2023 Bear derby Official!

[TheObserver]

Tonnes and tonnes of ungulates out, lots with twins AND pregnant. I feel like this was a good winter for the deer and moose..

scouted for 2 hours or so on a south facing valley in a mountain and had to have seen 100+ mule does and dawns, and at least a dozen white tail does with fawns. Nice to see !

no bears yet though.. I’m thinking last weekend in April and the ball will really be rolling in my neck of the woods.

I was up shed hunting this weekend and I kid you not I seen 500+ Mule Deer in 4 days! Also seen a lot of predator kills though probably around 30 while pounding ground. Found some huge Wolf tracks of a couple different packs. Coyotes were the culprits on a lot of the kill sites I found though I think.

Grass is looking real lush here in region 2 now where i'm at.

[604ksmith]

I was out in region 8 this weekend, along highway 6 and cut both grizzly and black bear tracks.
The grass is greening up, maybe 1-2 inches high in some spots, but there's still lots of snow making spots hard to get into, let alone catch bears out feeding in.

This weekend is looking great, hopefully the grass shoots up a bit more. I'm itching to get out, so I'll be setting up camp regardless.

[TheObserver]

Bears started showing up on my cams April 14th in region 2, nice coats!

[RyoTHC]

You had me excited that someone bagged a bear already. That being said town bears seem to be on the prowl.
two weeks and we will have bears out everywhere in my neck of the woods I bet you. May 6/7th weekend should be gold for anyone wanting to hunt the lower elevations or zone 3 or most of zone 8

[Ron.C]

^^^^ yep. Seen 2 so far and have a couple that have been making appearances on my deer cams since 6 April.

Heading out late next week mid Van Isle for 4 days. Will be after a sausage/pepperoni bear so hope to be posting one up

[HarryToolips]

Seems like Spring is a week or 2 behind in the N Thompson area..

[srupp]

I actually LOVE bear hunting when no leaves or leaf buds..and the grass is only in patchs..bears HAVE to work to get it and travel between patches..

once grass is everywhere so are the bears making them much harder to find..leaves provide cover for that bear a mere 20 yards off the trail..

good luck hunters
Steven

[DannyO]

I saw a little bear sleeping under a tree on Friday while I was out hunting.. watched him for over an hour at 124 yards but I was looking for a bigger bear on my first day out of the season.
I also came across the hide of a bear while hunting.. someone had been lucky in that spot a couple of days earlier! Can’t wait to get back out!

[HappyJack]

I was up shed hunting this weekend and I kid you not I seen 500+ Mule Deer in 4 days! Also seen a lot of predator kills though probably around 30 while pounding ground. Found some huge Wolf tracks of a couple different packs. Coyotes were the culprits on a lot of the kill sites I found though I think.

Grass is looking real lush here in region 2 now where i'm at.

And here I thought the mule deer populations were way down and that is why they cut the annual harvest from 2 md to 1? Maybe that was just another excuse to take away some hunting opportunity.

[TheObserver]

And here I thought the mule deer populations were way down and that is why they cut the annual harvest from 2 md to 1? Maybe that was just another excuse to take away some hunting opportunity.

They ain't hurting everywhere thats for certain!