icsg0007@cs.montana.edu (05/22/91)
I am just trying to keep rec.hunting alive. If some others would post then you wouldn't have to read my boring stories. Several days ago I posted an article about a nice black bear that I lucked into while whitetail hunting. Well the next spring I was inbetween jobs and decided to try to get another bear. Here are some entries from my hunting diary. I am not going to take the time write it better so bear with me; no pun intended. FIRST SIGHTING 1988 I don't remember the date but it was probably about the first of May. I spotted a small black bear about mid way up the Bridger Mts. at 2:15 pm. It was feeding in a South facing meadow while I was a little higher on a knob across a saddle. Well it didn't take me long to cover the 600 yds over to him. I finally found him again and got a little in front of his direction of travel. Soon he fed within about 20 yds of me. By then I realized that he was just a youngster and not what I was looking for. So, I quivered my arrow and watched him untill finaly there came a slight downhill breeze and he took off downwind. Four hours later I saw him at the top of the next ridge grazing away again. I hope any one else who saw him passed him up too. SECOND SIGHTING 1988 After getting bored with the Bridgers I took Hank South to the Gallatins and were about 20 min. from the truck when we spotted a bear about 90 yards in front of and a little above us. We dropped our packs and tried to get closer. He had a beautiful light brown coat. We could only get within about 50 yards because it was dry (noisy) and he kept feeding away from us. He wasn't a big bear but he sure was pretty. I hadn't for sure decided not to take him so I kept trying to get closer. He finally got a whiff of us and was on the alert. Those things can't see worth a dang. As long as we didn't move while he was looking at us we were okay. Anyhow I don't know if he smelled us good and was just stupid or if he smelled the antelope stink that was still on my shirt from two seasons ago when I packed a buck a few miles to the truck, and it confused him. I think that he was just dumb. Since he was uphill from us and the wind so unpredictable we couldn't get closer. He was still kind of feeding around moving uphill but every minute or so he would climb up on an old stump and sit and watch down hill from him and stick his old sniffer up in the air. Don't you know that I had opted to bring my spotting scope instead of my camera with the 200 mm zoom lense which was back in the truck. I mean he had a beautiful coat. I might have taken him for several reasons one being that Hank would have gotten a big kick out of it. If I had been by myself I don't think that I would have. But that doesn't matter because he finally got up to the timber and took off up the mountain. The next day I spotted a sow with two yearling cubs way up in the Bridger Mts. They were all three different colors. FIRST TRIP TO THE MADISONS The next day (May 27th) Teena and I went 60 miles South of here to the Madisons for the weekend and spotted a bear 30 min. before dark and too far away for a stalk. The next morning at the crack of dawn I headed up to where we saw the bear. I get delayed several times by having to take pictures of elk, mt peaks and a strutting spruce grouse. Elk were very plentiful so I was distracted a lot. Finally I got up in the right area and saw a couple of coyotes coming through the woods towards me. They noticed something different and stopped at about 22 yds. Wrong thing to do because by then I had knocked an arrow and was at full draw. At the shot they took off down the hill with one dropping behind a little. I pulled the blood covered arrow out of the ground and followed. One hundred yds later and not a drop of blood could be found, but I had seen where they had gone and after a few minutes found a dead coyote that won't be getting anymore calf elk. So I kept moving along and saw a bull elk off in the edge of a small meadow. They are funny looking this time of year with their young antlers. This being the best bull yet I pulled out my camera, laid the bow down and proceeded to get closer. At about forty yards I took a few pictures and kept looking for others because they are gregarious critters most of the time. Something downhill of the bull kept his attention and finally I moved so I could see what it was. A good black bear. Well I backtracked to my bow and backpack and decided to take the camera too, remembering the good pictures that I could have had the other day with Hank. I must admit that I was getting pretty cocky. I had seen several bear lately and was thinking that they were not that tough of a big game animal to get. Well let me tell you. God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. And he made me humble before the season was over. I have a much greater respect for the black bear as a game animal now. Soon I noticed other elk coming into the meadow and counted six in all. Every one of them were bulls. It is common for the bulls to hang out together this time of year, just like other deer. So, I was in a predicament trying to get to this bear without spooking him or any of the elk. Finally the wind switched, the bulls smelled me and took off. This didn't seem to alarm the bear who was busy grazing away on the little greens growing in the meadow. So I finally got within about 30 yds and took a picture of his butt since that was all he would show me. (Perfect time to have closed the gap and stuck him.) But no, I wanted to get a picture. He heard the shutter click and looked in my direction but couldn't see me since I was standing in the shadows. By then I had decided that he was probably as good a bear as a person could hope to get in MT and that I had better quit fooling around and take him. Well, I didn't feel comfortable with the 30 yd shot even though I was getting five inch groups at 35 yds the day before at practice and had killed a coyote at over 20 that morning. I took about three small steps out into the open when the wind switched. He looked in my direction while sniffing and started walking uphill. I should have plugged him when he stuck his nose up into the air. He out walked me up the hill and was 65 yds ahead of me when he went over the top. I never saw him again. The next morning I was in the same area and went around the whole mt without seeing any fresh sign of him. I am not sure if this was the same bear that Teena and I had seen the first evening or not. She had watched it more than I and thought that it was brown but looking to the west at that time of the day makes things a little cloudy in my spotting scope. I think that it is unlikely that there would have been two mature bears in the same area, too. So I would guess that it was the same bear. So, while up on top of this mt I was glassing all around even though it was 9:40 am by then and was a little late for bear breakfast in my mind. But I saw what appeared to be a nice black one about four miles away (in the wrong direction). I dug the spotting scope out sure enough that is what it was. It looked like a monster. Within a few minutes the bear left the meadow. It was probably full by then and getting pretty warm out in the sun like that. That bear is in the middle of a wilderness area at 8,000 ft and at least five miles from the nearest road. Well, if I had been alone I would have gone back to the truck, eaten, packed some food, and been there by four o'clock. But I didn't want to leave Teena and it wouldn 't have been a fun trip for her so I didn't go. to be continued.....
patvh%vice.ico.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET (Pat Van Hoomissen) (05/23/91)
In article <1991May22.071726.20996@doug.cae.wisc.edu> icsg0007@cs.montana.edu writes: >I am just trying to keep rec.hunting alive. If some others would post >then you wouldn't have to read my boring stories. It was a good story. I have never hunted black bear here, although Oregon has an estimated 25,000 animals. Some people hunt with dogs. Do you eat the meat? Nice job on the coyote, they're harder to get close to than the bears it seems.