2016 Hunt Talk Bear Hunt

[Gerald Martin]

Conversation waned in the wee hours of the morning as the campfire cooled to embers until each hunttalker headed for their sleeping bag. Thursday morning dawned clear and cool. It felt as though our hunt was hitting a good stride and I had an intuition about the spot I wanted to head to that afternoon. I hadn't been in there for years and never as far as we intended to go today, but based on our past bear sightings and where we had been finding sign, I thought it would be a good place to look.

J.R. teamed up with Jeff and I and we were parked at the end of the gate forest service road by mid-afternoon. Jeff loaded up the Howa with some premium Nosler Accubonds in anticipation of participation in the "Nosler Success" thread that is currently running. We strapped on our packs and settled in for the long hike up.

Good bear signs right where we left the truck kept our optimism running high.
We hiked and glassed for the next three and a half hours walking this endless logging road up and up and up and up and ... Five miles into a road that ended at nine miles without a single sighting of bear scat or any other signs of bears we realized we were on a fools mission and headed back out to the truck. The weather turned cool and windy and clouds started rolling in. Several of the others hunters who were hunting top of a ridge a dozen miles away endured a cold, miserable evening of hail, fog and high wind. If memory serves me correctly I don't think anyone saw a bear that evening.

We did learn some memorable aspects of J.R.'s character as he lamented the effects of having a desk job and then participating in a five mile uphill hike. While probably not as notable as "I have not yet begun to fight!"-(John Paul Jones 1779), or "I regret I have but one life to give for my country"-(Nathan Hale,1776) or "Give me liberty or give me death!"-(Patrick Henry,1775) his quote when asked if he was doing okay certainly deserves repetition on this thread. "I might die, but I won't quit."- (J.R. Young 2016)

Unfortunately the bears didn't seem to be impressed and neither did Jeff and J.R. when I tried to explain the northwestern Montana rules of mathematics when figuring out distance walked in relation to elevation gained. The way I figure, a hunter takes how ever far he walks and the elevation gained and then multiplies the actual distance by a percentage of the elevation to figure out how far he really walked. That made our uphill five mile hike with 1700' of verticle gain at least seven miles in length. You do not actually subtract any distance for down hill measurement so we walked seven miles in and five miles back out for a total of at least 12 miles that day.

Jeff didn't seem too encouraging when I asked if he thought I could make it as a math teacher in California if I tired of construction. Then again, he made up for his lack of encouragement by the exuberant display of spontaneous rejoicing after I showed him the first wild bighorn sheep he had ever seen. I glassed it up from at least two miles away on another mountain and after ten minutes of talking him through landmarks of " see that grey cliff band and that dead tree? Now go about fifty yards left and down. See that whiteish looking rock? That's a sheep's butt. I saw it walk there and bed down." I tell you he was so appreciative. We couldn't go for more than fifteen minutes on the hike back to the truck without him expressing gratitude that I showed him a sheep.

 

[jryoung]

Dang Gerald, do you have a memory of an elephant or did you have a recorder in your pocket to remember all that? Thanks for continuing this story, it's fun to reflect back.

 

[Gerald Martin]

Friday morning dawned bright and early about mid-morning. John Cushman was in camp and on a roll making sure camp the coffee was always hot and available. We put together a big breakfast this morning with mountain lion breakfast sausage and foil grilled potatoes and grilled sausage links added to the bounty of muffins and various other breakfast foods.[/ATTACH] After stuffing ourselves with all we could eat we got out the maps for the daily strategy session. We were all in the groove with hunting and everyone was focused on making sure we picked the best spots to focus on today.
Somehow in the course of conversation, mention was made of the steep, deep, nasty, canyon where Dave Crisp killed his bear in 2014. Ethan and Julie were very near to the 50 mile mark on this trip already and I could see Ethan's face drop when someone suggested that would be a good place for them to go. (Just for clarity, that someone who suggested they go there was not me. I haven't been back in that canyon since the second pack trip with Dave's bear. ) I saw Ty Stubblefield's face light up at the idea of pain and tough hiking and Julie affirmed that she was good and up for whatever she needed to do to kill a bear. Just like that, Ethan had to put his game face on and it was decided that Ty would follow them into "Steep and Nasty" to try and video them.


After the long, fruitless hike of the night before, I came up for an ingenious plan that involved five of us leaving camp in three vehicles. We would drop one rig off at the bottom of a closed road, take the other two rigs 15 miles around the bottom road and then J.R., Dave, and Randy would walk a nine mile downhill jaunt down the closed road and bring that vehicle to camp. Quigley and I would hunt another area at the top of the mountain and bring the other two rigs back to camp.


As the old saying about plans of mice and men goes, it sounded better than it worked. The first problem came when the "gated" road that wasn't supposed to be open until June 15 turned out to not be gated and we drove two vehicles five miles up it looking for the gate where we would park. After 5 miles we realized it wasn't going to be closed. Then we had to go back down the spot where Randy and J.R. were waiting for us to "be back in 10 minutes". After ten minutes turned into an hour they were starting to seriously question my directions. Of course we had to make it more complicated than it needed to be, so Quigley took my truck and continued up the "gated" road with instructions to "meet at the top gate by 5 p.m." Dave and I took his rental rig back and jumped in with J.R. and Randy to make the loop up to where Quigley would meet us with my truck. Unfortunately, I am a slow learner and did not heed the warning signs the first time I let Jeff navigate when we came out off the mountain on Wednesday night. Apparently, "don't take road XYZ at the Y" sounded like "take road XYZ at the Y" when it was filtered through the wax in Jeff's ears. We got to the meeting spot and no sign of Jeff. Now, we thought maybe he had vehicle trouble so we drove the route we should meet him on till we got to the spot where we turned around the first time. No Jeff, although we did surprise a small chocolate bear on the side of the road. He vacated the area a lot faster than we could get out of the truck.


As we pondered what to do we made the decision to turn back around and head up the spot Jeff and I hunted on Tue. evening in hopes of salvaging part of the evening's hunt. We controlled the rising tension and frustration by sharing equally from Dave's stash of peanut M&Ms. We even hit the mother lode jackpot of puffball paradise and Randy gathered a nice bag to fry back at camp.

By this time we had written Jeff off and figured he was either back at camp or we would look for him after dark. After all he had my pickup and we needed that to hunt the next day so we couldn't just not go look for him if he didn't show up at camp. One last major obstacle in the form of a grainy slick snowbank across the road and we were back in business. J.R. really didn't act that nervous about gunning a rental truck sideways through a snowbank on a steep ridge. Just to be certain that he knew where to go though, Dave, Randy and I got out to guide him. As with all things in life, this would go better if we acted as a team.


At last we got to our hunting spot with about an hour and a half of shooting light. Lo and behold! There was my truck parked, and Jeff was already out the trail ahead of us! We would figure out the story of how that all happened later, but for now Randy and J.R. teamed up to take a different fork of the gated road and Dave and I drove J.R's rental three miles further to another small clear cut. We left a very clear and detailed note on my truck's windshield instruction Jeff not to leave without waiting for J.R. and Randy to come out.


None of us saw a thing, except for some fresh bear poo. However, back at camp the excitement level rose dramatically when Ed reported that they had seen several bear and he had shot one right at last light. He had a small handful of hair and had elected not to pursue the bear into the thick brush in the failing light. We would go back in the morning an look for his bear. Midnight came and went and we were starting to wonder what was up with Ethan, Julie and Ty when I got a text saying they would be in much later since they were packing out Julie's bear! We tried to stay up and wait for their return but by the time 3 a.m rolled around it was apparent we'd have to wait till the morning to see her bear.

 

[duckhunt]

Im loving this.

 

[Arrow_slinger]

I'm new here, but this is what I came here for, great stories and pictures. Dig it!

 

[cant]

Fantastic thread!!! What a great read.

 

[jquigley]

Got my first piece of taxidermy back a few weeks ago

 

[MThuntr]

wow that was quick. I never asked before...what did you do with the skull?

 

[Kaitum]

Congrats Jeff! No one will question you earning that one.

 

[jquigley]

wow that was quick. I never asked before...what did you do with the skull?

I got really lucky that he had a batch of hides ready to go to the tannery right when we dropped her off. The skull sits on my desk along with a piece my friend made for me. Apologies for the crappy photo, the light in the office at this time of day is tough to shoot around.

 

[jquigley]

Congrats Jeff! No one will question you earning that one.

Thanks! Means a lot coming from anyone on this board.

 

[Joe Hulburt]

You folks did an outstanding job documenting your hunt. Just finished watching the Fresh Tracks version and I really enjoyed it. Well done!!

 

[kansasdad]

Thanks for the heads up Joe about this episode. I have enjoyed the vicarious camaraderie with the HuntTalk bear hunt threads, so it's a bit surreal to be able to hear the heretofore imagined voices of those involved.

Just like a famous SNL skit where the music producer played by Christopher Walken, said he needed more cowbell, this episode maybe coulda used some Cushman?

Thanks fellas/Julie for showing me more of MY land in NW Montana.

 

[Gerald Martin]

Thanks for the heads up Joe about this episode. I have enjoyed the vicarious camaraderie with the HuntTalk bear hunt threads, so it's a bit surreal to be able to hear the heretofore imagined voices of those involved.

Just like a famous SNL skit where the music producer played by Christopher Walken, said he needed more cowbell, this episode maybe coulda used some Cushman?

Thanks fellas/Julie for showing me more of MY land in NW Montana.

Definitely could have used more Cushman. I was bummed his interview segment didn't get included.

 

[MN Public Hunter]

I saw this episode last night and thought it was great. Was fun to see more faces that go along with the names on HT.

 

[Elkhunter24]

just watched the show last night. Awesome job, looks like you guys/girls were having a blast. I couldn't agree more about the public lands..

 

[jryoung]

Was the episode on Sportsman's Channel? I suspended my DirectTV subscription due to outdoor construction and us moving our dish. I'm anxious to see the final copy.

 

[duckhunt]

Was the episode on Sportsman's Channel? I suspended my DirectTV subscription due to outdoor construction and us moving our dish. I'm anxious to see the final copy.

Yes its on the sportsmans channel. Just watched it and it was awesome

 

[kansasdad]

JoseCuervo's gonna have a talking to you about your cap shading your eyes for the videographer JR. I liked the message unity about MY public lands.

 

[zachthebowhunter]

What a great episode! While you guys were doing that I was chasing bears a few counties to the east with far less success than was had there!