Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game 76 dayz till....spring bruins in Big Sky country

Hey if a mato thread is gonna go sideways shots of borrego is a good way to do it..

Dober

Back to the bears. Mark, a question for you.. are these the same bears?

I see what you're getting at Kurt... looks like the same bear perhaps. Knowing Mark, if it is the same bear, I'm sure it wasn't meant to deceive.

Yepper it is Kurt good memory or good eye, wasn't trying to be a smarmy bastard and deceive as that's just not my style...

I've been in and around near death the last 3 weeks with the crud so I've been kind of spacy bout a lot of things so forgive me if you thought I was trying to be sneaky. I did mean to say when I posted the other pic that look at the two pics, it's the same bruin and yet in no way to me does the pic make it appear that way.

It's a true stud of a bruin and the pic of me makes it look good but not great the one with my bud who helped me pack it shows it in truer manner. And what I had meant to say as well is that bruins are one critter that it is incredibly easy to have them look big or small often times intentionally and or unitentionally. Years gone back I did the old stretch your arms out and or sit back from critters to pimp the pic, but I never had the itch to do so with bruins although it'd be very easy to do so if one chose to do so.

Bottom line with bruins I love them, I love watching them, observing them and after being what I would call would being a student of them since 1982 I've long passed the place where I have any need to ever drop the hammer on one ever again. I could just as easily hunt them with a Kodak the rest of my life and be quite content.

One of the things I enjoy is studying maps and country and trying to figure out what country I should be able to find bruins in. Each winter I study maps (man do I love devouring maps) and I make a list of places I wish to see and look for bruins. This spring I have a list of 23 places I wish to get into and see if what I think is true about them will turn out. Either way if it does or doesn't I'll still get away from the office and cell and lap top and get some exercise in some wonderful country. Now would I see more bruins if I went back to the old faithfuls yes for sure I could, but that's not where my hunting journey has taken me to these days.

I do know of the where abouts of two bruins that will go in the 19-20" range and if the timing is right I'm gonna get a friends 12 year old to kill one or another. And if he's not with me when I go to look for them and if I see the bruins chances are I won't drop the hammer on either one. I had one of them last spring at easy shooting distance and let him be and I can just as easily do that again this spring. And or if my friend Brad is with me and he wants to put the cochise on it and can get it done I'd be more than happy to watch. Though if I know my friend Brad like I think I do he'll probably say, this is too easy lets try to dupe him with the call and if he'll come then I'll give him the old Nozler Nap.

Lastly Kurt you mentioned Shockey's article on judging bruins and I totally concur with Jim on it. After looking at how many 100's of bruins over the last 27 years I still need some time to study a bruin and say I feel he'll score this or that. And still with all that time in there's bruins that I look at and think he's a good one and then when I get a minute more two study him I'll rethink my original thinking. If I have a 40 bruin year or so generally I'll see only 1-3 that are of a size that I have any interest in.

Only once I got to the place where I'd study first (even to the chance of loosing the bruin) did I get to the place where I could kill fairly consistenly big bruins. Now I've not shot as many bruins as I could of I still enjoyed my times as I long ago left the place of needing to kill. And for me that's just fine as I've taken a few decent bruins over the years.

Thats one of the main reasons I like to spot and study a bruin b4 I begin to calling. As its easy to get a bruin coming and get cranked about him being big when he really isn't and viola you kill a bruin that isn't quite what u thought he was and you don't have ground shrinkage. Will bruins hunters who have matured in the hunting of bruins still from time to time get suprised you be they will.

Lots of bruins get killed every year that are true ronny the rat bears that should of been let go back to get bigger. People hyper ventilate and they're worried about the bruin getting away and so they drop the hammer. And many times this is when people and especially if they've been around taking pics of game are tempted. Bruins are easy to pimpo the pics if one wishes. You know prop them up this or that way and or sat back a ways and they looked better than in life they truly are. If that makes them feel better so be it, as a friend once told me I only have myself to make happy. And if one isn't careful the opposite can happen as well, I have a pic around somewhere of a bruin that we took that went 20 4/16" its a super bruin but I don't think I have one decent pic of it and it looks like a ronny the rat bruin for sure...grin although I do have one of a paw and that looks ok. But the ones of the bruin are truly pathetic and I mean pathetic as I am the worlds most useless pic taker ever.

I'd go into my thoughts on how I measure up a bruin at a distance but I've written enough for the week...<g> and the grand kids just showed up and I really wanna spend some time with them.

Get some lunch and the wife and I may just go and look for sign of mato, albeit it'll have to be the long claws version but there are a few of those out already.

Bottom line, have fun on the hill!

Dober

Another thought on bruins, is there anywhere you've not hunted them that you'd love to?

For me I'd love to go to Hyde County NC and to Kali and hunt some of those monster bruins.

Thoughts anyone?

Dober

Kali... great weather, and good wine nearby (grin)...

Alaska or BC (Jim Shockey's place) it looks good on TV anyway....

choice of Black or Brown/Grizzly


Hopefully springtime in the West soon....

Vancouver Island, POW, or Queen Charlotte Islands seem to produce some obscene boars, that would get my vote.

Kuiu Island, British Columbia, California, and Arizona spring to mind.

One other for me would be Az in the prickly pears, I had a place lined up to guide there spring of 03 or so but it didn't work out, too bad as I'd of loved to hunted that country.

Wifey and I got out this afternoon to scout a new place, looks to have some very good potential for a big bruin. You and Magnum have your walking shoes ready Mac?

Dober

Other places? Hmmm. Going to SE AK on a non-guided black bear adventure in early May. That will be a ton of fun. Last time I hunted bears in SE AK, it was brown bear hunting with my now deceased grandfather who was a resident (no guide, and saved a ton of money in addition to having a blast). Looking forward to this hunt.

Also would like to hunt the bear I saw in western NM in 2007. He displayed a great body size as he was feeding in the Gambel's Oak groves, but his head looked overly out of proportion. I think they hunt them with dogs in that area, but from what I observed, a spot and stalk hunt would be very "doable." A resident told me I could have bought a bear tag to have with me on that hunt. Need to look into that one further, if I get back to NM for an elk hunt.

Smary and deceiving? Where'd that come from? I just was curious if it were the same bear because the muzzle looks pretty different in color. The red ice chest in the background from another photo with your friend and that same bear had me wondering.

I guess I'll happily belly up to the school of "immature" bear hunters, that is one of those who enjoys putting the hurt on one or two every year. Would be hard pressed to say that I've ever met anybody that has as much fun hunting bears in the spring as I do - killing them or not. Can't say I've ever had a bad time skinning a bear, or especially packing a dead one out and running into a pack of digusted/disgusting Bozeman hippies on the trail. And I love the long-arm photos.. especially those with real small bears, and contrary to what you say Mark.. it rarely works. Trust me.. I'd know.

I'm hoping to get out and check out some places old and new, and possibly in a neighboring state where there's great glassing in places a guy can see 10-12 per evening in the spring.

Had two 9 year olds out yesterday crushing the Wilsall gopher herd.. man that was fun. Weather was great!!

Fin-N Mex is another place I'd love to go and look for bruins, a few years back I met a fella at of all places the Logan range who'd spent some time in the Gila studying the bruin herd. Perhaps I shouldn't of lost his contact info eh..

Thinking you'll be doing well to better the one you shot last spring here though.

Dober

24 days to go...

I've only hunted bear in Ontario (when a non res. could still diy)
and in Michigan, both peninsulas...with and without dogs. I'd like to hunt where a different color phase was a possibility...or one of the island hunts. Anywhere that allows a spring hunt really. I like the table fare of a lean spring bear.

Scott

Anyone have any fun bruin stories?

Spring of 01/2000 can't recall which we had 3' of white on June 13th. I couldn't get to work that day...grin so I went bruin hunting and had a super day.

Saw where a mtn lion put the cochise on a mtn grouse and had lunch.

Then a bit later I spotted an brown phase walking down a logging road. I didn't care to kill it but wanted to see how close I could entice him with a call. Going off a bad memory but seems to me I got him to 11 feet or so. It was model perfecto day for a snow ball so I made the best one I could and got big time lucky and after doing my best Catfish Hunter routine I beaned old brownie right on the beak...talk about funny.

He jumped off the loging road and sit in the ditch and shook his head and look at me like what did I do to deserve that....ork ork ork.

Dober

340boy is heading up in May for a hunt with me.Hopefully we'll have a new story or two.

THAT is a good story Dober.


Travis

That June snow was in 2001. I'd already taken a MT bear and had an Idaho license. I left work early on the last day of the ID season, the 15th (a Friday) and raced toward the border. It was my 3rd ID trip that spring. I pulled into the first USFS access across the border and started up an unfamiliar drainage. There was still a good amount of that snow and after about a mile, I cut two sets of tracks, big and small. Thinking it was a sow and cub, I kept walking and a while later crossed those tracks again, this time taking a better look. The larger track was 5 1/2" across the pad, the smaller right at 4. I followed them into a draw with about 20 minutes of remaining daylight - the wind was perfect, ground was silent, and the tracks were smokin' hot. They led me to an open rockslide where the snow had melted off. On the other side, only one set of tracks continued. I followed the smaller track along the far side of the rocks and down toward the bottom of the drainage. Light was fading. At bottom, finally, I spotted one of the bears.. on a dead run .. kapow, dead tiny sow. It was one of the few times I've taken a bear and been a little bummed out. But after a few minutes, I realized that not everybody acquires such a fancy toilet seat cover for the mere cost of $350 license, $500 in fuel, $100 in food, and modest $15 expense at the tannery.

The local warden waited up till 11PM to check my bear... super nice guy.

Here's about the only photo I got, yes it's a bear, not a laborador..


The weekend prior I was hunting with friends in Idaho and this one was taken. It doesn't look like much, but it was a pretty good one - around 6ft square and had a 19" skull. We ended up skinning it under the overhead lights of a service station in front of the pumps. I think I'd seen this one while glassing on my first trip, but was unable to connect.

What no pic's of Moosie?