kidso

I can't see what the surrounding area is like, but oak and locust saplings tend to attract bear.

Nice job sneaking up on a cat! Are you having a rug made from the pelt?

Tomorrow I am finally going back to pull my bear cams out of 3c. There was a dead elk fawn in a water tank that I put a camera on. It will be interesting to see what might have come over to taste it! Will update with any pictures tomorrow. I will also call two or three stands and see if any lions are around.

Great sales pitch! Adam can also cook and makes a mean beef stew. I would bring him along if I had a tag! What is the current price for a SC bear tag anyways?

I think I will switch out to FMJ rounds, which hopefully would suffice on dangerous predators with thinner hides as well.

That is nice to know, as I carry a .40 caliber Glock and 13 hollow point rounds when I bear hunt! Another solution is to buy an OTC bear tag if your deer hunting unit overlaps with an open bear unit.

Can't believe you snapped a photo of the raptor with a fish in its talons! That is calendar material.

All I made were girls. I have a 21 year old and nearly 3 year old twins. They have brought me insurmountable joy. You will learn what it means to be an over-protective father or what it is like to be wrapped around a little finger or to experience the phenomenon of daddy's girl. It is all I have known, and it is awesome. Congratulations!

Very cute cubs. The bear in your avatar is a beast! Did you harvest him?

If you get bored sitting water, plan on calling about a dozen rugged canyons in a day. Electronic callers are allowed, but I learned to call on hand calls, so I have stuck with what has worked for me. I too have had more bear responses in the latter half of the day, but it is like a 60 to 40 split, so make sure to be out before dawn as well. Be patient and be willing to commit a solid hour or more on a stand if you have fresh sign nearby.

Big disappointment. My cheap Wildview camera on the dead fawn had no pictures of anything eating it, yet the body was gone when I arrived. Called in two deer and a coyote, no lions or bears. There were TONS of people camped all over the 300 Road and they were racing their ORV everywhere. Only called one stand that was free of their noise. However, it was still fun hiking around with a fellow CWT member and sighting in my bow with a new d-loop and mechanical release.

I was in a groundblind I built off a water tank in 22N last year for spring archery bear. It was 1.5 miles off the road and did have a rugged old two-track road that led to it. I sat that water beginning at 4 am. Finally, around 7 pm, I heard something slowly and carefully coming in. About 5 minutes later, I began to hear a far off rumble that ended 10 minutes later with a hunter on his quad circling the tank twice at the water's edge looking for bear tracks. I then popped out of my brush-made blind and shocked him severely with my presence. He apologized for ruining my hunt and mentioned that he saw my jeep parked off the road, but he couldn't imagine that anyone would have hiked in that far to hunt. He drove off and actually waited for me by my Jeep to apologize again when I finally hiked out around 9 pm. We exchanged hunting suggestions and parted sith pleasanties.

I love the homemade half barrel. How often do you need to refill it? If cattle find it, it will be emptied in a day! Nice colored bear.

+1 I would also love to read a play by play description of your awesome experience! Write it up!

+1 on the recipie. Looks it was squirted out of a jerky gun.

Looks like a sow with her one to two year old cub.

Here is a simple crock pot recipie for bear stew: 5 pounds of fat-trimmed meat, cube cut Marinate meat 48 hours in the fridge: 4 cups water 1/4 cup worchestershire sauce 1/4 cup soy sauce 1 Tbsp liquid smoke 1 tsp onion powder 1 tsp garlic powder 1 tsp black pepper *1 tsp chilli powder *1 tsp cayenne peppe (* = these last two ingredients add a spicy kick to the marinade, and are optional) After 48 hours of marinating meat cubes, drain off solution and place meat in crock pot. Add 1 sweet onion (sliced), 1 pound of peeled baby carrots, 1 celery clump (chopped), 6 potatoes (cubed), and 1/2 cup water to crock pot. Cook stew in crock pot for 10 hours on high setting. Turn off crock, let stand 20 minutes, and enjoy!!

Very nice color. Need to run a brush through its fur to get that blonde hair shining! Are those human tracks in the horizontal swath of sand running parallel to the bear's trajectory?

Juniper and Manzanita Berry Crunch! One of my personal favorites, which can only be topped by the Oak Nut Manzanita Berry Log which keeps the integrity of its shape longer. Splendid! The diameter of the intact logs near the juniper trunk look to be around 2 inches, so I would venture 200 pounds (+/- 50 pounds). I use the estimate of 100 pounds body weight per inch of stool diameter (+ or - 50 pounds) for non-constipated healthy bears utilizing natural food sources.

We love to make bear machaca, bear tamales, and tacos de oso negro. Another favorite is to make a BBQ out of it in a "twice-pulled pork" manner of cooking.

Nice footage. Sow must have winded you or figured out something was amiss, as after she turned to leave, she was determined in her exit. Notice that she turned and exited out the way she approached. Cool.

I am a bear turd nerd, and I'll tell you what...as a rule of thumb when assessing the size of a bear, its not the size of the pile, its the circumference of the logs that make it! I've found a few "coke cans" stacked up before and nearly passed out each time in exhilaration!

Just for my own education, as I know little to nothing about antlers and their score, and everyone has commented on how sweet that bull is...what kind of score might that bull possess? Is it a 400 bull, 300 bull, 200 bull? I truly am not educated in this area. Please provide a score.

The meat is so tender that it melts in your mouth and simply falls apart. Totally moist, and fat free! However, it is still in cubed form and did NOT turn to mush in the crock pot. The "broth" that formed in the crock pot over the cooking duration was spicier than I normally like it, so I ate last night with minimal broth in my soup bowl. My wife liked the spicy broth. Anyone on the east side is welcome to send me a PM if they would like to sample a free bowl today or tomorrow afternoon.

Here is a simple crock pot recipie for bear stew: 5 pounds of fat-trimmed meat, cube cut Marinate meat 48 hours in the fridge: 4 cups water 1/4 cup worchestershire sauce 1/4 cup soy sauce 1 Tbsp liquid smoke 1 tsp onion powder 1 tsp garlic powder 1 tsp black pepper *1 tsp chilli powder *1 tsp cayenne peppe (* = these last two ingredients add a spicy kick to the marinade, and are optional) After 48 hours of marinating meat cubes, drain off solution and place meat in crock pot. Add 1 sweet onion (sliced), 1 pound of peeled baby carrots, 1 celery clump (chopped), 6 potatoes (cubed), and 1/2 cup water to crock pot. Cook stew in crock pot for 10 hours on high setting. Turn off crock, let stand 20 minutes, and enjoy!!