Still in camp with a 2nd tag in hand, and a couple days to hunt.
Full story to come, but here's a teaser. From the bear board in the cook tent.....
IMG_2850 2.jpg
:thumbsup:
Can't wait for the res of the story.
I can't wait to hear the story, I hope you have plenty of pictures.
Heck of a bear Ryan. Congratulations!
Travelling home now, I'll work this along as time permits.
We hunted with Gerard at East to West outfitting, near Grande Prairie Alberta. Gerard was a longtime guide for Mike Ukrainetz and has just struck out on his own. Gerard has a fantastic bear area and is implementing the same program that has enabled Mike to consistently kill great trophy bears in a sustainable manner for decades.
After loading the Subaru to the gills, my buddy and I made a 2 1/2 day, 32 hour drive to Gerard's camp.
Some camp pics to follow. Hunters stay in wall tents. Generator electricity with satellite WiFi during the day. Hot shower available, and a culinary school trained chef does some fantastic camp cooking.
Client tents, view of camp with cook and eating tents, shower setup.
The first night I was sitting a treestand 12 yards from a bait with two target bears. Target bears for this outfit are 300+ lbs and mature boars. The baits are all setup with the posts with white tops (36 inches high) - a bear should be as tall as the post at the shoulder to be a shooter bear. Also the logs in front of the bait are 5 ft long - the bear should be this long from nose to tail with his head pointed down as if eating from the ground. Additionally you are instructed to judge if you could shove the bear in the barrel and get the lid on as a final size check.
The baits are all checked by trail cam to assure they are being hit by at least one target sized bear, although these mature bears are generally not super predictable at least you know there is one frequenting the bait.
Shortly after I settled in this guy showed up. This is a good example of the size bears that need to be passed up at this camp to assure future trophy bears. This guy was well over 200 lbs and was certainly a P/Y scoring bear. Another couple years and he will be a beauty.
He had to come over and check me out, I missed getting his pic when he stood up on the ladder sticks. Then went and rolled around in the waste oats.
Taking a snooze to digest his meal.
Time to hit the hay....more tomorrow
R
I can't wait to see more photos. It looks like a great setup.
Can't wait to "hear" the rest of the story Ryan! Cool pictures of a lazy bear that knew you weren't going to be a threat!
As this bear was on the bait I heard teeth popping back in the brush and he quickly woke up and hustled out of there. I thought maybe things would get exciting presently, and stood up and got ahold of my bow. Shortly a cub showed up, followed by Mom who was quite vocal and aggressively patrolling the bait site. I've never seen sows act the way they did here, as cautious and nervous. There are plenty of big bears in the area, but this is wilderness, and grizzly country as well, so maybe that accounts for some of the behavior. Ne fellow in camp had two immature twin grizzlies on his bait two nights in a row, and several baits had damaged barrels from grizzlies. Those were all the bears I saw first night, but one compound hunter brought n a dandy 400 lb/20 inch bear that evening.
So typically in this camp you will sit the same stand for the first 3 nights then move around the final 3 nights based on what the bears are doing. The second night due to some logistics, I went into the stand around 230 pm. With last shooting light around 1040 pm this would be a long sit.
Around 430 I heard a stick break off to the right. The bear moved around me through the brush to downwind and behind. I could hear it moving around, then it started approaching while intermittently growling and moaning.
Finally the bear entered some thinner brush to my left and I could see it was a good sized one, but in the thick cover hard to judge.
The bear circled around behind the crib, then tried to get at the beaver in the metal cage through the back of the crib.
Stymied in that attempt, he walked around the front of the crib and plopped down in front of the barrels.
As he walked in past the post he looked pretty close to the same height at the shoulder. He had that fat polar-bear look to him with no neck and a visible crease down the forehead. Also judging him next to the barrel he looked like a barrel with a head attached, and his ass looked wide enough it would not fit into the barrel at all, no way you were shoving him in that barrel!
I'm in, carry on :campfire: :goldtooth:
Ryan, are the measuring logs left lying around the bait cut at 5 feet? Mike
Hey Mike, yes, 5 ft. I found those to be the hardest to use to judge as you have to get a look at the bear in the perfect position.
Congrats on your pig of a bear!
R
So the bear ate for a bit facing away then got up, walked over to my tree, and stood up on the ladder to check me out. After evidently deciding I wasn't a threat he went back to the bait and went for the beaver cage, giving me a broadside shot. I put a good shot on him, with the arrow passing through and sticking on the crib log behind. He whirled and ran out the left side of the bait, made a little circle, and jumped up on a tree 20 yards to my left before going down and letting out a few moans. He went about 40 yards total.
64 lb black widow, 680gr carbon and a big Snuffer.
As he lay
I checked out the bear, then got back up in the tree to see if one of the target bears would show up. They were both significantly bigger than this one.....
A couple hours later the guide came in, we took some pics, and managed to load the bear on the quad.
Hero pics..
There was some discussion on bear size here as this was not a target bear for the bait, and we were interested to see what he would weigh. Also with a second tag in hand I'd be hunting for a giant next...
R
Can't wait til next year buddy. Congrats.
Nice bear, congrats.
Pappy
Congrats on a beautiful bear Ryan!
Thanks for the great pics and hunt recap as well.
:campfire:
Beautiful bear! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Great Bear! Congrats!
yep, Beautiful Bears..All of them !
Congratulations on the Bear hunt , mostly the immersion into the boreal forest or as I call it..Heaven on Earth . Congrats Ryan ! :campfire:
Huge crease on the forehead of that one.
It's always fun to get the camp guesses as to bear size, but the rubber meets the road when the scale comes out. We were all a bit surprised when my bear pulled it down to 345. The guides quickly skinned and rough cleaned the skull. The bear met the target I set for myself of 19 inches and I was tickled he square measured over 7 ft. On the bear board in the cook tent this bear was about the middle of this year's kills, with all of the bears going from 301-402 lbs. pretty respectable year so far! Gerard sends all the premolars in for aging, and it will be interesting to see the results.
The way it works in this camp for a second bear is that as long as there are other hunters in camp that have not shot a bear you go to the bottom of the rotation, and hunt bears that are very intermittent or long shot baits. This makes it fair for both the other hunters in camp as well as hunters coming in future weeks. Typically this means you'll be hunting a generally nocturnal bear or a giant that only shows up once in a while. Long shot but a chance at a huge bear.
The first night after shooting I sat the same stand I killed my bear from, and had the scar faced bear from the first night back in, a couple sows and cubs, and a pine marten.
The next day I sat a new spot in a plywood box blind. These blinds are plenty big to shoot a traditional bow from, either sitting or kneeling. Gerard is going to convert to mainly these type blinds as they help with keeping the hunters from being spotted, give some scent control, are better in the rain, and standardize shot setups at baits.
It's a neat experience to be close and ground level with the bears, and I had several small guys come over to the blind and stick their heads in to see what was inside.
The two I sat in were both 10-12 yard shots.
The blinds also make for some nice photography.
:coffee:
Great story Ryan, and thanks for the pictures.
Jack
The last evening I hunted again at the bait I killed my bear on. Several sows/cubs came in and right at last shooting light a different nice sized boar showed up. This was a new bear to the bait, and a real promising one for a year or two out. 270-300 class bear, but you can see his head lacks the mature bear look, ears up high, no forehead crease etc. A solid P/Y bear, this guy is the future.
These pictures show the difficulty of using the posts to judge when you are in a treestand. Compare the height at shoulders in the top pic vs the last pic. This is the same bear, but in the bottom pic he is right next to the post.
This outfit has some real promise as a trophy bear camp. The population density is a bit lower, 3-4 bears a night is average, though I had 10 one night (a sow with triplets bumped the count up). The age class is fantastic, however, and with the management program harvesting trophy class bears will be sustainable long term.
This, frankly, isn't the camp for a guy just wanting to shoot a bear. Probably more suited for someone with a couple bears under their belt who is looking for a big one. They obviously stress shooting older age class bears, and that includes colored bears-at lots of places small colored bears get high graded out, here they don't want hunters to shoot a small bear just because he's colored.
The program takes some discipline, and you have to be confident judging size, but this camp will generate some monster bears going forward.
Well, after a long drive home, I'm trying to get caught up and rested. Tonight after work I have to do some neglected chores and cut up some bear meat, but what a fantastic hunt, a great bear, and memories to last!
Ryan
Awesome story and photos :clapper: :clapper: :clapper:
Great thread Ryan.
:campfire: :coffee: :archer2: :campfire:
Ryan,congratulations and thanks for the report
Thanks for sharing Ryan! Congratulations!!
Great story, and great job, Ryan.
Awesome bear for not being the target bear for the bait!!!
:campfire: :coffee: :archer2: :campfire:
Congratulations on a Great Bear and another adventure.
Appreciate the detail in your story and great pictures. Nice Bear, Ryan
Great write up. Congrats on the bear!
Congrats on a great bear :campfire: :clapper: