Into the lair of the brown bear

[Iowabowhunter]

[Bonebuster]

Reality is better than ANY fiction...I have never stood in the presence of the Brown bear, but I bet their spirit can be felt just as real as cold rain.

Thanks for sharing.  

[centaur]

This story is bringing me back to my (very limited) experience with brown bears during the summer of 2011. What huge, formidable animals, that can raise the hair on the back of your neck when you are close to them. Hunting them with stick and string has to be a huge adrenaline rush. Looking forward to the rest of the story.    
 

[chinook907]

Sorry for the wait.

Been wanting to try this for awhile.

We spent most of day one packing most of the way in to where we would be doing most of our hunting.

Fair bit of sign on the way, in fact more sign of mature animals than where we ended up.    

Had just a little snow too, and that helped with finding sign. Here's some smallish tracks, but they showed well in the snow.
 

[chinook907]

Part way in we had been seeing signs of a large one.  We stopped at a small feeder stream for a break, and Mr Big must have been bedded real close as all of a sudden we started hearing a bear kindof growling/hooting at us, something of a deep, guttural, rattling moan that started with an h.  Never saw him, sounded like he was within 30 yards at first, as he moved off continuing to growl we paralleled him, hoping to get a glimpse or pic but it was too thick and no openings.  Season opened the next day so we couldn't have shot.

Went on and on growling for an honest 2 minutes or so.  Never got a pic, in fact I never took a pic of any of the bears we encountered as we always had our hands full as they were all close encounters, as I'll explain.

[chinook907]

Guess I should back up a bit.  A friend was hunting with and he was using a long g**.

The spot I picked normally has a lot of brown bears, and we would likely have it to ourselves.  But it isn't possible to see them from much distance, so to hunt it you need to either creep thru the area hoping to come across one, or sit near one of their fishing spots where they would be in range when they were fishing.

It was pretty sketchy, but I walk salmon streams every year for work and for play and I'm mostly used to it.

[chinook907]

Back in a bit.

[Big Ed]

Man ,what dreams are made of !!

[T Mowery]

[motorhead7963]

this is the first item on my bucket list!!!

[AkDan]

shew you're lucky Tim, I almost called you a tease after the first post LOL!

I was on a bear stream last night..got the heeby jeebies....50 yards later I walked up on a moose kill.   I know there was a big boy around, tracks everywhere and turds shew!

[Bernie B.]

That first picture with the bow and the stream is great!  I had to even show my wife that one!  I think I'd be one nervous critter hunting with those big boys around!

Bernie Bjorklund

NC Iowa/SW Wisconsin

[chinook907]

Hey thanks for all your encouragement, glad it fires a spark in folks.  

No Lynn I'm not crazy ! lol

And Dan, what are you doing creeping around a bear kill ?!

So where was I ?

We made camp the first night, then packed up and slowly hunted our way to where we would spend most of our time.  No action along the way but we noticed that the sign was all sows w/cubs and what are called 3 year olds.  Three year olds are on their first year on the own from momma, and are small (300-something to maybe 400 lbs).

Made camp at the new spot, and we split up to hunt in different areas based on where we had seen sign and expected to see animals.

We were deep in brown bear country and I found myself moving very slowly, especially when close to recent sign.

Here's another pick of one of their trails.
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[chinook907]

Was sneaking along, the wind mostly in my face but with occasional swirls that moved it in 360 degrees in a small area.  Came to some sow w/cub tracks that we had seen on the way in a couple hours earlier...

Was moving down a tight trail ~15 yards from the creek, when I heard plunk-plunk-plunk something walking in the creek screened by brush, right next to me.  Bear or moose I thought and started to move closer to get a peek thru the ragweed when I heard a growl/moan and I knew Bear !

I started to pluck an arrow out of the quiver as I moved forward trying to get a look. I saw a dark brown spring (born last winter/spring)cub hustling thru the brush maybe 10 yards away moving parallel to me (ouch) and thought gotta-get-outta-here.  Sow with a cub.

[chinook907]

I backed away quickly while looking for the sow and drawing the revolver on my hip.  Spotted her in thick brush shaking a small tree to further make her point.  Point made and further away I went.

When I was taking stock of things moments later I noticed that I had gotten the broadhead out of the quiver foam before I realized the situation and switched gears.

Kept hunting but that was the excitement for that evening.

[ron w]

[chinook907]

Next day we left camp and hiked a few hours into another little creek.  It was only bear trails the whole way, and the wind was in our favor so we went real slow, so that we might get a shot or avoid stumbling into another Goldilocks situation.  No problems getting there.

As long as it took to get there, we only had time to check the spot out and turn around as we had no desire to hike out in the dark.

Here's some of what we found.  The matted grass is from bears fishing.  It looked good, but the sign still looked like from small ones.
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[chinook907]

On the long hike back the wind was at our backs so we double-timed it, figuring our scent would blow any bears in front of us out of there.  The wind was pretty strong and covered a lot of the noise we were making also.

My friend was in the lead, maybe 12 yards ahead and just around the corner from me when he came running back towards me and the silent, wide-eyed look on his face said it all.

I dropped my bow-ran towards him-and-drew my you know what (2nd time in 24 hours) as he stopped and faced his backtrail while bringing his long g** up.

For crying out loud, who the heck is hunting who in this place ?

[chinook907]

She never came.

He had been coming around the corner and had a sow and cub 12-15 yards further on.  The sow was standing on her hind legs facing him.  Last he saw she was dropping to all fours in his direction, and figured here she comes.  She didn't.  There were several downed trees across the bear trail between he and she, maybe that's why she didn't, or maybe she just didn't.

We slowed down a bit after that and stayed closer together.   :rolleyes:

[chinook907]

Stubborn, determined, I don't know but next day we got a good start back to the new spot with no problems.

We snuck up the new creek, me in the lead hoping for a shot.

We were to sit two different wide spots in the creek (almost like ponds but the water was moving) that had concentrations of salmon lots of bear sign.

I sat the smaller one, here's a pic, its about 20-some yards across.

I backed under a spruce in the upper right between the long snag in the pond, and the broken off standing snag.
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Sat there for 6 hours or so in the rain.  Nothing.

Nothing on my end anyway.