Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Backpack Hunting CO bears in camp

Seeking some more advice for an up coming backpack hunt for elk in the CO second season, northern western slope. Are bears a cosistant issue in this area and time of year to consider when setting up a back country camp? What sorts of things have helped you make your back country camp un-inviting to bears. Are most of you carrying bear persuading sidearms on your backcountry hunts?
THANKS!

Colorado bears seem to be much more interested in home invasion in more urban settings lately than back country mischief but it's always good to keep a clean camp. If rifle, generally no handgun. If no rifle, always a handgun.

I would bring a bear stopper if i were you but i would also not spend too much time worrying about it. They tend to want to go in the other direction when people are around. DONT SLEEP WITH FOOD. Good luck.

I find that if you purchase a bear tag they seem to leave the county.

LMAO KC BH. That's called "insurance." I've camped a lot in areas with good bear sign, never had one in camp as long as it's National Forest (where hunting is permitted) instead of a National Park where it's not.

I've never posted here before but I'm from CO so I thought I would throw in my two cents.

I grew up on the Western Slope. I've spent a lot of time camping and backpacking where there are bears. I hang my food and my trash. I cook away from my tent. I usually carry the bear sized pepper spray and a big revolver but have never needed either.

Last weekend I was in the San Juans for grouse and turkey. This time of year bears are feeding most of the day. At this time of year, if you look at their poop, you can see they are eating the same things you find in the crop of a grouse or turkey (berries, little acorns from the scrub oak etc.). I was in the same area about this time last fall. Last year and this year we had huge amounts of bear sign around us but didn't see a bear. This year we had one walk through our camp on two different nights. There was nothing there for it to get into so it left. Early one morning one of my friends bumped into a mother with a cub in the oak brush. He just backed out of the area, gave them a wide berth and went on hunting.

I agree with the comment about the bear tag. I've seen bears out of season. I've seen bears when they were in season and I had no tag. I've never seen a bear when it was actually in season and I had a bear tag. About three years back, during muzzle loader season, a friend had a bear tag along with our deer and elk tags. We saw a nice big black bear - on the other side of a fence that had a nice big no tresspassing sign on it.

CO doesn't have anything but black bears. Even though there are a lot more bears than when I was growing up and I spend a good deal of time in bear habitat, I can go a year or two without seeing a bear. Every bear I've actually seen in the wild walked away, ran away or ignored me. I think that the advice given above such as "keep a clean camp" and "don't sleep with food" are the best advice.

Hope you have a good hunt.

darcytribe:

Very few people get the privilege of seeing a predator. There's a 99% chance that you won't see a bear and if you do it will be running away. Cats are even more secretive. The best place to see a predator is in your back yard where they may be raiding trash cans or stealing dog food. The only situation where a bear might bother you is if you leave stinky food out for the bears to smell. Then they might trash your camp looking for food. This is especially true in places like US Forest Service campgrounds where ignorant tourists keep untidy camps and thus habituate the bears to the idea that they can find food there. If you are lucky enough to see a predator don't worry because you should be carrying a hunting rifle. Anything more than that is extra weight and bulk that you don't need to bother with. I have been on maybe 300 wilderness backpack trips over the last fifty years and the predators that I have seen I can count on one hand and I have never been threatened.

KC

In over 20 years of camping in Colorado the only bears I have seen in camp have been in National or state park tourist areas. Have spent many nights camped out in hunting areas and never had a bear in camp. I do keep a clean camp, no food in the tent. Usually leave my pack outside so that if one does come he would probably go after the pack before messing with the tent. Never had a problem though.

Lefty C

Don't keep your opened bag of beef jerky in your sleeping bag.

Well then what'r you supposed to do if you get hungry at night?

I'm going to disagree on not seeing predators 99% of the time if you are including bears. I've hunted the western slope quite a bit and when I've gone northwest of Grand Junction (can't go very far west) I have almost always seen bears and often multiple bears. A spot I used to hunt outside of Rifle was thick with bears. Much of it was thick scrub oak so I didn't see a bear there myself but they were certainly close and guys I hunted with saw them. My buddy had a bear tag one year and we made the mistake of not checking out the smell of something extremely dead. Found out later that a rancher came up on a dead steer (source of the smell) and saw seven bears on it. I've never heard of such a thing outside of a dump. That was several years ago but the population seems to have increased if anything. I have also never had a problem and agree that where they are hunted, they are much more shy. I really don't worry about them much at all.