Counting down the days

[Blue Man]

I don't know about you boys but April 1 is just around the corner. I'm sure the snow will be deep untill the midle of June but thats ok I'm ready. So bring out the bears.

[Ike]

[bearbredplotts]

we usually start to tree up bears around april until mid november. im down to 4 dogs, i had 7 last year.
im goin to get a new vid cam this year to document all the hunts.
we cought over 25 bear last year, cant wait to start huntin again!
me and the dogs put on a lil weight this winter

[Ike]

[bearbredplotts]

ya we did ok. the dogs got a hold of a nasty bear and was laid up for 2 months. my 2 main dogs was hurt bad.
i hav good video footage from last year but the camera aint compatible with my new computer, so i need a new vid cam!
i really need my young female to come into heat so i can get some more bear stoppers on the ground!

[bear dogger]

All this bear talk is making me itchy to go. But in the mean time another snow storm moving in. Spring fever has got me.

[Ike]

[southy10]

does anyone think this snow will keep the bears in alittle longer or cause the activity of the bears to decrease? I dont know that much about them but I was just wondering .. also it might be better hunting with the snow you can see where they are ...

[snowy river black and tan]

They arnt going to stay out until there is somthing to eat. (About four to six inches of grass.) Unless your lucky and have some oinion beds lined up. Does any one know of something that comes up earlier.

[Poundhound]

It has been unusually warm here, like an early Spring. It has been up as high as 58 degrees here, with the average being around 54 degrees or so for daytime highs.
There is grass starting to pop up here and there, and on my trip to the mountain today I checked a couple of the swampy areas and found little buds of Skunk Cabbage popping up about three inches tall or so.

NOW FOR THE KICKER:
When the logger trucks saw me on the hill today, they call me on the radio and said "Hey you shoulda been up here Wednesday, Tiny saw a bear right in the road at the 3mile."

Now I expect that there won't be a bear that comes out on a nice day and stays out, there just isn't enough (any) food for them. But on the nice days it would be nice to be the one that sees one standing in the road. That would get the heart rate up enough to hold me over until Spring.


ph

[Ike]

[snowy river black and tan]

Do they like to eat skunk cabbage?. I know if you find a onion bed your golden. Might as well be hunting over bait.

[Poundhound]

Snowy River B+T,
Around here the Skunk Cabbage comes out early in the Spring when there is nothing but grass for them to eat. So they will hit the swamps where the skunk cabbage grows and eat the newer tender leaves. Some have told me that they will also uproot them and eat the bulbs, although I have never seen this first hand. So after they have had some grass to get stuff moving again, then we can find a few in the swamps.

I have never heard that about the onions, have you got wild onions patches in the woods where you are? I have never seen one around here in all my years of hunting anything.


ph

[snowy river black and tan]

Ya the oinins come up first. Before the grass and stay around for about three months. If you can find some your going to be in the bears.
I have a friend who hunts without dogs in the spring and sitting on a onion patch he can see up to 10 to 20 bears in a day.
I hunted for two weeks last spring without a strike, found a oinion bed and caught 12 bears in the next two weeks. Hunting on or around this one onion bed never catching the same bear twice.
Is hunting the skunk cabbage better than hunting grass or is it the same, just a veryiation of the same thing.

[Poundhound]

. . . vs the tree peeling. . .

I tend to find that the skunk cabbage gets good after the bears have had their fill of grass, meaning this:
I have to seem to follow the bears in elevation as the grass is the newest and most tender. They start low where the grass shows up first and as the grass starts to grow a little higher up the bears will move to that fresher grass. I am sure this is all stuff you know.
When I find the bears in the cabbage is after there really isn't that nice fresh grass. The bigger bears will move into the swamps where the skunk cabbage is and rule that food source. Now if a swampy area is big enough we may catch several bears out of that one area all within a few days, seldom catching the same bear twice. And we never have to worry about the sows and cubs in these areas because they are to worried about the big boars that are there. The sows and cubs and then the younger bears will be the ones most often that are forced to peel trees to survive, and these are the ones that the State ends up issuing timber damage permits for.
So what I have seen is that the cabbage seems to be good between the time they are on the grass and the time the salmon berries show up. Now I most often hunt just the one mountain that is always so good to me in the spring. And from what I hear the bear are a little different where I am then just the next county to the south. Where I am there are very few bears that have learned the art of peeling the trees, where as to the south they get bears that move into an area and every other tree will be peeled. This is just stuff I have noticed where I am, and the change over seems subtle at first, then we will see the bear sign all around the cabbage, then when the berries show up even a little bit, BAM they seem to be gone from the cabbage.

If someone else is seeing different trends, please share so we can all learn.


ph