Back side of bear country 2011

Okanagan · May 22, 2011, 02:59:45 PM

Six friends gathered this year, straggling in and leaving at different times, but all six of us together for two days. At that point, when I left early, we had seen a total of 28 different bears. Lots of elk and a fair number of blacktail deer. Two bow hunters had each made two stalks on bears. One had missed a bear and his partner passed on a shot at a third, small bear.

A wolf crossed the road close in front of my hunting partner and I on our way in, a mile before we got to camp. I grabbed a rifle and bailed out but he stayed out of sight in brush.

Three of us glassed a big looking bear on a grassy river flat in late morning of my first full day there. I'd left my spotting scope in my rig so couldn't check detail better.

Photos above taken before we had spotted the bear in shadow at the far edge just off the right edge of the second photo. We drove around to the other side and came down through super thick brush. The bow hunter with me was going to try for a shot and if not, Iâ€™d use my rifle if the bear was as big as he appeared in distant binos. We got disoriented and the bear was gone when we got there. We used up four hours by the time we were in wheels again.

That evening another friend and I headed to a grassy river mouth and saw the rubbed bear pictured in the big game forum. Fun to watch him cross the river.

We parked and walked the last half mile in to the grass flats and as we rounded a point to the best spot, we saw a guide boat pulled up on shore 75 yards from us. About that time we heard a shot across the bay. We slipped back the way we had come. Evidently an outfitter had a client in the same spot we intended to hunt, and had dropped off a guide and hunter on the other side of the big cove as well.

Back in camp in dusk, several of us watched a bear cross the gravel bar across the river from us (in photo below) and wade and swim across to our side 100 yards downriver from us. I thought it was too dark for a pic but the black silhouette on the silver river against the western sky might have turned out well.

Cooked some with my Dutch oven. Good friends, good food, good country and lots of game. I saw a steelhead in a clear river which prompted my guide friend to take a rod and sneak out with me after steelhead in his old haunts. Some things we donâ€™t even tell the friends back in camp.

Bills Custom Calls · May 22, 2011, 03:27:16 PM

Lovely pics thanks for sharing I enjoyed em

iahntr · May 22, 2011, 08:30:24 PM

Nice area ! Thanks for sharin it with us.

FOsteology · May 23, 2011, 12:59:03 PM

Nice country. Washington??

Okanagan · May 23, 2011, 01:32:02 PM

Quote from: FOsteology on May 23, 2011, 12:59:03 PM
Nice country. Washington??

Close! British Columbia.

shaddragger · May 23, 2011, 09:41:46 PM

Beautiful country, wherever it's at!

Tikaani · May 23, 2011, 10:15:55 PM

Nice photos Ok, nice bear, judging off his rump and belly he was decent size. Have they started rubbing in B.C. yet?

John

Okanagan · May 26, 2011, 12:22:31 AM

Quote from: Tikaani on May 23, 2011, 10:15:55 PM
Nice photos Ok, nice bear, judging off his rump and belly he was decent size. Have they started rubbing in B.C. yet?

John

John,

Sorry I missed your post till now. Yes, some of them are rubbed, but most not much yet. The bear in the photo was rubbed badly. Photobucket won't let me log in, (it has been wonky for me off and on for several days) or I would post a closer look at this bear. You can find pics of him showing the rub in the Big Game Forum, with something about a rubbed bear in the title. I have photos and posts about that trip scattered all over. It was odd to have this bear rubbed so badly this early, when others in the same area were not rubbed at all.

We are spoiled. There are some truly HUGE black bears in the area where we hunted, and I was holding out for a big one.

KySongDog · May 26, 2011, 05:43:25 AM

Very nice. Beautiful country you have there, Okanagan. I can only imagine seeing all those bears in one hunting trip. Tip toeing through the thick stuff after a bear has got to be adrenaline packed.

George Ackley · May 26, 2011, 08:12:47 AM

your in BC? Can i ask what part

Okanagan · May 26, 2011, 10:45:17 PM

Quote from: George Ackley on May 26, 2011, 08:12:47 AM
your in BC? Can i ask what part

Never hurts to ask!! I live on the line southeast of Vancouver, a little outside the suburb fringe. The bears were farther north on the coast.

golfertrout · May 27, 2011, 12:55:12 AM

Okanagan i always enjoyed your pics and post

but i wont be on here much longer so it was nice talking to you.

golfertrout · May 27, 2011, 12:56:50 AM

semp and tikani the same to you

always enjoyed the pics and post

George Ackley · May 27, 2011, 08:21:20 AM

the coast,that's what I was wondering if you were inland or out near the coast.

I haven't been out to the north west part of the province . I head out of Seattle by way of Sumas then up though devils gate working my way little west to dog creek, 100 mile house .

great photos

Okanagan · May 27, 2011, 08:07:08 PM

Quote from: George Ackley on May 27, 2011, 08:21:20 AM
the coast,that's what I was wondering if you were inland or out near the coast.

I haven't been out to the north west part of the province . I head out of Seattle by way of Sumas then up though devils gate working my way little west to dog creek, 100 mile house .

great photos

Thanks!

If you have time when you're heading through, give me an alert to see if we could meet for coffee at the Tim Horton's just north of the Sumas crossing, on the left about half way to the freeway.

Last year in late winter/early spring I was near Dog Creek. Started at a friend's place in the Chilcotin and went south from Hanceville on logging roads through the Gang Ranch, crossed the river, angled southeast and hit the highway just north of Clinton. Started in snow but as I lost elevation it turned into a lotta miles of mud!

George Ackley · May 27, 2011, 08:26:26 PM

yea we will have to have that coffie onmy next trip

Crossed the river from the Gang Ranch. , we stomped the same ground .
you know I sat across the river from the gang and couldn't believe how the fields of that ranch fill with mule deer before dark,
I shot my lion on the 1100 rd 23 km mark and my wolf on the 5200 rd . I was thinking about coyote up there this year because it small game and I don't need a guide. but it a long way from home maybe in 2 years I get back up.

first time I went up I drove out of Seattle at like 9 PM and the hard snow had started the time i got to hells gate the trucks just stop right in the lanes, I had no clue how i off the river the rout is .
I was heading to kamloop to get offer to 97 in 4 wheel drive the hole was with visibilitie about 40 feet . it was like 5 am when I pulled into 100 mile. I didn't know what a fool i was till the drive home . for a long way that river is a long ways down lol

Okanagan · May 27, 2011, 08:52:26 PM

Quote from: George Ackley on May 27, 2011, 08:26:26 PM
first time I went up I drove out of Seattle at like 9 PM and the hard snow had started the time i got to hells gate the trucks just stop right in the lanes, I had no clue how i off the river the rout is .
I was heading to kamloop to get offer to 97 in 4 wheel drive the hole was with visibilitie about 40 feet . it was like 5 am when I pulled into 100 mile. I didn't know what a fool i was till the drive home . for a long way that river is a long ways down lol

I hear you exactly! I drove down the canyon late one night with my family asleep in our van, and it started snowing so hard the only way I could follow the road was to follow the dual tire tracks of a truck out of sight ahead of me. If his tracks started to fill up I would speed up as much as I dared so I wouldn't lose his tracks. I sure was hoping he didn't go off the cliff because I would have followed him. I'd have pulled off but visibility was so bad I couldn't tell what was edge of road, what was cliff edge, whether I was off the road enough not to get hit, what was a wide spot, etc. Suddenly it opened up and I inched on down to Hope near daylight. Baaaad. You and I are both fortunate.

Spuzzum is beyond Hope, but it's not as far as Hell's Gate!

Edited to add: had a friend who lived near Frog Rock in the narrowest crookedest part of the Thompson River Canyon where the TransCanada splits off the Fraser up from Lytton, and he worked Search and Rescue in the Canyon. Hauled a lot of bodies up those cliffs. In those days they usually left the vehicles.

George Ackley · May 27, 2011, 09:01:53 PM

here is a funny video of the day me and my calling partner and the dog got stuck way in the back country

its the little thinks that make a hunt memorable and successful

KySongDog · May 27, 2011, 11:00:37 PM

Looks like you could've used a limited slip rear axle and more aggressive tires. That snow was pretty deep. Good thing you had that winch.

Okanagan · June 02, 2011, 09:04:32 PM

Quote from: George Ackley on May 27, 2011, 09:01:53 PM
here is a funny video of the day me and my calling partner and the dog got stuck way in the back country

its the little thinks that make a hunt memorable and successful

Never did comment on your video. Man, you two sure wanted to go down that road bad! I assume the tracks made previously out ahead of the vehicle in the video were there from your rig when you drove in? Then the snow conditions changed slightly and you couldn't drive out the way you came in? And it was the only way out?

That's a nightmare scenario.