Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game My 2013 Oregon spring bear hunt

My buddy Mike and I got drawn for spring bear in the West Blues units of OR this year. We got drawn for the same area back in 2008 and had a great hunt, both of us filling our tags but his dad did not.

On April 26th I saw my first bear of the year. It was a chocolate phase, probably about 3 years old so I passed. Looking for a decent sized blonde or a mature boar of any color. It was great though to put the first bear on the boards. Covered a bit over 3 miles in quite steep country.

On May 2nd my buddy Ben and his 13 year old daughter joined me in the same area. Ben has been out on many bear hunting adventures with me but not as a tag holder. He has never been with me when I shot a bear though. Well I thought that was going to change because I saw a decent blonde bear that I planned to shoot. Problem was Ben and Hannah were up the ridge behind me several hundred yards and I had left my pack about halfway between us as I worked my way further down a ridge. It was about 530 pm when I left my pack and after a bit I noticed some really fresh digging. My alertness increased and I poked along down the ridge very slowly. Finally I saw what was probably a 3 year old blonde bear feeding on the ridge top below me. The wind was in my favor and it had no clue I was there, only 130 yards from it. I decided to call Ben on the radio because I wanted him and Hannah (who got into hunting a couple years ago, killing her first deer and then another one last year) to witness the taking of the bear and I wanted him to get my pack so I could video the event. Well eventually, despite trying to talk quietly the bear heard us and took off. I was not too bummed though because my hunt was not over and I figured maybe I can get an even bigger bear. I would have been happy with this small blonde one though since I have never taken a blonde phase bear. It was a good day on the mountain and we covered about 7 miles, starting at 4600 feet elevation then dropping to about 3200' which is where the bear was before working our way back to the truck. We got back just at dark.

My hunting partner Mike and I went out on May 3rd in the evening and again on the 4th, both days to the same place. On the 3rd we covered about 3.5 miles on foot and ended up seeing 4 bears. I saw a lone bear way down in the canyon that looked pretty big and Mike and I saw a sow with cub and then we also saw a decent sized lone jet black bear which is pretty rare for the Blues. Mike was tempted to shoot the black one but it was 8pm and it was on a very steep slope. We did not think it likely that we would be able to find it that night if he had shot it so we decided to try for it the next morning. We got in there at about 9am and glassed the area for a bit but did not spot it immediately. Mike headed off in another direction and I headed down the main ridge. It wasn't 5 minutes after we separated that I saw the jet black bear. I called Mike on the radio to hustle back and while he was returning I got this photo:







Just before Mike got back the bear fed into some timber and out of sight. I was still not sure it was big enough to meet my goal but figured it would meet Mike's- he would be happy with a boar of 250# or bigger. Well we decided that I should do some calling with my Woods Wise Bear Blaster call to see if we could lure Black Bart out of the Woods. After several minutes of calling Mike, who was about 50 yards down the hill from me and out of my vision, fired off a shot. I was quite surprised because I had not seen the bear coming in and while I have called in quite a number of bears over the years I do not necessarily expect to succeed. Anyway the short of this part of the story is that he missed. We saw the bear working its way up hill a few minutes later and it appeared unhurt. We looked for blood and saw none as well. The bear was coming in but for whatever reason suddenly decided to exit and Mike took a quick shot at it on the run but missed.

We spent the rest of the day in that major canyon area and ended up seeing a total of 8 bears, 4 of which were repeats from yesterday. Late in the day we saw a sow and cub and then another sow with 2 cubs. The sow with the 2 cubs was a gorgeous cinnamon red. I really like the blonde phase bears and have yet to take one. I had hoped to accomplish that this spring which would complete what I am calling the Lower 48 Color Phase Slam. So far I have taken black, chocolate and cinnamon. Even though I really want a blonde one, I find the cinnamon most attractive to me. At the very end of the day we saw the same sow and cub as yesterday and I was able to get this photo of them from 130 yards away. We had a great day and it is awesome to finally be seeing the bears out.



I got out again a couple days later with two of my hunting buddies, both named Mike. Mike D took us up to a beautiful chunk of private property that he has permission to hunt. We only saw one bear which required a bit of a hike to get into position. Once we got over there we could no longer see it but we fired up the FoxPro and after several minutes of calling I spotted the blonde bear working its way up the ridge that it had been on. Mike C took the shot at my suggestion since he was the one who first spotted the bear. Unfortunately he missed and the bear got away. I sighted his rifle in for him later that evening and it was hitting low.

Next time out Mike C and I headed back into the area where we had seen Black Bart and the sows with cubs. We separated, heading down different ridges to cover more ground. I had a cool encounter with a couple coyotes. They were working their way up the ridge I was going down so I sat down, got out my predator call and camera and called them in to about 10 yards away. Got a great photo of the first one that came in.



May 17th I got it done. It was not the big boy or blonde phase I was hoping for but I decided to go ahead and fill my tag. I am happy with my decision. Decent sized boar and quite red colored overall. I saw this bear at about noon and it was 500 yards away across a canyon. It was feeding in and out of brush and I finally lost sight of it. I moved down the slope I was on and decided to try to call it in with my mouth blown bear blaster call. After several minutes here came the bear and I was able to make a good shot on it from about 50 yards away with my 300 Win Mag using the Barnes 200 LRX bullet. Based on its girth I figure it weighed about 225#. I wish I could have gotten some better photos but I was by myself. At least I had my Joby tripod so was able to get a pic of me with the bear. I hunt on my own much of the time and have taken 4 of my 11 bears while hunting solo. Also I have called in 5 of my bears. I encourage you bear hunters to keep at the calling. For me it sure works best when I have seen a bear first. If that is the case they generally come in. Not always but more often than not. So if you see a bear but it is either too far away for a shot or it has moved off into the brush give calling a try. It is very exciting when they come in looking to eat you!



Here is a better pic of the hide:


My buddy Mike and I went out again the evening of May 23rd and saw 6 bears. There was a blonde sow with 2 baby blonde cubs, another small blonde bear, probably a yearling pictured below and then we saw a black one being courted by a big blonde boar. They were 800 yards away across a canyon and by the time we got over there they were gone.




Another glowing testimonial for Barnes bullets. The bear was mostly facing me and my bullet hit the bear in the chest to the left of its neck and between the neck and shoulder joint, exited at the back of the ribs, completely broke the arm bone just below the shoulder blade then penetrated into the hind leg muscle. When I was skinning the bear I noticed a hole in its rear leg and there was a wad of hair in the hole. I was fairly confident that I would find the bullet during butchering and did just that. The bullet, a Barnes 200 grain LRX, was fired from my 300 Win Mag with a muzzle velocity of about 2930 fps. After cleaning the meat and hair out of it I weighed it at 199.0 grains.
[img]http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c115/rufous/200LRX2013springbear_zpsb94a97c3.jpg[/img]

My buddy Mike filled his tag finally on the 29th. We left town at about 1pm and hiked into the general area where I got my spring bear back in 2008. We split up to be able to glass more territory. After about an hour we both saw bears but they were different bears. The one I saw was across the river near where Mike shot his spring bear back in 2008 and was much too far away to go after. But the bear Mike saw was on a ridge between us and lower on the mountain. After he told me where it was over the radio I looked in that general area and saw a bear that I figured to be the one he had seen. It looked big. I saw it stand up on its back legs with its back against a tree to scratch its back. So we met up on the ridge that Mike saw the bear on (turns out his bear was on a different ridge just east of the one I saw the back scratching bear on) and worked our way down to where he had seen the bear. We got down there and saw the bear again. It was moving away from us and was about 480 yards away. I started calling with just my voice and brought it in closer but then we lost sight of it below us due to the slope. After a while we saw it again but it had worked from our right to our left and seemingly had lost interest in my calling. It was now 300 yards away down the slope from us but still moving. It went into some brush and we hoped it would come out so Mike could get a shot off. It did but on the other side of the brush but Mike was able to put a killing shot into the big boar with his 7mm Rem Mag (shooting handloaded 160 Nosler Partitions). The bear ran away from us for about 25 yards then dropped and cartwheeled most spectacularly down the hill. Fortunately it lodged up in some brush. We worked our way down the tremendously steep slope and got some photos before breaking it into pieces. We left the meat and hide because we realized we could get a friend�s quad down quite close to it. Felt good to both be tagged out! We figure that his bear weighed about 315# based on its girth of 46" and length of 71". I got some video of the calling and shot.

Here is a pic of the bear I saw.

[img]http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c115/rufous/Gotaway_zps28c4af0b.jpg[/img]

And here is a pic of the bear Mike ended up shooting. This pic was taken while I was calling it in.

[img]http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c115/rufous/beforetheshot_zps19c66fd8.jpg[/img]

Here is Mike with his bear.
[img]http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c115/rufous/Mikes2013bear1_zps9b49bb83.jpg[/img]

And a side view:
[img]http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c115/rufous/Mikes2013bear2_zps1631f32f.jpg[/img]

Saw my first Green Tailed Towhee while we were strapping the bear onto our packs as well as a Black Headed Grosbeak and Lazuli Bunting.

[img]http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c115/rufous/GreenTailedTowhee2_zps261be1bc.jpg[/img]

My buddy's bear skull green scored 19 and 7/16".

My buddy Mike recovered these 3 bullets from his bear during butchering. We were both surprised to find the two 44 caliber bullets just below the hide on the bear's shoulder. Someone must have lobbed them in there with a revolver from too far away.

[img]http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c115/rufous/Mikesbearbullets3_zps57b217d5.jpg[/img]

Apologies for poor overall video. Not sure why the first part was so shaky. After he fired I switched from camera to my binocular to see if it was a good hit. Should have stayed filming as you would have seen the bear doing quite a cartwheeling down the steep slope before it got lodged in some brush.


http://youtu.be/J2S_OTgQzYs

Thanks.

I enjoyed the entire post, pics, and video.

You just had to one-up my worthless bear story, didn't you?!


Congrats!

Great story, great hunt, thanks for sharing. I miss hunting Oregon.

Nice photos! You had a good hunt, congrats.

Wow, I enjoyed that very much. Thanks for the story and great pics.

That was very nice. Thanks for the report.

Macrabbit amigo keep at it. Hope you get one next time!

Thank you for the time and effort put unto to sharing this great story.

GRF, my pleasure. I know I enjoy reading of other's exploits. Believe me that the effort involved in the hunt was immensely greater than in documenting it (as you of course can already surmise).

That looks so much more pleasant then hunting the westside jungle. I have yet to hunt the east side because I like to bear hunt every year. I am seriously thinking about starting to save points for it though.

Great stuff. Looks like more fun than a fellow ought to be able to have with his clothes on.

As an aside, I recently purchased a GoPro Hero3 Black edition. It takes amazing video. I've a handlebar mount for my ATV, a mount similar to a head light you wear on your head and a chest harness. You might check it out.
Best

GWB

Great hunt. I'd love to get a lower 48 color phase slam.

Really nice bear!

Just found out that my buddy Mike' boar was 11 years old and mine was 9.

Dang man those were incredible enough in appearance, but putting those ages with em REALLY completes the package! Nice work!