Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Grizzly habitat question

This is where I’ve been looking for elk. It’s a high grassy plain, about 30 miles east of Yellowstone overlooking Wapiti Valley. Sage brush and prickly pear country, what I usually think of as pronghorn country. Down in the nearby valley there are big alfalfa fields on private land and I’ve seen a big elk heard on one of them.

The other day I met a game warden at the trailhead. He mentioned he had seen a grizzly in the area that morning. Surprised me but didn’t think much of it then. I know they roam a lot and figured he was just passing through. But apparently he’s hanging around. This morning I was standing atop a ridge looking down at the wooded creek bank below me, trying to decide if there might be elk hanging out in it (I had been seeing fresh sign). Then the bear breaks out of the creek bed and starts running up the next ridge away from me, like he had smelled me but I had a strong wind in my face, so that’s another mystery. He was probably 400 yards away when I saw him. I watched him through my scope. A no-doubt grizzly with a big hump above and a blond band across the shoulders.

I just moved to Cody and this makes me realize there’s a lot I need to learn about these animals. I would not have guessed that to be good grizzly habitat. You guys who know about these things - what do you think he eats? It doesn’t seem like he’s just waiting for a dinner bell. I don’t think the area is very heavily hunted. I was the only one out there this morning. Just a few miles west is thick timber and numerous trout streams, where I figured he would be. Why would he be attracted to this scrubby area?

They can be anywhere and everywhere! They’re quite mobile, and aren’t real timid! memtb

Grizzlies are plains animals. They would lurk the river bottoms and brush where the water is, and the prey. And berries, and fish. Lewis and Clark found them to be super aggressive, not scared at all. Then came gunpowder, right? And people.

Eventually, bears only had dense forests or otherwise remote country as a place to operate. THe ESA listings imposed a bunch of restrictions (actually, not hunting them would have worked all by iteslf) on humans in "bear habitat" and now the bears (the sows, anyway, have filled the montane habitat and now the "excess" is squirting back into open country.

Bears have great hearing and bloodhound class noses. 10,000 better sniffer than us, so if there was a whirl to the wind in the coulee, it smelled you almost for sure, even 400 yards away.

This time of year, they are trying to pack in the calories for sack time. If they're behind schedule, their bodies respond and they get hangrier than usual, which is already pretty much a bad attitude. And if your bear has heard BANG and then found a yummy stinky gutpile soon after, that's a dinner bell bear.

Your quandary is, grizzlies react badly to being surprised. But hunting is mostly about surprising whatever you're hunting.

Last summer there was a grizzly hanging out by the dairy queen, or so I was told.

There was an article in the news about a year ago talking about a grizzly bear eating the apples from trees within the Cody city limits. Seems like you're in griz country for sure.

As I said, just before I saw him I had been considering going down to that creek bed and trying to scare up an elk. Good thing he smelled me.

Since I’ve moved to Cody I’ve already heard of two people losing elk to grizzlies. In one case it was just a hindquarter. In the other it was the entire carcass.

Elk hunting is hard enough without this complication.

Welcome to Wyoming!!


Where do grizzly bears live? Anywhere they feel like it. Always be prepared with big ol' bear spray, stay alert to your surroundings.

Grizzlys love thick overgrown creek bottoms....

Food, water, shelter, space. What's not to like?

They lived in SoCal, NorCal, and the Central Valley historically, so jnyork is right, anywhere they want the will live.

They'll eat anything and everything I'd guess. They're bears.

Good luck with the rest of your hunt.

Geno

There's a certain "romantic" feeling to hunting in places where you can become the hunted. It'll keep you feeling five cups of coffee alive.

Yep! But, he filed a “ discrimination suit” because they refused to serve him! Actually, there is a pretty deep ravine behind the Dairy Queen....I believe it frequented the drainage pretty often. If I am not incorrect, theWyoming G&F had to destroy a sow and two cubs, that were hanging around a corn maze at Halloween....I guess they were hurting business! memtb

In just about all of Park county you could run into a grizzly. But especially anywhere west of Cody or Meeteetse should be considered prime grizzly country. And this time of year they are looking for meat or camps, cabins, farms, ranches or even in town places to raid.

There have been bears east of those places too more than once so don’t let your guard down.

Did he order the low-fat DQ ice cream??

This. Grizzlies are generalists as long as most of the boxes are ticked they'll survive wherever it is. Anywhere's from sea level rainforest jungle to the alpine and everything in between. Sure most of them will be in more lush areas but not all.

Look at their known habitat in the 1800s.

The Shoshone river bottom is full of them all the way past Powell. A few deer left and Russian olives feed them. Oh and one killed a horse a week ago the Cody side of Powell. Be sure and don’t kill one in self defense, they’re friggin endangered.

I appreciate all the replies, but I’m still curious about what they eat in sagebrush country. I guess I could see them feeding on young elk calves in the spring, but this time of the year? I’ve seen black bear feeding on succulent grasses and skunk cabbages but there’s nothing like that here.

??

They wouldn't stop at elk calves they'll eat adults. Is there range cattle in the area?

Did you mention prickly pear earlier? If so, and they're like black bear in AZ, they'll get into those for the fruit.

Got ground squirrels/marmots? Yep.

Fish in the creeks? Yep.

Deer and the antelope play there? Yep.

If there's a bear around you can pretty much guarantee there's food in the area of some sort, or it would leave to go find some.

Again, good luck on your hunt.

Geno