw a herd with cows and bulls so they all worked in that way, Chris had a shot opportunity at a raghorn 5 and dropped the bull. Russell called me with the bull down and I sent help to get it out, they got back after dark with the horses, hunters, and elk, it was Chris' first elk ever, congrats to Chris!

[bearpaw]

Getting back to earlier in the season....

Several years ago there was two years in a row of blue tongue in the antelope where I hunt, then right after the second blue tongue die off there was a super hard winter. The next spring my wife and I drove over to survey the damage, in areas where I would traditionally spot about 500 antelope in a morning, we struggled to find any antelope, finally about 11am we saw one doe.

I quit booking antelope hunters for several years because it just wasn't good hunting. About three years ago we started taking a hunter here and there, we got a few fairly nice bucks but we had to hunt pretty hard for them so I still didn't want to pursue them too hard.

Last year after season we decided we wanted to start running more antelope hunters again and finally this year the goat hunting is really starting to get back to what it was, not quite as many numbers yet, but trophy quality is back. We will be booking more and more antelope and deer hunters. We have secured a lot more acreage this year and have to take a certain number of animals to keep the ranchers happy.

Here are a couple of the bucks from our Montana antelope season:

[bearpaw]

Couple more

[huntnfmly]

Sounds like a good season great stories and pics
Thank you as always sharing your season