BuffyBR,
I remember those days--and even before. When I first started hunting big game in the 1960s, anybody who had a resident hunting license could shoot a grizzly, and AFTERWARD pay a $25 fee. Knew several who did--especially during the years immediately after Yellowstone Park closed down the "viewing dumps," where they actually had lights and bleachers so tourists could watch grizzlies coming in at night to eat garbage.
In fact, one of my schoolmates in Bozeman (a year behind me in high school) shot a BIG boar on the ranch his grandfather owned outside of town. The bear was no doubt one the the hungry bears that left Yellowstone after the dumps got closed. He killed it with one shot between the eyes with a .25-35 Winchester.
I always assumed that someday I'd run into a grizzly somewhere during my hunts in various parts of western Montana, so would get one. But the season eventually was reduced to two weeks in fall, and of course the only mature grizzly I ran into was during the spring black bear season. Eventually went to Alaska, twice, before getting an interior grizzly--which is what I wanted rather than a brown bear, after all those years in Montana.
