snow bear
Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2008 10:41 pm
Here is a bear we caught a couple years ago in the spring. We were hunting riggins ID. We hunted all day with no luck, (except for maybe a trash race that could have lasted most of the day. Maybe) My pack was young. They were all about 14 months. we had caught a lion and some coons but no bears on our own. (I had caught a couple with friends the fall before but I wasnt shur if the dogs remeberd) Night came and it rained all night. Our tents were flooded, we hunted half the day and decided to go get a motel. Noboday had their wallet but me (figure's). After a hot shower we decided to try a evening hunt. We went alot higher in elevation and hit snow. I decided this was good there were probaly no bears this high but a least we would know what we were running. As we were looking at tracks we noticed some boot tracks crossing the road. We drove quite a ways before we relized there were no tire tracks to go with the boot tracks. When looked again we decided it could be bear. There was a foot of fresh snow on the ground and eight inches of it had fallen after the bear had walked sometime in the night. Being desprate I turned out two dogs. My main dog bear buried his nose in the track, sniffed a few more and much to my surprise opened up and started moving it. I knew he would have trouble so I followed. After about a half mile he lost it, I caught up and found out why. The melting snow had fallen off the trees ruening all chances of me helping him out. I did a couple of circles hopeing for a track. Nothing! I called and called but the dog would not come. He was working about a fifty yard circle. To make a long story short I started looking up and found the bear. It didnt take much encoragement to get him treeing. The bear had laid up for the storm not moving for24 hours.