Black bear scouting trip

[srupp]

Well yesterday after a late start I headed out on my third scouting trip for black bears. With Mike a.k.a. Leaseman and his son Nick a.k.a. Mr. Nick headed up this Thursday for a black bear hunt. Yesterday I got to cover many miles on ATV and the truck and look over many many many places that held bears.

In some places I climbed high on ATV and got into snow so deep it stopped me, the bears are being attracted to the small areas that hold both water and enough grass to graze. I found five Primo spots… And as to make certain that they were good grazing spots for bears I also found five bears there... LOL

Altogether I spotted seven bears… One bear was over 6 feet and black one bear was over 6 feet brown and the rest were smaller....

All bears were Primo, no rubs it all, and some places the bears were eating on green grass and there was 2 feet of snow 20 yards away.

That's last spotting trips come Thursday 19th it's on like donkey Kong.

Hopefully I can begin to in some small way show how blessed I have been to have Mike and Nick take me on Sturgeon trips, and even let me sit in the boat.

I even have Susan putting on some of her world famous grub...topped off by her black bottom pie..and pork sparib barb q.....

Cheers

Steven

[coach]

Thanks for the update, Steven. Best of luck on your upcoming hunt!

[Leaseman]

Looking forward to the trip buddy.....:mrgreen:..... (BTW, your sturgoen is smoked and ready for you...:wink:)

We went up the Coq and did a little shooting to get Nick warmed up..... ended up seeing a few deer, a couple of moose and one blackie that got his blood flowing!!

Been to long since we have been up there.... will see you Thursday!


Mike

p.s..... should have Phil along for the fun!

[srupp]

I am more than PLEASED to be able to host my friends up to the Cariboo for a few days of black bear hunting..the timing should be perfect..now if the bears co-operate..lol a big cinamin or brown ...or even a pig of a black with brown muzzle..

If we tag out early for Nick..its back to the house..hot tub..barb q spare-ribs..big screen hockey game and a fishing day of trout flyfishing..

Hmmm ALL the guys I help with bears etc..I hope I can pull a rabbitt out of the hat and show you guys some bears.....

Susan has got some great grub together..we got the quad fueled up...all the gear for camping , bear hunting and preserving a cape...its all done..

OH ya some cameraS for some great memories...

Drive carefully and see you at "ZIPPERMOUTH CREEK"..LOL

ITS MY PLEASURE..

Steven

[Leaseman]

I bet I could get big $$$$$ for these written istructions to zippermouth .....:mrgreen:

[srupp]

LOL its THE best black bear area I have found in 40 years..and especially since 40 % of the bears are colored..I have 5 record black bears from there and last years Mothers day brown bear was harvested here..

ya..its pretty special area fer sure....

cheers

Ebony

[rollingrock]

My only "bear trip" was on my way to work a few days ago. Just drove out of my garage, that bear was standing 20 meters away broadsided. We both exchanged eye contact. Then he walked to a tree, stood up on his rear legs and started chewing tree leaves. That was tempting! :D

[Moose72]

Going to likely for 3 days at the end of the month. Hope to scout out the area a bit and maybe find one of those big bears.

[srupp]

Moose72 at that time head high towards Maeford lake..Cunningham pass rd..should see 20 -30 bears in a good day...

Susan has been cooking..and everything is now packed...leave in the am..but to WHERE?????

Horsefly lake..the entire lake came up 6 inches overnight..some of the creeks are on the verge of blow out...including the Horsefly into and OUT of our #1 area..


and its STILL raining

To add to that we are 40 % over normal snow pack in the mountains..NONE of which has started to melt..gonna be high water..as Johnny CASH sang "how highs the water Momma..?? its 6 feet high and rising....


cheers
Steven

[srupp]

safetly back from a very enjoyable and successful FIRST black bear hunt with Mike and his son Nick...I will let Nick post his story..and his Dad Mike to post any photos before I chirp in on the hunt....it was only Thursday last couple hrs..friday..saturday..and sunday morning///////

Thanks Mike, Nick I had a blast....

I will post the grizzly stuff later also...

cheers
Steven

[srupp]

hmmmm still no story or pics....crappy hunt????


cheers
Steven

[Leaseman]

Sorry Buddy.... been too busy working and cleaning up after the GREAT TIME WE HAD!!!!

Will try over the next few days OR....... since I was camp mascot and stuck there for most of the fun...... why don't you post away.......:mrgreen::wink:

[srupp]

hmmmm no I will wait..patiently..for my friends...to post their hunt...lol..

cheers
Steven

[Leaseman]

Time to post a little bit about Steve's Zippermputh Creek........:twisted:

My soon to be 17 year old son has been pestering me to take him bear hunting! Not something that I do regularly because it cuts into the spring sturgeon fishing.....:wink:

Well between Steve and Nick I give in, load up the camper and we head up "his" way for a few days...... Many thanks to the highways maintenance as we had left home 20 minutes and hit the first constuction!!! All told, I think it took us over 7 hours to get from Abbotsford to Billy's Puddle.....

With the fine directions from his highness we didn't get lost heading into camp...(:wink:) only to find it empty!!! Looking around for a few minutes, thinking maybe someone was sleeping we see Steve come walking back into camp...... No "hi how are you", more like "where the heck have you been???"
His nextr sentence got Nick going as he says "Nick, get your gun, I have a bear (brown) feeding over there (pointing from where he came from) and a one (a black) the other side of camp!"..... Needless the say Nick was pumped and off with 5 minutes of arriving to do some looking......:mrgreen:

Of course I was "asked" to stay at camp and get it set up since we arrived so late....:shock:

[Leaseman]

So a couple of hours they return with stories of watching a couple of bears, but none being a shooter!

Plans were set for the following day... I would be taking this day off to putter around and have some much needed down time for me......

Now there is a couple of stories that goes with this day...... Steve should be back and he can tell it the best since I wasn't there!!!!

(hopefully to be continued.....)

[srupp]

hmmmm naaaaaaaaaaawwww you tell it waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better..lol

go on......


steven

[Springer]

Come on Mike ..i really want to hear the outcome of the trip as well....

[srupp]

Well Mike so busyI decided that I would add to the adventure shared by all. Mike and Nick arrived late in the afternoon and while Mike set up camp in their beautiful camper and grabbed a few zzzzzzzzzzz his son Nick and I headed over feeding area for bears. With the next several hours we spotted two black bears neither was large enough to be a shooter on the first evening. We packed up at dark and headed back to the Camp. Susan had been kind enough to make us some amazing meals spaghetti was the first on the menu, firing up the generator in no time at all we had reheated wonderful spaghetti and plan for the morning. It is always been my experience the bears are where you find them and when you find however there are good spots better spots and best spots. I prefer the evening hunts, but to spend the day for bear sign the chance of running into the odd, or weird bear…LOL..

The next morning after a hearty breakfast sausage eggs and hash browns coffee and juice, toast Nick and I headed off on the quad to check out some back roads. We found lots of sign of black bear and this provided me an opportunity to explain and demonstrate what the different bear tracks meant, what size of the bear left the tracks and to determine which area to concentrate for the evening hunt. We found one area that had massive paw prints the front paw 6 inches wide sunk heavily and deeply the ground and had almost frighteningly large mountains of the black bear shit..... In the course of checking these areas out we climbed up the quad into the snow.... In one location finding a MASSIVE set of grizzly tracks that were not there the night before. That evening we headed back to where we had found sign of the large black bear.
On arriving at a pre-decided location we ditch the quad and walking towards the feeding medow... Instantly recognized an extremely large black bear was feeding and it was 430 in the afternoon. We took about 10 min. slowly work our way in and I found a tree stump for Nick to rest his rifle on for a steady shot, I ranged the distance 74 yards to the extremely large black bear. Looking at this monster bear he was easily over 7 feet... And much heavier than even my 2010 spring black bear.... And certainly over 7 feet in length. I moved off to the left By about 10 yards to check for rubs on the bears hide, he gave me a slightly better view... Unfortunately the bears feeding took him into a slight depression and Nick straightened up and move slightly to his left to try and tell me he could no longer see a good shot on the bear… This movement was instantly caught by the large bear and he ponderously but abruptly disappeared into the woods.

[Big Lew]

Steve, you and Mike would do well writing suspense novels, you've got everyone constantly checking this thread for the "to be continued" story.

[srupp]

%@#%@@@$$ stupid speak typing program has destroyed three copies of the next part...%$@%$@^@$^@^!!!

Anyhow over the course of three days we saw over 17 bears, and for one reason or not Nick decided to pass on the shot or the bear. The one bear Nick tried to load his clip Primer end front..LOL..bear fever???

16 of the 17 bears were seen in the afternoon, even though we hunted all DAY..
Nick was extremely polite young man, who asked intelligent questions, passed on questionable shots and never once complained.. I honestly believe I felt worse for Nick not having the bear on the ground than Nick did.

For his first black bear hunt Nick did amazingly well and he's welcome around my campfire anytime.

Mike his father has become one of my closest friends and was always enjoyable to spend time with Mike.....

I hope Nick learned one or two things about bears ,spring bear hunting... And I would not hesitate to see Nick has father back in camp next spring???maybe a day or 2 longer??

There were certainly opportunities to harvest bears, however Nick had a specific bear in mind, color, size and passed on shots that were questionable in his mind.. I admire that.....

I didn't take many pictures I do have a couple of some grizzly tracks and will post them hopefully before I head off fishing..

It was a really enjoyable trip.. With two fine individuals.... And more fun than 17 bears..lol

A HUGE THANK YOU TO SUSAN for her tremencous cooking and ensuring the trailere was LOADED with PHENOMINAL GRUB..and for hosting the spare rib Barbque with black bottom pie the last evening @ our home..

cheers
Steven

[srupp]

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/srupp/P10100450001.jpg

[srupp]

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/srupp/P10100430001-2.jpg

[srupp]

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d47/srupp/P10100440001.jpg

[srupp]

The cartridges in the tracks are 30-06 shells..180'sh grained..the snow was very soft and melting..I believe this was late in the day..the black bear was 300 yards and a 5 foot bear with a black muzzle...both a no-go for Nick..

Steven

[Springer]

I still am thinking about the black bottom pie !!! did you say something about Bears ??

[nature girl]

I see you all had a good time. Im sure Nick learned lots from being taught from you.