When are the Bears going to come out?

[BuckNAze]

We have a mild, to say the least, winter this year in the PNW, when do you guys think the bears are going to start popping out? Im guessing at the end of February or early March they are gonig to start showing the big boys! We have places were there is usually 2+ft of snow where there is maybe 6" right now and the weather isnt looking any better for the snow conditions to get any better. What do you guys all think?

[LarryBeggs]

We hunted bear for 20+ years on the Oregon coast and the earliest we ever treed one was the firt week in March. The latest was November 30th . But I have seen tracks in the snow in late December that was in the cascdes.

[BuckNAze]

Yeah we're on the other side of the mountains in Washington and the snow just hasnt been here. Its just been raining like we were on the coast. This year Im thinking early march but we'll see. Hopefully can get out and see some nice big ones or at least some big tracks.

[inchtowntracking]

True bear hunter here, already thinking of when the bears are going to come out!!!

[BuckNAze]

Haha well you know as well as I do that if the damn snow would fly Id love to be cat hunting but thats not the case! Ive been thinking about it since winter almost hit since winter really hasnt hit! Im ready to get these pups going good, plus my new pup will be ready to start running with the dogs towards the end of the season, just in time to get him ready for next winter. Although Moose was going with the big dogs to the tree at least at 3 1/2 months old. You guys need to come over the mountain this way sometime where the big bears hang out! Im talking them 400+ pounders! haha

[inchtowntracking]

We have a few big ones over here, most of them seem to be smaller and have there running shoes on. Our dogs wont be pups this time around so hopefully we will be able to get a few more treed this time.

[BuckNAze]

Haha oh we have those 2! If I can get Stella going good on bears she'll be in the front in no time, that dog is too fast for her own good! Thats why I didnt want to start her on cats this year, she'll just overrun the track and probably go find something else to trash out on! Moose has about got shot by me way too many times to count but theres something about him that keeps him around, his big goofy ass, haha. A lot of your guys pups should be definetly old enough now and it wont be a problem on bears this year. Prepare for some deer and coyote races! haha

[BuckNAze]

Im pretty stoked for my deer/coyote chasing dogs to try to chase a bear thats for sure. Another spot to check out early is those southern slopes in hellsgate, they come out early there, seen em quite a few times while shed hunting

[inchtowntracking]

We have been done there a lot lately, ran into the bighorn sheep herd done there too. I told hunter if our dogs start running coyotes we can just put them on this site as a coyote dog and cut our loses.

[BuckNAze]

Hhaah oh trust me they will! Moose smoked his first coyote after I threw him down on a bobcat track this year, at least Im assuming it was a coyote, doubt he was outworking those older dogs on the bobcat track, it was getting melted out and they were having a hard time moving it. If I could afford it Id get me a pack of coyote hounds! Got so damn many of them it would be a fun pass time!

[inchtowntracking]

i told hunter we will start having to shoot the coyotes and throwing the dogs to see what one barks on it. The discipline from there and do that with the deer too. We started calling for coyotes to hunt them, dont think we can afford another pack of dogs that will hunt them.

[BlacktailStalker]

So what happened with that fresh kill you were running off with cat tracks all around it ?

Some bears never went to bed here.

[BuckNAze]

Well we went to try to find it but couldnt find exactly where it was. My buddy wasnt actually working with the same group that found the kill so we were going off hear say, we were in the area they were logging, just couldnt find where it was at the creek, now its rainied more so theres no point of going back to try to find it really, its suppose to rain for the next 5 days or so.