After the kill in grizzly country

[406dn]

I always hope that a hunting trip will involve some blood on my hands, shirt or coat sleeve, pants and or boots. I do not worry about a bear spending much effort finding the source of an ounce or two of dried blood.

If you use the gutless method, there really isn't all that much blood to deal with. It also contains the smell of the carcass, I think. When you gut an animal, it gives off considerable scent.

 

[kwyeewyk]

Yeah the blood's the badge of honor. I usually try to get the liver and heart out, but might forgo that if in a spot where I'm worried about bears, definitely less blood and smell if you don't open the cavity other than grabbing the tenderloins at the end.

 

[buffybr]

Also at least for moose, usually meat bags are pretty heavy and not high up in trees,
just hanging on a big horizontal meat pole,
caribou/sheep no trees if in the alpine or tundra,
so some blood on clothes might not be that significant.

View attachment 130049

Neat pic of hanging meat...bagged to keep clean and the flies off, tarped to keep it shaded and dry, BUT that wouldn't meet US Forest Service requirements for meat storage in grizzly country. They require food, meat, or the animal to be hung 5' out from the tree trunk and the bottom of the sack or animal to be 10' off the ground. They post a pretty little picture at trailheads that show a whole 6x6 bull elk hanging from a fir or spruce tree where the body is 5' from the tree trunk and the elk's feet are 10' off the ground.

Sorry, but I've yet to see a fir or spruce tree in SW Montana that has a limb 20' off the ground that is strong enough 5' out from the trunk to hold a whole bull elk, and that the tree is also close enough to where my elk died. And even if you could anchor a pole between two trees, I have not ever seen a hunter who is strong enough to pull a 500 plus pound animal 20' up in the air.

In my 40 years of killing deer, elk, moose, and sheep here in Montana grizzly country, and most while hunting by myself, I have only had one encounter with a bear. Two of my friends and I were camped at the end of a Forest Service road near West Yellowstone, MT. I had an electric fence around part of the meadow next to camp where I kept my horses. One night we heard a commotion and my horses ran off. There was about 4" of snow on the ground, and when I inspected the fence wire, I saw where a moose had walked through one side of the fence and he probably thought my horses were cow moose, and they didn't want any part of him and ran off. I found them the next morning about a mile from our camp.

Another night we heard another commotion from the horses but they didn't run off. When I went out to find out what was going on, I found grizzly tracks in the snow that showed that he had walked up to the electric fence, then he abruptly turned and ran away. I can just visualize him putting his wet nose on that hot wire and getting zapped.

So about the third day of our hunt we had a moose and 2 elk quartered and hanging in the stock rack in the back of my pickup. Before going to bed that night I went outside to check my horses and from the top of the cutbank of the road where we were camped a grizzly woofed and clicked his teeth at me. He was only 25-30' from me and I had my Ruger .44 mag with me, so holding a flashlight in my left hand, I fired a shot over his head. That had no effect on him. So I fired another shot into the trunk of a pine tree next to him. Again no reaction from the bear. So I holstered my gun and picked up a tennis ball size rock and threw it and hit him and he ran off into the night.

There was another camp about a quarter mile from us and a few minutes after the bear ran from our camp we heard 5 or 6 quick shots from that camp, and a half hour later we saw headlights as they had packed up their camp and left.

The next morning I rode one of my horses following the grizzly's tracks. He had walked from our camp to the other camp, then there was an occasional drop of blood in his tracks and I quit following him after he had gone about a mile away.

When I saw that bear by our camp he had a radio collar around his neck and an ear tag with the number 190 on it. We broke camp that day and we reported the incident to the FWP office in Bozeman. They said he had been a problem bear in Cooke City, on the other side of Yellowstone NP, and he had been trapped and released near where we were camped. The Interagency Grizzly Study Team radio tracked that bear to where he denned that winter, and they found his collar the next spring near where he had denned.

I hunted that area for about 10 years, camping both at the end of that road and in several places back in the wilderness. We took one bighorn ram, three moose, and a half dozen or more elk in there, and that was the only grizzly incident that we had.

 

[diamond hitch]

The only meat I have ever lost was to a coyote. I had towed the bull about 4 miles. I ran out of snow about a mile from the house and left him on the side road while I rode home and got the truck. In the 15 minutes it took to get the truck and return, a coyote ate a 4 lb rump roast.

I usually gut my elk. I rarely get blood on more than my hands and forearms. That usually comes off with a little snow. I then drag the elk 100-200 yds away and position it so I can see it from a reasonable distance. If I plan to get it the next day I straighten it out to make it easier to quarter. I prop open the body cavity then cut a number of small fir trees and brush in the edible parts such is the neck, abdomen and rump. Then I flag the trees with ribbons. The fluttering ribbons will keep the birds and coyotes at bay usually. While I am working I drink a lot of fluids and routinely pee on the high spots around the carcasses. Then before I leave I tie a piece of clothing above the carcass. With the remote gut meal and the human scent I have been able buy at least 24 hrs to get back in with stock or be able to get the quarters hung where the bears can't get at them.

The technique has worked for me since 1963 for a very large number of elk and deer for me, family and my hunting partners.

 

[diamond hitch]

The answer to your questions: climbing spurs, 5/8 inch hemp rope between the trees, 7 or 8 pulley block and tackle with parachute cord. I do it every year.

 

[WyoDoug]

The answer to your questions: climbing spurs, 5/8 inch hemp rope between the trees, 7 or 8 pulley block and tackle with parachute cord. I do it every year.

This I do. I take strong pullies to help me pull heavier animals up to the rope. I seen people use lodgepole pine instead of rope this way but the problem there is if you use a lodgepole pine as a sort of beam, it seems to me bears can climb all the way across that where they can't with rope.

 

[SAJ-99]

The most detailed government sign you might ever see.

 

[Jglenn198]

A lot of good information here

 

[a.a.ron]

I have been using tyvek suits for years now. Not specifically for griz safety (although I have been exclusively hunting in griz country for decades) but because I'm allergic to deer hair. It has definitely cut down on the severity of my reactions, however, I still typically breakout in hives on my wrists because there is inevitably a gap between the gloves and the suit. Also my boots typically break through the booties. They are not a cure-all but definitely make things a fair bit cleaner.

 

[OntarioHunter]

The only meat I have ever lost was to a coyote. I had towed the bull about 4 miles. I ran out of snow about a mile from the house and left him on the side road while I rode home and got the truck. In the 15 minutes it took to get the truck and return, a coyote ate a 4 lb rump roast.

I usually gut my elk. I rarely get blood on more than my hands and forearms. That usually comes off with a little snow. I then drag the elk 100-200 yds away and position it so I can see it from a reasonable distance. If I plan to get it the next day I straighten it out to make it easier to quarter. I prop open the body cavity then cut a number of small fir trees and brush in the edible parts such is the neck, abdomen and rump. Then I flag the trees with ribbons. The fluttering ribbons will keep the birds and coyotes at bay usually. While I am working I drink a lot of fluids and routinely pee on the high spots around the carcasses. Then before I leave I tie a piece of clothing above the carcass. With the remote gut meal and the human scent I have been able buy at least 24 hrs to get back in with stock or be able to get the quarters hung where the bears can't get at them.

The technique has worked for me since 1963 for a very large number of elk and deer for me, family and my hunting partners.

I did the same thing. Always carried an extra cheap orange hunting vest in my daypack and hung that over the carcass. Very good for keeping birds off the meat. I found them to be a much worse problem than bears. I also took the time to build three or four small fires surrounding the animal. Always worked. I tracked a grizzly in the snow making a beeline for my first bull when I came in with horses. When he got within fifteen yards of the fire rings he made a precise detour around the carcass. Anyone who has tracked bears will know that behavior is odd. Those buggers have someplace to go and they get there in a perfect straight line. Anything gets in their way they go through it or over it. Deadfall, jackpots, whatever.