CO bear hunt 1 out of 2 tags, I ate my tag...

hereinaz

WKR
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Dec 21, 2016
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Arizona
Went to SW Colorado with a friend. He had trail cameras on a trail that comes off a mountain to a water tank. He had a bunch of of bears on it. There are as many color phase bears on the camera as there are black bears.

There were no choke cherries, no acorns, and nothing to hold them in the canyons and meadows I was glassing. My day consists of glassing the canyons hard in the morning and evening watching for them as they move. There usually is some food to hold them in the canyons. They do use the same water sources which is why they were on the camera, but I think they were staying up higher where it was cooler and they could eat grass

I spent 3.5 days glassing for bears, but didn't really see any shooters. I wanted a nice color phase bear.

One afternoon, I headed up to glass early. My partner said he would follow me after it cooled a bit more. I was glassing for an hour or so, and nothing. I moved, and saw my buddy's pack on the ground, but couldn't see him. It was in a place where I could see it on the trail. I wondered what it was doing there.

A few minutes later, we met up. He had dropped the pack to find me. To get to our glassing spot, we walk through a meadow. He always tells me to keep my gun ready, cause "I have seen bears in here?" I would load and make my rifle ready before hitting the meadow, but never took it very seriously.

When we met, he said, "did you hear me shoot?" I thought he was pulling my leg, cause he said he shot a big old boar in that meadow. The bear he shot was an old warrior. had three of his big canines broken and worn. His back teeth were worn. He was covered in scars and had a bite taken out of his ear.

We got to work on the bear after some photos. I hoisted his legs up with straps when he left to go back to camp to get game bags and some water. His dogs needed to get let loose as well. We finished up in the dark, and I ended my hunt after he checked in the bear so I could get the meat home to finish processing it.

Next year, I'll get me a bear...
 

Poser

WKR
Joined
Dec 27, 2013
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5,413
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Durango CO
That's a big, old bear. Broken teeth aside, you can see the crowing on his one good tooth.
Did CPW give you an age estimate at check in? Looks to me to be ~15+
 
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