Fishing, and hunting reports (share yours)

I headed to Idaho on October 5th. Drove through the night and slept in my truck a little bit and arrived in northern Idaho on Saturday the 6th. I was fortunate enough to get an invitation to come out and hunt with Hard Knocks Hard Knocks and his pack of dogs. It was a bear hunt that I had been planning for a number of years and there was a last minute cancellation and so I got to go a year sooner than I was planning.

I love working with dogs and have been around various types of working dogs my whole life. But this was my first time to be with a mature and well trained how to pack that is very seasoned in tracking bear.

The first day the dogs treed a yearling cub, so we took some pictures and then moved on. On the 2nd morning we crossed the big Canyon and went up on the top of the rim on the far side and they have started the dogs and on the second start they got on to fresh bear scent pretty quickly. What followed for the next several hours was like something out of a Zane grey western novel that I read as a boy. Trying to keep up with the dogs and keep them within hearing range and hearing the reports from the houndsman about what was happening was quite an experience. This bear refused to go up a tree for several hours and would continue to stop and fight the dogs and then take off again. He stayed up in the high country and did not come down low where we would have been easier to get close to him.

Over 3 hours later it finally looked like he might have treed after the dogs following him for over 5 miles. It was a very very steep slope and at times I was pulling myself up hand over hand and using my gun as a walking stick. I am not in the shape that I should be and after stopping to rest and a number of times I finally was able to get up the slope on a level with where the bear was in a tree. The next 15 minutes was pretty chaotic as well but I'll just summarize it to say that it ended up with me being able to harvest the bear and I'm very grateful and blessed that I had a chance to have that opportunity. The scenery speaks for itself.

Idaho view a small.jpgIdaho yellow plums small.jpgbear 2025.jpg
 
Following the wrap up of the bear hunt in Idaho I angled North and West a couple hours to visit my daughter and son-in-law in Montana. Spend a couple days there with them at their farm and enjoyed some nice weather and some campfires.

Then last Saturday I headed down to North Central Utah. I had booked and an elk hunt with an outfitter there a couple years ago. I had nice weather down through there. Then it snowed overnight and the next morning when I was out scouting around and driving some gravel roads up into passes there was quite a bit of snow in the Wasatch range.

The first two days was spent doing a lot of hiking and glassing to try to figure out what the elk were doing. There was a lot of pressure over the weekend on the public ground in the area. Then the following morning we were watching a steep mountainside with two drainages in it from 1 Ridge over. We knew there were some hunters up a lot higher than us and the day before they had created some movement and we tried to capitalize on that.

We were able to intercept this bull coming up a steep slope from early morning feeding and heading into a dark timbered canyon. He came across a little opening and we were set up above that and I was able to make a couple good shots at about 230 yards.

I was able to see several other bulls that people took and they were typical 5 by 5 and 6 by 6 clean racked bulls... This was the only non typical that I've ever seen in the wild and to be honest I was shooting 1st and asking questions later. I was surprised when I got up to him to see how non typical he really was.

There was some fog was moving in and there was a lot of low cloud cover that morning and the tops of the peaks were obscured in the clouds and I was counting myself really blessed have been able to pull it off because the next day or two they were calling for high winds and rain.

I am shooting A300 win mag and I was using 180 grain barns TSX bullets. All three shots were passed throughs.elk a small.jpgelk b small.jpg
 
Brian77 said:
I headed to Idaho on October 5th. Drove through the night and slept in my truck a little bit and arrived in northern Idaho on Saturday the 6th. I was fortunate enough to get an invitation to come out and hunt with Hard Knocks Hard Knocks and his pack of dogs. It was a bear hunt that I had been planning for a number of years and there was a last minute cancellation and so I got to go a year sooner than I was planning.

I love working with dogs and have been around various types of working dogs my whole life. But this was my first time to be with a mature and well trained how to pack that is very seasoned in tracking bear.

The first day the dogs treed a yearling cub, so we took some pictures and then moved on. On the 2nd morning we crossed the big Canyon and went up on the top of the rim on the far side and they have started the dogs and on the second start they got on to fresh bear scent pretty quickly. What followed for the next several hours was like something out of a Zane grey western novel that I read as a boy. Trying to keep up with the dogs and keep them within hearing range and hearing the reports from the houndsman about what was happening was quite an experience. This bear refused to go up a tree for several hours and would continue to stop and fight the dogs and then take off again. He stayed up in the high country and did not come down low where we would have been easier to get close to him.

Over 3 hours later it finally looked like he might have treed after the dogs following him for over 5 miles. It was a very very steep slope and at times I was pulling myself up hand over hand and using my gun as a walking stick. I am not in the shape that I should be and after stopping to rest and a number of times I finally was able to get up the slope on a level with where the bear was in a tree. The next 15 minutes was pretty chaotic as well but I'll just summarize it to say that it ended up with me being able to harvest the bear and I'm very grateful and blessed that I had a chance to have that opportunity. The scenery speaks for itself.

View attachment 3001653View attachment 3001654View attachment 3001655
Click to expand...
Awesome story, scenery and harvest!!! Wow!!🤩
 
Brian77 said:
I headed to Idaho on October 5th. Drove through the night and slept in my truck a little bit and arrived in northern Idaho on Saturday the 6th. I was fortunate enough to get an invitation to come out and hunt with Hard Knocks Hard Knocks and his pack of dogs. It was a bear hunt that I had been planning for a number of years and there was a last minute cancellation and so I got to go a year sooner than I was planning.

I love working with dogs and have been around various types of working dogs my whole life. But this was my first time to be with a mature and well trained how to pack that is very seasoned in tracking bear.

The first day the dogs treed a yearling cub, so we took some pictures and then moved on. On the 2nd morning we crossed the big Canyon and went up on the top of the rim on the far side and they have started the dogs and on the second start they got on to fresh bear scent pretty quickly. What followed for the next several hours was like something out of a Zane grey western novel that I read as a boy. Trying to keep up with the dogs and keep them within hearing range and hearing the reports from the houndsman about what was happening was quite an experience. This bear refused to go up a tree for several hours and would continue to stop and fight the dogs and then take off again. He stayed up in the high country and did not come down low where we would have been easier to get close to him.

Over 3 hours later it finally looked like he might have treed after the dogs following him for over 5 miles. It was a very very steep slope and at times I was pulling myself up hand over hand and using my gun as a walking stick. I am not in the shape that I should be and after stopping to rest and a number of times I finally was able to get up the slope on a level with where the bear was in a tree. The next 15 minutes was pretty chaotic as well but I'll just summarize it to say that it ended up with me being able to harvest the bear and I'm very grateful and blessed that I had a chance to have that opportunity. The scenery speaks for itself.

View attachment 3001653View attachment 3001654View attachment 3001655
Click to expand...
Sounds like some epic adventures! Thanks for posting.
 
Brian77 said:
I headed to Idaho on October 5th. Drove through the night and slept in my truck a little bit and arrived in northern Idaho on Saturday the 6th. I was fortunate enough to get an invitation to come out and hunt with Hard Knocks Hard Knocks and his pack of dogs. It was a bear hunt that I had been planning for a number of years and there was a last minute cancellation and so I got to go a year sooner than I was planning.

I love working with dogs and have been around various types of working dogs my whole life. But this was my first time to be with a mature and well trained how to pack that is very seasoned in tracking bear.

The first day the dogs treed a yearling cub, so we took some pictures and then moved on. On the 2nd morning we crossed the big Canyon and went up on the top of the rim on the far side and they have started the dogs and on the second start they got on to fresh bear scent pretty quickly. What followed for the next several hours was like something out of a Zane grey western novel that I read as a boy. Trying to keep up with the dogs and keep them within hearing range and hearing the reports from the houndsman about what was happening was quite an experience. This bear refused to go up a tree for several hours and would continue to stop and fight the dogs and then take off again. He stayed up in the high country and did not come down low where we would have been easier to get close to him.

Over 3 hours later it finally looked like he might have treed after the dogs following him for over 5 miles. It was a very very steep slope and at times I was pulling myself up hand over hand and using my gun as a walking stick. I am not in the shape that I should be and after stopping to rest and a number of times I finally was able to get up the slope on a level with where the bear was in a tree. The next 15 minutes was pretty chaotic as well but I'll just summarize it to say that it ended up with me being able to harvest the bear and I'm very grateful and blessed that I had a chance to have that opportunity. The scenery speaks for itself.

View attachment 3001653View attachment 3001654View attachment 3001655
Click to expand...

Brian77 said:
Following the wrap up of the bear hunt in Idaho I angled North and West a couple hours to visit my daughter and son-in-law in Montana. Spend a couple days there with them at their farm and enjoyed some nice weather and some campfires.

Then last Saturday I headed down to North Central Utah. I had booked and an elk hunt with an outfitter there a couple years ago. I had nice weather down through there. Then it snowed overnight and the next morning when I was out scouting around and driving some gravel roads up into passes there was quite a bit of snow in the Wasatch range.

The first two days was spent doing a lot of hiking and glassing to try to figure out what the elk were doing. There was a lot of pressure over the weekend on the public ground in the area. Then the following morning we were watching a steep mountainside with two drainages in it from 1 Ridge over. We knew there were some hunters up a lot higher than us and the day before they had created some movement and we tried to capitalize on that.

We were able to intercept this bull coming up a steep slope from early morning feeding and heading into a dark timbered canyon. He came across a little opening and we were set up above that and I was able to make a couple good shots at about 230 yards.

I was able to see several other bulls that people took and they were typical 5 by 5 and 6 by 6 clean racked bulls... This was the only non typical that I've ever seen in the wild and to be honest I was shooting 1st and asking questions later. I was surprised when I got up to him to see how non typical he really was.

There was some fog was moving in and there was a lot of low cloud cover that morning and the tops of the peaks were obscured in the clouds and I was counting myself really blessed have been able to pull it off because the next day or two they were calling for high winds and rain.

I am shooting A300 win mag and I was using 180 grain barns TSX bullets. All three shots were passed throughs.View attachment 3001679View attachment 3001680
Click to expand...

It looks like you had a great trip! Beautiful views and the experience must have been amazing even before the sucessful hunts!
 
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