Nahatlach, Kwoiek, Kookipi bears

[northbc]

Anyone seeing much action out in this area? Was planning on heading up for the weekend, second time bear hunting, last year was unsuccesful. Any local knowledge would be appreciated.
Would across the river, Anderson/Uztilis/Mohawkum/Cattermole be better odds?

[browningboy]

Anyone seeing much action out in this area? Was planning on heading up for the weekend, second time bear hunting, last year was unsuccesful. Any local knowledge would be appreciated.
Would across the river, Anderson/Uztilis/Mohawkum/Cattermole be better odds?


Lots of bears around there, log creek is a good place or anywhere past the 40km mark on Nahatlatch Rd

[metalface]

Was up uztlius about in mid May for a weekend. Covered a lot of ground on foot and in truck. Didn't get into much sign. Scared a cub off the road and a colour phase that we weren't able to track down. Chatted with a few people who hadn't seen anything either. Might be different now and I'm no seasoned hunter so take that fwiw.

gonna head back up that way for a Hail Mary in late June. Would love to know how you do if you head to either nahatlatch or the other side of the canyon.

[Bigd74]

Was up Anderson, uztilus 2 weeks ago. No fresh scat seen,no bears seen. Scat was 2-3 days old I would guess

[randymac]

any body been up Kwoiek last year or two? wondering how the road is and how far up you can go, its been quite a few years for me and as I recall the bridge was out past the first lake.

[ElectricDyck]

Can't get too far past the first lake, bridge is still out..lots of bears but so grown in that your chances of seeing one and then being able to still see it to shoot it are small..

[Agent Orange]

I was up that way May long. I saw a fair amount of scat but I'm no expert so I'm not sure how fresh it was. I saw a couple nice chocolate brown bears, but like someone has already said, the bush is so thick that unless they are standing in the middle of the road you'll never see they once they run for cover.

[Bubba123]

Tons of bears up there. We saw lots on the Hydro right of way up past Keefers, and some nice phase change bears on the Nahatlatch and Kwoeik up past the lake. Look for the berries and scat, and you will find the bears. The bush can be pretty thick in spots, but I have seen lots of bears up there...hike the areas with the fresh sign, and you will get your bear.

[northbc]

Ended up staying on the east side of the river. Learned a lot and thought up a bunch of questions. Saw 8 bears, all from the road, hiked a bunch but didn't see anything while on foot. All the bears I saw were in areas where there wasn't much shit on the roads. Didn't see any bears in areas with sign present, maybe I was just in those areas at the wrong time of day? I was seeing them early in the morning and then again after 4 pm. Every bear I saw took off as soon as I saw it, tried a few times but there is no going in after them through the thick steep stuff. How do you guys usually do it if you spook a bear off the roads? Wait and hope it'll come back or say screw it and keep driving? I was thinking it would be easy enough to shoot em if I was able to find em but they were just too quick.
I saw the most sign waaaay up high where none of the berries were ripe. It all looked pretty old except for 1 pile of the biggest and freshest set of turds I saw on the whole trip. Is this shit from early in the season as the bears made their way down from their dens? I feel like this area will be very productive once the berries ripen up here.


So to sum it up how do I best focus my efforts? I drove around A LOT in hopes of finding an area full of fresh turds and multiple bears running around and then planned to get out on foot here. No such area was found, I covered a lot of ground saw a lot of shit and then saw all the bears in areas of no shit on the roads which threw me off.

[shortrange]

Tons of bears up there. We saw lots on the Hydro right of way up past Keefers, and some nice phase change bears on the Nahatlatch and Kwoeik up past the lake.

I've been up there last fall and earlier this spring and there are bears, but also lots of hunters on the weekends. Pick any weeknight near dusk and they will be there. Bears around there are skittish because of all the people around. If you follow the hydro right of way on foot you might get lucky. I almost did a couple times last fall but the bears saw me right away and took off.

[browningboy]

Has anyone been past Nahatlatch Lake? Way back there in the
early 2000's the logging was fresh and shit loads of bears, obviously grown in but?

[northbc]

Has anyone been past Nahatlatch Lake? Way back there in the
early 2000's the logging was fresh and shit loads of bears, obviously grown in but? made it to around 70 km last summer and the road was blocked by a slide, how far did the road go back then?

[buck nash]

Sign has really dried up on the anderson side that's for sure. It was ok early in the season and i saw a a few bears out in the day but last couple weekends up there has been discouraging.

I tried hiking past the wash out on the Rd that goes up from anderson east to the powerlines. After a 5km hike up hill in the hot sun with literally no sign i turned around. The lower part of east anderson rd is in pretty rough shape. There's rock and debris all along the Rd from slides, its quite overgrown and thers a washout at about 25km that i couldn't get the trooper though. If you can get a quad past the 28 km point on that rd i have had good luck in there. But I'm sure i was the first truck that got as far as i did and that's only cause i had a chainsaw and come along to move rocks and fallen trees.

Last few years there ive seen more and more wolf sign and less and less bears. I doubt it's coincidence.

Good news is there's more logging activity up there and PowerLine expansion which is opening up new areas for trucks.

[J_06]

Ended up staying on the east side of the river. Learned a lot and thought up a bunch of questions. Saw 8 bears, all from the road, hiked a bunch but didn't see anything while on foot. All the bears I saw were in areas where there wasn't much shit on the roads. Didn't see any bears in areas with sign present, maybe I was just in those areas at the wrong time of day? I was seeing them early in the morning and then again after 4 pm. Every bear I saw took off as soon as I saw it, tried a few times but there is no going in after them through the thick steep stuff. How do you guys usually do it if you spook a bear off the roads? Wait and hope it'll come back or say screw it and keep driving? I was thinking it would be easy enough to shoot em if I was able to find em but they were just too quick.
I saw the most sign waaaay up high where none of the berries were ripe. It all looked pretty old except for 1 pile of the biggest and freshest set of turds I saw on the whole trip. Is this shit from early in the season as the bears made their way down from their dens? I feel like this area will be very productive once the berries ripen up here.


So to sum it up how do I best focus my efforts? I drove around A LOT in hopes of finding an area full of fresh turds and multiple bears running around and then planned to get out on foot here. No such area was found, I covered a lot of ground saw a lot of shit and then saw all the bears in areas of no shit on the roads which threw me off.9/10 times I've found they try to wind you like a coyote, I've driven past and waited and lots of times the circle back out after a bit. I ran at one once and treed him 20 yards off the road, wasn't hunting at the time but rather putting what I bought was crazy bs to the test. It worked but not what I'd call overly sporting haha.

[browningboy]

made it to around 70 km last summer and the road was blocked by a slide, how far did the road go back then?

there used to be a camp at 55km mark or so the the road went in quite a ways however fragmented, I do remember the marks on the main changed so you could collaborate what the actual site were