While still a bit iffy on it for a couple of reasons (the general 'charismatic megafauna' thing and uncertainty about Unfmeat quality due to anecdotal evidence from some close to me who have previously consumed it), the study that showed that bears are more prolific predators than we thought and stories here about how good the meat is (despite my concerns noted above) convinced me that I'd like to give it a go...that and I just really wanted to get out.
Unfortunately, for me, spring is a notoriously difficult time for me to get free time due to my wife's and my work commitments, so it all shook down to really only having one or maybe two days this weekend. Two days became one and then one became 2/3 of a day today due to my dad having another commitment this evening. Regardless, I headed up to Kelowna yesterday with my son in tow to both give my wife a weekend without us while she wraps up her year at work and because Nana is awesome and agreed to watch him while Dad and I went out today.
Headed up to our usual areas this morning (but didn't get up there until about 8:45 due to another family commitment first thing). Explored a bit, took some new roads, found some promising fall hunting ground for our antlered friends, but saw very little bear sign for the first couple of hours. Moved on to a different area where we've always seen several deer and moose (but never the right ones at the right times in that spot!) and decided to check it for bears. Dad says "high road or low road"...I say "let's go low" as that's where we had a great experience with an immature bull last September and some other deer sightings as well. Road comes through in a SW facing cut and we start spotting piles of bear scat. Several. And some are quite fresh. The only problem is that we're running out of time as it's about 1:45 and we have to be home by 4pm and still get back to the truck, so we can't spend as much time as we'd like checking things out. We cruise through on the quad...more and bigger piles. But none of the stumps in the cut seem to be moving.
We decided to head through to the next area (good moose spot)...not much to see, so head back to the truck through the "good" spot. We very slowly cruise through but...still nothing. Bear scat everywhere, but no bears. They've been here recently and, judging by the size of some of the piles, at least one of them is big. Really big. Or, given my very, very limited bear knowledge, I'm wrong and some bears just take HUGE dumps. Note that I don't think it was big enough to be grizzly, but bigger than any other black bear scat I've seen.
Nothing showing, though, and w'e ran out of time. Loaded up and headed back.
I'm itching to get back up there but literally can't think of how to make that happen. I guess I could run up there very first thing in the morning tomorrow (leaving the kid with them while I go see if I can't gun down a bear and still it make it back to leave town by about noon). That spot's accessible in my Outback, so I could do it. Just not sure how it will fly.
Anyhow, not much of a story, but I'm amped from what we saw (or didn't see) today and had been hoping to fill the freezer with sausage and burger. Except that I don't really have any freezer space at the moment, but that's fixable.
Oh well, tag'll be in my pocket for the fall if I can't get back out before the 30th. Seems unlikely that I'd be able to anyhow. Although...there is one weekend in there...next weekend is a fly fishing trip up the Pitt, but the weekend after. Just maybe...
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