Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Proposed Grizzly Hunt in Montana

It was a liberal, Obama appointed Judge in Montana that put the kibosh on Wyoming's grizzly hunt. I applied. The so called Judge stopped the hunt hours before it was to start. The Bastard.

I'm thinking they had said like 7 or 9 when the skull came back after their study on it..



Nobody can put a decisive number on the griz population.
Back when they first outlawed the hunt it seemed they knew exactly how many bears existed.
They kept throwing all kinds of low ball numbers at it, ever since all I hear is how hard it is to put an number to it.

I keep hoping one day it'll happen, as far as I'm concerned we did a better job managing the bear population with the hunt.
For years it was 25 total bears limit including road, railroad and problem bear kills. I think the exception was if 17 sows died first the season would be closed, but that never happened, we were primarily hunting trophy bears so it was mostly larger boars being killed.
In the last few years of the hunt, as the greenies were fighting to close the hunt down, the state was broken up into multiple Grizzly management zones with each having a specific limit of sows/boars. It still totaled 25 bears overall to close the season for the year but they were able to more accurately manage the various areas dependent on how many bears they figured inhabited each management zone.

It seems anymore it's mostly all sows that are dispatched by state hunter/trappers under the current management plan.
To me it appears they are so over populated in their prime available habitat that the sows move the cubs out and into populated areas in attempt to protect them from being killed by the boars in the more suitable habitat. They have been killing far more than 25 a year ever since they closed the hunt.

It's just always a sow with cubs that shows up in someones backyard causing problems.

Initially it was the barkeaters that sued F&G to get the season closed, they fought it for a couple years until a judge stepped in and took over then it was all politics and to hell with what F&G's onsite biologist knew about the bears.

Same thing in Idaho. The same decision shut down our hunt hours before it began.

If it's anything like fisheries management in Florida, simple-minded citizens won't have a say about the "science" or laws.

Gosh, I haven't seen mulies like that in ages, like 95, 96. They've been hammered so hard by wolves. It was shocking to see the change in western MT in 2004 or so, after the wolves had met targets and were starting to arc up the spawning curve.
In fact, I see more bears than deer these days.

Those are great bucks. Shame what has happened to hunting in Western Montana

Waiting for the self proclaimed expert and wolf. luver BuzzH to chime in lmao

I hate to run of topic but WTF.....

About those two deer...........

I'd been doing really well on monster mulies for quite a few years in the area I hunt.
A few were tagged, they had been wintering in the Black Leaf Canyon area of NW Montana, my hunting area in the Great Bear was some 90 miles away from there.

In my hunting area there is a ridge that is steep and grassy on one side and a vertical drop of 1000 feet on so on the other.
It's north of Pentagon Mt. and South of Trilobite peak for those that care to chase....

Anyway, it's a hotspot for a lot of game but the Mule deer seem to love it there. For two years straight I'd been seeing a big drop tine mulie there, one time I was right on his azz without a gun, another time the following year I was at a distance and a clear shot wasn't in the cards..same deer or same genes idunno...

As I had said, my father and I had killed a 6x6 bull on the way into my camp, I'd field dressed it and left it lay, we were well after dark getting in to camp the way it was.
I had been looking forward to this hunt since we'd started planing it, I was doing it right, I had two hired hands, one camp roustabout that could pack a mule and a multi-talented cook. That elk was their problem to get into camp the next day, mine was finding a monster mulie for my dad.

We set off for my favorite hillside along that open ridge long before sun-up. We'd gotten there at the perfect time and there was nothing. Not the slightest sign of life, I glassed my azz off for a few hours and couldn't spot so much as a chipmunk.

I'd really been pushing dad, he'd flown in from Florida one day, jumped in a little Cessna and flew into the Great Bear the next morning and had shot and killed a bull before he'd gone to bed. Now it was lunch time the following day, we were both beat.

We nested down along side a big blown over buckskin larch and had some lunch as the day warmed. Didn't take long and we were both sound asleep....
When the peak heat of the afternoon began to subside the slight chill woke me, it was about 3:30 or 4:00, I peeked over the log we were laying behind and these two bucks were feeding about 75 yards away down the hill. I woke dad and got ready for the ambush, it couldn't have been more perfect, we had the log for a rest and all the time we needed to make a solid plan.

He was to shoot the bigger buck to the left, I'd take the other, they were like 20 feet apart. We did a countdown and shot simultaneously, both bucks went down like rag dolls, they just piled up right where they had stood.

Right then is when I realized I'd screwed up royally, there were 7 other bucks there I'd never even seen.
They headed down the slope about 250 yards away in a line, all one behind the other and they were in order as to size.
My big drop tine buck was leading the way, the ones my father and I had shot would have fit right in the middle of the group, we watched as three bigger and four smaller bucks filed outta there...

So goes life, at least we got the two that were standing side by side for the money shot on photos, not that I have a clue as to the positioning of the other deer, they were on the move and leaving before I'd ever seen them.
The photo with my father and I both in it took front page of the Hunting and Fishing news the following year....

The griz was the icing on the cake............

Great story and pics, Jeff.

Laffin, TARGET FIXATION.

But after a NAP. Wow, doesn't get any better than that.

Absolutely 100%