Well, I made the Whirlwind trip. It takes bout 3 hours from my house to get there. I left at 2:30 and got to their camp at 5:30. One of the funniest parts was taking my Oldest kid Oscar III, He is 11. He made the 3 hour trip go by quickly. The beginning of the trip was all about going over road signs and road markings. He loves learning and it's always easier to talk and teach when it's one on one. Usually there is my wife and all 4 boys in the car and it's hard to talk let alone teach anything
I explained mile markers and that exit #'s matched up with them. We also stopped before the trip and got McD's and snacks for the trip. Some jerky, Potato chips, drinks, gum, etc. I like road trips
Anyway, pulling into camp at 5:30 some of the other guys had their boys in camp. Little O' knew one of them. I heard the guys were up there looking for a bear that had been shot and hour ago so I unloaded the 4-wheeler to go up and help look. My boy stayed at camp with the other boys and shot 22's, made a bow out of a tree limb, and exploring forts as well as anything else a kid can do at that age.
When we got to the area that the guys were at we met Mike McMicheals on the road. Anyone that shoots Black powder bullets probably know his name ? He owns Power Belt Bullets. He lives jsut down the road from me and is a Top knotch dude. We then got the run down and decided to see if the bear crossed in the nearby canyon. I was driving up a guy to the top of it on a road when we came around a corner and right in the middle of the road was a bear. I wanted a picture so I jumped off the 4 wheeler, took of my backpack and dug through it. I had the camera all wrapped up in a jacket. I finally got ot the camera as the bear started to take off. I snapped 3 pictures of it as it bailed over the side of the road into the thick brush. It wasn't a big one but it's always cool to see bear. I wasn't sure if I'd see another one.
We then drove to the top, I dropped him off and I drove back around to glass a little. I ended up talking to some other guys in the party up there. About 1.5 hours had passed I think so I went back to camp to grab my boy and bring him up. As we were going back up we met my buddy Jason Oswald on a 4-wheeler coming out of the hills. We talked a little and then drove to a point where he showed the layout of the ground.
What I liked about the area is there were at least 5 different type of fruit trees and they were ALL OVER. As we drove by we'd pick some and eat them. You can tell that the early settlers had trees and the bears and other animals must have ate the fruit and then pooped out the seed all up the canyons.
We headed back down to the Skinning shed. They had 7 hunters in camp with 4-5 bear down. It was only the 2nd day of the season and they were piling them up like wood. I wanted my boy to see a live bear so Jason told me to drive up this area and glass a little. We were getting close to running out of light by then and he needed to skin the bears.
We headed up the hill and crossing in the road right in front of us was another bear. Oscar saw it. YAHHHHH !!! He got to see a bear. We shot up further on the road and it switched back to see the same bear again. It stopped and looked at us for a second and continued into the brush. We came to another little opening and I pointed out another bear to Oscar. He looked and said, "Thats a Turkey". He was looking closer then I was and in fact there was a turkey closer to us. I pointed out the bear again and we watched it for a min. We started heading down the road and in another spot saw a bear in the road just in front of us. it darted into the brush. We drove to where it had been and shut off the 4-wheeler. We listened and you could hear it in the brush next to us. I could tell my boy didn't like the idea of a bear that close so we moved on again.
Getting to be dark by now we looked over the last little drop off. I walked to the Right and my boy said "Bear". I went back to him to look but it already stepped in the brush. So, within about a 30 minute timeframe we saw 4 bear just cruising the roads.
We get back down to the skinning shed and the guys were working on the bear. One was a good bear weighing 328#'s. There was a small bear too. I would have said something but I've taken smaller
Most of the guys were at camp getting ready to eat dinner.
I started helping by holding a foot and soon I was up to my elbows skinning out a new bear that was just shot that evening. It was a good looking bear at about 225#. I helped them skin the bear and hang the meat in a walk in cooler they had. Oscar just watched and asked some questions as we went.
We went back to camp and ate more dang food then a guy should eat. There was warm running water in the cook tents. I was greatfull after just skinning bear. The cook tents were Huge. I'd guess 12'x30' ? We ate Shrimp and Steak fajitas and had cornbread and corn and ice-cream on angle cake with bananas. I would have loved to enjoy the fire but it was 11PM and we still had 3 hours to drive home.
The trip home was fun at first. Sharing all the bear sightings and hearing what my boy did while I was up the first part when he was at camp. He wanted to stay up the whole way home but at 12:20AM his sentences started to drift. I have to admit the last hour driving home was hard not having anyone to talk to but I'd smile every time I looked over and saw him sleeping. I'm excited for next year when I take him up to have him shoot his first bear
