Finding a honey hole: Awesome weekend scouting!

[Salty]

By chance we had extra undergarments

Hahahahaha
After a couple or ten trips it'll be a lot easier on the nerves. My wife was none too impressed first time I took her up there. Now she's happy when we take the time to get up there to her favorite mushroom picking spot

[IronNoggin]

Excellent adventure and write up!
Felt like I was right there alongside you!
Well Done & Congrats on The Find!
Looking right forward to the next install...

And KUDOS Salty!
Sharing like that is what it's all about!
Respect!

Cheer,
Nog

[Salty]

Excellent adventure and write up!
Felt like I was right there alongside you!
Well Done & Congrats on The Find!
Looking right forward to the next install...

And KUDOS Salty!
Sharing like that is what it's all about!
Respect!

Cheer,
Nog

Thanks for the kind words Nog and you're right, you've got some whiskers around this place you know what it used to be like.. all about the sharing of info, ideas and general bushology. Its what makes us tick. Its what makes me happy.

But I'm here to tell you caddis earned every morsel of his discovery. Its tough sledding out this way right now man. I wanna say 80% of our roads have been severely shit kicked thanks to November 15th, 16th. I unfortunately (?) have a bad case of wonder lust. And being retired I've been just about everywhere a 4x4 should consider, a long ways each direction of home. So I saw his post asking about a couple roads (turned out they're washed out) so I sent him a text of a couple I know that survived and definitely held bears. Glad he chose this one, my favorite actually, but for deer as the Mrs. won't eat bear so i don't normally hunt them.

Anyways enough blathering, gonna sit back and enjoy the fruits now My suggested spots are too far behind by the sounds of it yet with this cold spring. But dude's found another spot on his own several kms away from where I thought would be good. I admire team caddis because they find an area and they ****ing work it! I've admired the spot from afar and pondered hiking in there some day but haven't got a round tu-it. Pretty awesome its even got lots of ticks to make him feel at home. hahahahaha Don't think I've ever read a boring team-caddis thread and this'n is shaping up to be a gooder

[caddisguy]

Excited about the whole scenario. I regret not taking a camera or phone yesterday morning when I found the hidden "field". That would have been nifty to show.

Pretty big fluke to have found that. Different mood, even slightly less inquisitive (or less desperate?) or less energy might not have bothered even starting to walk up there. Blacktails, sure, I can see myself playing that card, no stone unturned. Bears, not so much. Who the heck would expect to find a large grassy bear feeding pocket inside old growth treeline way up a steep old slash that doesn't contain so much as a single blade of grass itself. If that "dead end road" (that actually switches back into it) didn't have the odd patch with a tiny nip here and there, no way I ever would have found that.

Same deal if we would have taken a bear the day prior, it would have been done and over. I recall a brief convo via inReach... "dude we found a few piles of scat already and there are ticks crawling on me. This looks promising!" ... he's like "Man that's awesome, only down side is you might be coming home with a bear before you have a chance to actually explore around". Wise man that Salty

Plan is to head up there on Friday. caddisgirl says there's no way she can take Friday off work so we can head up Thursday. Tried to convince her there's something in the labour laws about days off for this kind of scenario, but she's not buying it up. "Tell them I said so" isn't flying either... so, we'll be heading up there after work Friday. Should still have a good 2 or 3 hours to hunt it. The thermals should be blowing down pretty good by then. The thermals are a tad strange in that area though, coming from a couple different directions and shift around a bit. It's possible I could have a bit blowing my scent into the approach. Day should be mostly good no matter what. Scent might go up when I initially pass by from a long ways down below but not when I'm actually going up and switching back in. Also looks like it might be plenty cold enough at night to hang the meat and not have to worry about ice or rushing home.

Probably going to stick a couple trailcams up there for fun. It would be cool to know just how many regulars there are around there. Although with rut time starting up, some of these bears might start wandering off in search of some lovin which could throw a bit of a wrench in this. On the other hand, if there's an estrus sow feeding in and around there, could be even more action. Either way, cruising bears still gotta snack, it just might not be as condensed or predictable.

Edit: Just scooped up 2 more trailcams, so there will be some cool bear footage out of there for sure. Not going to put them up until just before we leave to head home after this next trip (because scent) Will be extra neat if it's pointed at a "leftovers" type deal like we did in 2019. Dang I should have hung my sweated up t-shirt in there last week and they'd be over it by now

[caddisguy]

Alright so this one feeding spot I labelled a honey hole, might have got a little bit overzealous. While those wide "hidden" washed out grassy switch backs are a good feeding spot, turns out this is still a somewhat active quad trail. Still a great place, just downgrading the honey hole status to "maybe honey hole up until mid May and just a pretty decent spot after that". Nonetheless we still got into some action up there.

So we show up late Friday afternoon and wait a little bit for the thermals to start coming down and we slowly creep up there. First thing I notice is some tire tracks heading up there. Next is a fresh green pile of scat that is run over which tells us there was a bear there in the last several hours and that a quad also went up since then. No big deal. From our experience when bears hear a quad they just dash into cover and wait for it to pass by then pop right back out and I'd wager the quad just turned around at the top.

Well we get up top where it switches back and see that they have cleared all the brush into the first switch back, so it's significantly "less hidden" now. To our surprise, the quad actually got up passed the deep washed out ruts going down the trail. That must have been sketchy, even for a quad. That's as far as the quad went before turning around at the next grown in part. I smell bear very close by but I'm not going to enter the steep impenetrable mess where it's coming from. Losing play right there to begin with, plus recovery might not be doable. It's just not an option.

I think we poked in and out of "the spot" a couple more times throughout the evening, our go to strategy when initial attempt does not reveal a bear, poke in and out just like we feed there like a bear would, lay down scent over a period of time and get any bear nice and confused, question whether we "are there" or "were there", eventually they're going to roll the dice.

For a good laugh: (skip this paragraph to get back to hunting) Heading back to camp, we see a couple hunters, guy and a gal walking toward us. I was pretty sure I knew who it is right off the bat. I'm already cracking up a bit... "Hey... I don't I know you... that you, ____?" ... I think I see him shaking his head in disbelief. Alright so back story on this one. Met this dude some years back at another one of my bear spots. Been messaging each ever since, often joking around finding each others honey holes, BS'ing and fibbing about the places we go. About a month ago, he goes up to check XYZ place and makes mention of it because it didn't seem viable. I haven't a clue whether it is or isn't, I've never been there and probably never will) but I'm telling him I have and that I found some wicked honey holes back in there. Thursday he's taunting me how him and his friend (he's trying to put her on her first bear) are heading up there first thing Friday. I'm like whatever man, you'll never find my honey holes. Friday morning he's messaging me... "we're at your spot now, just having a snack before we head up and shoot all the bears". I'm like dude, you must have Star Link because ain't no reception that far back. He starts going on about putting GPS trackers on my jeep and such. I'm joking with caddisgirl about all this on the way up, how they think we are going to XYZ place, but all this punking each other we do, be funny if we run into them one day, thinking about what we'd say. "Ohhh uhhh, you mean this isn't XYZ road? Dang, I thought it was, must have read the map wrong". We all have a good laugh about the whole thing and his GPS trackers. Apparently they'd been off and on the highways all day and all the spots they tried going to were closed down for road work and such. Now they finally find a place hunt, then surprise. Good laugh all around... "guess we gotta keep looking for a place to hunt". I'm like you can camp and hunt around here. They poke around a bit and opt to look for turf that isn't caddis infested.

So next day same deal, we hike up with the thermals doing down. Bear has been through there but not present at the moment. Trailcams go up at this point. We're thinking with all the quads ripping around below, it's too spooky for bears to be munching away unless the thermals are going up, probably feel more confident that no threats are coming from below, but when thermals are going down, can't be so sure... so game plan is we go explore and hike around in behind, plan to come down from up above as late as possible before the thermal switch which was 5pm the day prior.

We go on a nice good hike up the mountain down the other side, this quad trail actually goes all the way through, sort of anyway. I'm not quite sure if a quad has been up that far in some years with the amount of overgrowth and deadfall, but wouldn't be half surprised if they do actually bust through by summer. With time to kill, we put our blacktail hats on and check out some mossy old growth timber, everything all covered with lichen that just has "huge blacktail bucks dying of old age" written all over it. We explore a bunch of the game trails and then off to enjoy some of the amazing views from a plateau down on the other side. I'm sending messages to Salty. Dude guess where we are?! He's probably thinking damn caddis stop screwin around up there and go get after a bear ffs haha. Dark clouds and lighting rolling in, these storms have been brief but we're a ways away, good time to get off the plateau plus gotta hoof it down quick like to make it back to the feeding pocket by 4:30'ish as planned.

Alright, time to hike back down and come in from behind/above while the thermals are still going up. If our hunch is correct, this oughta fool em. Sure enough, right where we figured, we spot a bear munching away. Trying to get a good look but with all the dips, curves and such, plus ya'll know how thick Region 9 is... time for a good old fashioned stalk up, I'm just keeping low and ducking down whenever it's facing my way. caddisgirl is getting a lot of this on film, as are the trailcams. About 15-20 yards away now giving up some good broadside opportunities. Shoot or pass?

[caddisguy]

So, here's a better look. Already had a laundry list of reasons to pass long before, but still wanted to see how close up I could get just for practice. Small bear and thinking a sow? Lastly it was missing a hind paw and had to hobble around. Seemed to be doing alright considering. I'd wager it's been in tricycle mode for some time, has the hang of it and is set up on this grassy area with a primary and secondary places to retreat to (exactly where I had smelled bear the day prior) ... growled at us too at one point, pretty intimating for a small bear haha. I figure this thing will live on for some years.

Got a bunch of good footage of the missing paw and such, will get some more posted up at some point. Probably head back in there this weekend and see if we can turn up another bear without bothering this one too much.

[ElectricDyck]

Cool cool, bears are insanely tough can't wait to see the footage..

[Salty]

Good stuff caddis!

I had a weird one like that back on the coast. Pretty easy to hunt without seeing anyone up there. Except the same damn guy that I ran into like 4 or 5 times in different remote places 60-80km apart. lol Randomness isn't quite so random sometimes...

[caddisguy]

Had a little fun with the video editor last night, maybe too much fun. Anyway here's video, little bit of stalk footage from caddisgirl's cam as well as some from the trailcams perspective... trailcam part has a really good shot of the leg situation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgAU499J2m4

[j270wsm]

Missing more than the paw, looks more like 1/3-1/2 it’s leg. Crazy how tough animals are.

awesome thread and video