Had the best year in the selway to date

J

JASON LEE

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Around the corner ,Indiana
Got home last night about 1:30 am from Idaho bear hunting. We went 2 for 4 bears. One guy missed a bear then held out for a huge blonde that he had saw, the other one just couldnt connect with a bear at all.

All in all we saw about 15 bears the whole week. No sows with cubs, a few small ronnie the runts but most were shooter bears.

the best being a huge blonde bear with choclate legs. This would of have to been the most beatufil bears I have ever seen. Problem was we saw it late in the evening at a distance of 700 yards and no time to get to it.

The next day I started out on the hill that we saw the blonde and 2 other blacks on hoping to close the distance..

So we had two guys on one side of the drainage and me buy my self going up the other side. I get about 2 1/2 hours into walking up the ridge and I come upon a lone black in the valley oposite of the one that the other two guys were on. So I sat down and glassed the bear real good trying to determine size. I knew it was decient but didnt know how good.

So I marked the area that it was in with a huge pine tree...(there werent many in this area just waist high scrub brush). Getting a few more trees between me and him I started to close the 300 yard gap by walking and side hilling down hill.

I closed the distance to the tree to about 100 yards. But then I looked around and couldnt find the bear....I was pissed because there was no where the bear could of went that I wouldnt of saw it.But as anyone that has hunted in the Mountians the other side of the valleys are very decieving when your 100 to 300 yards away with hidded valleys and rock faces...

After glassing for 10 minutes I finanly figured out that the tree that I had used to mark it with was a little too wide at the bottom. Upon closer inspection I could see that the bear was asleep at the base...but I could tell which end was which because he was on the back side of the tree.

So I got my varmit call out of my pocket and put it in my mouth. While looking thru the scope, I blew a couple of times and the bear picked his head up and looked in my direction...then I gave it a few more blows getting the bear to his feet...then I let the 7 Rem ultra mag roar...the bear took it thru the front leg thru the chest and it grazed the hide leg on the way out...150 gr nosler partition.

Bear fell 20 feet on its back and never twitched.

walking up to it I was really happy, it was a huge old boar with split ears, a scar on its nose, and a broken k-9 tooth....I had a hard time posing him for the pics. I would guess 250 maybe more. He measures 5'8" nose to tail and is my biggest bear to date.

I skinned it out and took the quarters, backstraps, and hide. PUt it all in my cabelas outfitters pack and started the trip back to the trail then the 4 hours walk back to camp....In camp we guessed that the pack weighed around 120 lbs...it was heavy as hell and was about the death of me...

Another guy shot a small brown colored black bear the first day 30 minutes out of camp.

1 pointer if you read this Dave knowels was one of the guys that went with me from Owensville...he said that he knew your dad and you...he is my Uncle..

Elkchaser I have to appoligize for not stopping, on saturday we made it there by 1 pm if we were 30 minutes later the pilot wouldn't of been able to fly us in on saturday and we wouldnt of been in until sunday. On the way back I didnt figure you wanted a phone call at 1 am to meet up, that was the time we went past anaconda.

I havent had the pics developed yet...will try to get some up tomarrow.

Learned alot about the area that we hunt in on this trip....show make the future years easier to hunt....

I also learned that I need help judging bears. the one that the other guy shot we were russhed and I didnt get a good look at. After he shot it and we got to it it was about 100lbs
eek.gif


Oh well glad its a two bear limit area and the tags are reduced.
 
Congrats on the bear Jason and thanks for the story. I am lookinging forward to seeing the pictures now. Welcome back and congrats again.
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I just got back from an Idaho bear on Friday. Jason had invited my brother and I to join him and his group. Thanks again Jason! The first day (Saturday May 3rd) my brother and I set up camp and then got in an afternoon hunt. We were camped near a river at 2400’ which flowed into a bigger river so either we hunted along the river bottoms or we climbed up the ridges. The first afternoon hunt took us up the nearby slope. We saw deer and elk but no bears. On the second day we headed up a long ridge to 4800’ and then down another ridge that lead into the bigger river. We got snowed on a bit up on top. The ridge we came down had a creek on both sides. About halfway down we looked to the east and I saw a black bear up on the slope on the other side of the creek. I told my brother of the sighting and then he said he saw two others. There was also a brown sow with a blonde cub on the same slope but a bit lower and left of the black. The sow and cub were working their way down to the creek but the black was feeding and seemed content to stay put so we decided to drop down to the creek bottom and try to work our way back up the other side to where the black was feeding and see if we could get a shot. The cross canyon shot would have been 575 yards so we obviously needed to get closer. It took an hour but we got over there and found that he was still in the same area. My brother was packing his 54 caliber muzzleloader and I had thought I might try to call the bear closer but the breeze was from us toward the bear so I decided I had better take the shot before he winded us. He was 190 yards away and facing me with his head down. I had my Snipepod attached and was steady so I placed the 200 grain Nosler Partition (from my 300 Win Mag) into his spine at the base of his skull. He went cartweeling down the slope and lodged against a log. Shot was taken at 5:30 pm and it was 8:30 and just dark when we started back to camp with two legs. Got back to camp at midnight. Went back the next day (Monday) for the other two legs and the hide and skull.

Tuesday was mostly spent cleaning up the hide and meat. We got in an evening hunt but saw no bears. We did however see a big black wolf. That was a thrill. Wednesday we hunted up the river we were camped on. No bears but lots of deer and elk. We found a meadow with a spring that apparently was a mineral lick area. Probably 30 elk and as many deer in the meadow. We walked up through it and saw scads of bones scattered about. I guess the wolves knew that the deer and elk frequented the mineral lick. Thursday we hunted down the big river to a creek that fed into it. We hiked up a ridge and glassed up the drainage. We saw 3 bears but all too far away then worked our way back to camp. Despite custom boots this hunter has sore and blistered feet. But this hunter also tagged a beautifully coated black black bear. I have been wanting a black one and had never seen one where I hunt in SE WA state. His skull is approx. 18” and he was 5’9” nose to tail with hide still on carcass. Girth was 41” which would put him at about 235#. His front pad was 4.75” wide.

Happy hunting to you all, Rufous
 
Jason and Rufous

Congrats on your success.

We flew into moose creek monday, May the 5th. I didn't get to check things out because we were just shuttling everything from shearer. We flew into shearer with a twin engine plane but the strip had a mud puddle about 150 yards from the take off and they couldn't bring in the big plane to pick us up. So we had to shuttle everything.

Looked like really good country down there.

My friend John Burns talked to someone who was camped around the buildings, was that either of you?

<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 05-28-2003 18:17: Message edited by: wyote ]</font>
 
Right on! Sounds like a good time, seeing lots of game - I've never seen a wolf... Sounds like a good bear. Let's see the pics!
 
Wyote, my brother and I talked with your friend John Burns. He told us about the mucky runway at Shearer and about his venture filming hunting trips for television. Hope that works out. Rufous.
 
Rofous

I thought it might have been you.

They got some pretty good footage of the hunt and if it gets on the show this year I'll let you know.
 
Way to go guys!!! Congrats to all of you..
That's OK Jason...
Some day we will meet!!!
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Geez... I LIVE in Idaho and I can't find a bear. Some hunter I am!!! I'm leaving Monday for a week-long bear hunting trip. We'll see if I get anything! I'm going up near Cascade.
 
Welcome bearsniper!!
I wouldn't be to concerned with not scoring on a bear yet, there are many on this board that have not yet!!!
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