Time to spill the beans. I didn't want to say anything before in case it didn't pan out, but when I returned to the carcass a week later to recover the head/skull from the bear I tagged early April, I decided to hang a trailcam on the carcass. I had my doubts the camera would be there, given the amount of bears, as well as the human attention a carcass can receive. I also didn't even know if it was pointed very well. The camera was just under 2 feet of the ground, facing the carcass which was about 10 feet away, slightly down hill. I didn't really want to hang around at a week old kill sight to test camera angles. Even though it didn't look like it had been hit yet, I knew from experience bears were going to be all over it.
Fast forward 3 weeks later. This is the weekend my brother wanted to meet up with us for a little hunting. He's completely green, other than tagging on a couple of times. Team caddis arrived later Friday afternoon. My brother was going to be meeting us the next morning first light, as he was coming after work, straight off his Prince George run with no sleep. Anyway, we decided to go check the carcass cam (and look for a couple of folding knives I lost / misplaced somewhere). We made a fair bit of noise going in, as we didn't really want to see a bear and it was bear o'clock at the time. We found another rubber boa snake going in which was cool. To my surprise the camera was still there. Snatched it up and headed back to camp. Stayed up WAY to late watching the 300+ videos on it. The footage is awesome. We counted at least 5 unique bears and other critters hitting that carcass (total about 2.5 hours of footage) before it got dragged away, and even afterward still tons of action. The bear vibes in that area have become more intense than I have ever seen in my 6 or so years hunting it. I could tell from the footage the bears are acting weird and skittish. Quite a few variables as to what is going on there, but I won't get into all that for now... but we did find out first hand too.
So my brother arrives 4am or so and gets settled, then went to go poke while we grabbed a few more zzzz's and get ourselves ready. I showed him a few different pockets and strategies for each pocket. I know most of what I tell him doesn't really sink in. It's a lot to absorb for a guy who probably only thinks about hunting for a few hours each year, versus someone who lives it. He wants to harvest a bear, but I know he also wants to enjoy himself, so I balance it towards comfort and good times. I have him walk in front and I just follow in his footsteps as quietly as possible (stuff happens so close up fast, in most cases the person walking in front will have the only opportunity) and let him use whatever knowledge he has gathered and it will play out however it plays out. He turns to me at one point... "Hey Chris if I'm aiming at a bear and not shooting it, it's because if I don't know if I should, like it might have cubs, so if you see my point my rifle, can you say shoot". Made me think what a good head he has on his shoulders... for a guy who pretty much doesn't hunt, he's got the ethics down, not wanting to leave anything to chance.
Anyway, after showing him a few pockets and grabbing other trailcam footage, it was time for him to go some place and catch a couple hours of winks in his jeep in 30C heat. He drove off to find a shady place. Meanwhile me and caddisgirl made some shade and hit under it and periodically soaked in the creek near by (snow run off) to keep cool. I checked out some of the other trailcam videos I picked up. And HOLY CRAP the region 2 WHITETAIL invasion is on. 3 different cameras, and more different whitetails than we could count and a few of them are ready to drop fawns. I haven't finished watching them all, but I have only seen 1 blacktail and at least half a dozen white tails. I'll be posting that up too once I get to it in the backlog.
My brother met up with us again around 3:30PM. We hunt around for a bit, ate some food. Around 4:30 I told him it's bear o'clock, let me know when you're ready. He still needed some more time, so we hung around for another hour or so and he says he wants to go hunt. Off we go. He's walking in front of me along this trail, surrounded by a 10 yard layer of reprod and then old growth (same placed I got charged) All of a sudden, it hit's the fan. I still don't know exactly "what happened", but here's what went down. The wind was in our face... either it circled or it was crunchy. We heard a bear bolt from around the treeline to what I would guess was 15 yards back in the timber. Okay fine, lets wait him out. Waited and nothing. Decided to give it 10 more minutes than improvise a rabbit call from a blade of grass. Then it really hit the fan. We hear a bear take off deeper in the timber, then down wind, then back to the treeline. Another bear takes off upwind, staying along the treeline. We haven't seen a thing. Then we THINK we hear a third bear, just going off sound. The bear that went up wind sounded like it was heading closing and more casually to a feeding area, but I figured stopped short of going out in the open, but it was quiet for a while so we decided to make our way to the feeding area as planned. We walk up a bit further and hear some snapping. At this point I'm having flashbacks of getting charged as this is pretty much how (and where) it went down, except it's a little bit further. I know a sow that likes to hang out in that little corner (she was giving it to me pretty good, clacking away back in 2017) Then we hear a huff. We pause to process it, then more escalating huffing and snarling. I'm crouched down to bear level read for the charge. The bear keeps huffing and growling. I say to my brother I don't know if we should go back or forward but we can't stay here. I have no idea what I walked in on... a sow with a couple large cubs or some kind of bear hanky panky, but I sure as heck don't want to be forced into shooting something. We kept moving forward and that was the end of it. Phew! We waited in a near by feeding area to see if anything would come out in the open where we could actually see and assess it. The wind was circling all over, so I knew it was probably a bust. I still wanted to wait another 30 minutes or so before we had to walk back passed where we came in.
Off he went, back to camp. Figured we would hang out there, wait another hour and then hit the same pocket. That's exactly what we did. Back to the feeding area. He checks the first lookout point but missed the second. We hear a bear run off. He was a bit further ahead than I wanted him to be and went closer to investigate the commotion. Then I see the bear zip up to the first ridge on this mossy knob looking down at him. About 10 yards for him and 30 yards for me. He doesn't see it. It's an easy broad side shot for me but I have zero interest in shooting a bear at this point, and I don't want to shoot a bear that was "flushed'. I'm not comfortable shooting a bear than I didn't watch doing it's own thing, undistracted and doesn't know I'm there. I couldn't tell if it was a young boar (I think it was) or a sow with a couple cubs stashed. I alert him to the bear up above him "hey, check it out!" and he looked up to see the bear make an exit. He also had some more excitement on a little solo hunt this morning, hearing squirrels chirp and snapping and walking in on a deer. No bear down for him, but I'd call it a very successful trip. He seemed pretty jacked up over it.
I'd call it a successful weekend. A little bit of everything. The motherload of trailcam footage (probably 8-10 hours between 4 cams) some good general hunting knowledge transfer and some underwear stains (also great experience for a new hunter) LOL. What a weekend. I can't wait to get through this month backlog of footage. I'll be posting some goodies up soon!!
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