So my friend Caleb and I went out last week and got him his first bear with a rifle. We knew we were pushing the limit on the snow for this area and that there might not be many bears out, but we had cabin fever and just wanted to get out, hike and do some serious glassing. It took us a couple hours to hike into our glassing area and climb the 2200 vertical feet to the ridge. We had wanted to hunt another area, but there was a couple guys at the trail head already and when I talked to them, they had planned to hunt the same spot as we were. We honored that they were there first and bid them good luck and went to our plan B. In my mind I was bumbed, because I wanted to hunt the plan A area, but as Caleb said, " we've seen bears in the B area before".
Once we reached the glassing area, I spotted a bear in the first 2 minutes of glassing! That hardly ever happens. It was a good bear, Chocolate brown, but in a tough spot to get the wind right and be able to be close enough for a shot. So we elected to watch him and see what he did. In the next 2 hours we spotted another smaller all black bear. We spent the next 6 hours on the ridge glassing different openings and picking apart the timber patches, we were burning holes in the hills with our glassing. We ended up seeing one more good brown color phase bear but then lost him in some trees.
As it turned to 5 pm - Prime time for bears, we hiked to a glassing ridge and watched a very good open hillside that I had seen bears on in the past. This hill was south facing and had greened up nice, and I just knew a bear would show before dark. by 7 pm, nothing had shown on the hillside and I figured it was not going to happen here tonight so we bailed down the ridge. Two of the bears from earlier were in sight but still 1200 yards up the hillside and feeding up into the trees, with goofy wind, it was just not the right time to go in there after them. We elected to hike down the canyon and glass the last hour. Halfway out of the canyon we spotted a nice black bear across the canyon and when I put my eyes on it, I could tell it was an adult bear with a beautiful shiny black coat. We hustled into position and Caleb got the rifle ready as I took a range - 410 yards! I was super excited because he was shooting my 7 mm WSM and 410 yards is a chip shot with that gun. He dialed 4.5 MOA vertical and .5 moa for wind and sent a 180 gr. berger into the bear. It ran 50 yards and stopped broadside as if it was hurting pretty good and he put another into the shoulder and it was down. The bear was a dry female and went about 170 pounds. We spent the next hour filling our packs with bear meat and a beautiful pelt. We made it back to the truck at 11:30 pm, sweating and tired from heavy hike. So I guess you can say our plan B turned out good. It was a great hunt and one we will remember for a while.
Once we reached the glassing area, I spotted a bear in the first 2 minutes of glassing! That hardly ever happens. It was a good bear, Chocolate brown, but in a tough spot to get the wind right and be able to be close enough for a shot. So we elected to watch him and see what he did. In the next 2 hours we spotted another smaller all black bear. We spent the next 6 hours on the ridge glassing different openings and picking apart the timber patches, we were burning holes in the hills with our glassing. We ended up seeing one more good brown color phase bear but then lost him in some trees.
As it turned to 5 pm - Prime time for bears, we hiked to a glassing ridge and watched a very good open hillside that I had seen bears on in the past. This hill was south facing and had greened up nice, and I just knew a bear would show before dark. by 7 pm, nothing had shown on the hillside and I figured it was not going to happen here tonight so we bailed down the ridge. Two of the bears from earlier were in sight but still 1200 yards up the hillside and feeding up into the trees, with goofy wind, it was just not the right time to go in there after them. We elected to hike down the canyon and glass the last hour. Halfway out of the canyon we spotted a nice black bear across the canyon and when I put my eyes on it, I could tell it was an adult bear with a beautiful shiny black coat. We hustled into position and Caleb got the rifle ready as I took a range - 410 yards! I was super excited because he was shooting my 7 mm WSM and 410 yards is a chip shot with that gun. He dialed 4.5 MOA vertical and .5 moa for wind and sent a 180 gr. berger into the bear. It ran 50 yards and stopped broadside as if it was hurting pretty good and he put another into the shoulder and it was down. The bear was a dry female and went about 170 pounds. We spent the next hour filling our packs with bear meat and a beautiful pelt. We made it back to the truck at 11:30 pm, sweating and tired from heavy hike. So I guess you can say our plan B turned out good. It was a great hunt and one we will remember for a while.
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