In this situation what do you do

[Bullzeyez61]

By the way it looks I am going to be hunting solo for up to three weeks depending on if or how soon i tag out or if i want to bail out a bit early and go hunt tags while making my way home. but i will be elk hunting in dense bear country and known grizz area. from the research I have done sounds like they are there but not nearly as bad as other areas. i know the basics eat where you dont sleep, stay within you physical limits, have satellite communications and a emergency plan, hunt hard sun up to sun down. I have not stepped foot in this unit but i have a friend that did a guided hunt here in 19 and had luck so have some good guidance to start with. this is my 5th year elk hunting and have done 2 solo and 1 assisted pack outs so I am not a rookie but am not seasoned either. I have ran these scenarios over in my head before and have still yet to have a good base plan of what to do and each of these you should really know what you are going to do before you get in that position.

the first is ( ha may seem very stupid to some) when you are sleeping in the dark hours of the night you hear something that you can almost be certain it is a bear and is within 10 feet of your tent or sleeping set up. Do you lay there and pretend its not there and hope it doesn't come to you and start messing with you and your gear, do you immediately start yelling making noise and get out of the tent and address the situation try and scare him off by whatever means you think of in the moment, or do you grab your side arm and blast 6 through the roof of your tent and show you are not messing around haha. I have spent some time on the mountain thinking about this and I can not say I know what i would do.

The other is I will more likely have a "base" camp along the road with truck and cooler, I will probably be wheeling 2-10 miles away and from the wheeler I am going to stay within a mile from the road. I am thinking i will stay out there on the mountain for a night or two then come down for one and go back and fourth re supplying and moving around to find elk. Obviously this can and probably will change when I am out there and see what I am dealing with but i dont want to stick one a mile in and then run a quarter or further straight down the next ridge and put me outside of my packout ability's. But if i get one down and say its a mile from the wheeler and 8 miles from cold cooler and its 75 in the day 40 at night. I have to keep my head on a swivel cutting it up and getting it into game bags and then do i take the quarters away from the guts few hundred yards and start making my way to the wheeler and hang them up in the trees by the wheeler to get them away from the carcass as quick as I can. or do I immediately start hanging them in trees few hundred yards away from the kill site and then start hauling each load one at a time to the wheeler then down to the cooler and come back for the next and so on. how you'd you plan a pack out in a case like this. i am assuming i have that day and maybe the next morning before something is going to come looking for a meal and give me problems. it is thick timber and there is going to be no area where i can hand the quarters in a location i can see from a ways away to see if a bear is hanging around.

 

[406RoadToad]

You seem pretty confident you’ll get one! Where are you going exactly?.. for instructional purposes…

I hunt solo in griz country and do it similar with the base camp / 4-wheeler. I personally cut my elk up and get it in a tree away from the kill ASAP simply because spoilage can happen ridiculously fast mid September. Cutting off a load then getting it back to camp might sound like a good idea but half way through you could find yourself with some pretty stinky meat or a bear claiming your kill.

Good luck!

 

[Bullzeyez61]

Defiantly not confident I will get on but if I do as soon as it is down the clock is ticking and that is not the time to be thinking what should I do but what am I going to do. As soon as I start cutting it up I know not to leave any meat attached get it all in game bags ready to be hauled out have the whole elk done at once and then start moving meat. it would not be smart to cut a load off and haul it out and come back to cut more off for another haul. That only gives time for the meat to spoil and more time to get ambushed by a bear with your head down. Thank you good luck to you as well!

 

[Where's Bruce?]

During a hunt deep in grizz country where trees suitable for hanging game were non-existent, I carried a bear fence. The idea was to erect it around the field dressed kill and make trips only during the daylight hours. The fence is roughly a 5lb weight penalty and can be used while you sleep.

One night in bear country without a fence i had an awful experience. I ate Magnesium to help me sleep and on day 4 of a week long trip I was awakened by low growls and heavy breathing. We were camped next to a little creek in the eastern Sierras at about 10,800'. I was way groggy and could not find my flashlight or bear spray but did have my .44 magnum. Then it hit the tent and as the wall pushed in on top of me I fired 3 rounds point blank thru the tent. I remember seeing the flash and watching the powder burn the wall of the tent, smoldering like a cigarette. The ringing in my ears was all I could sense. I was dazed and just sat there for several seconds...then started looking for my flashlight again...holding my S&W 329PD the entire time. I finally located my light and unzipped the SS2 Tarptent. I got out on the opposite side from where the tent had collapsed. There, laying dead next to the tent was my buddy Gary with two bullet holes in the center of his chest. He must have been pranking me, I thought. I am thinking, "This can't be! This isn't happening!!" Then I woke up and heard Gary snoring away in the next tent. It was an upsetting dream...never took Gary for granted again after that. Thought I'd shot him dead.

 

[Nick Muche]

Where's Bruce never disappoints with his Deep Grizz country stories.

 

[Where's Bruce?]

Deep Grizz...ya can't scratch em behind the ears like a blackie.

 

[Bullzeyez61]

Sleep supplements can make you dream some crazy dreamed sometimes. I have my tac light runs off two cr123 batteries love that light, I keep it tied around my neck like a necklace when I sleep and I also will tak my belt and loop it around my thigh and have my pistol holstered in there. I have been woken by being stepped on by mule deer does sleeping on a tarp that was interesting.

 

[Bullzeyez61]

The bear fence is a good idea I am going to look into that thank you

 

[Where's Bruce?]

The bear fence is a good idea I am going to look into that thank you

There's a slight learning curve. Erect and tear it down 10 times in your backyard when ya get it, after that it'll go up real fast and you'll have confidence it's set up correctly.

 

[Team4LongGun]

Dude...I SWORE this was @Ross posting, but then I found some form of punctuation

 

[Team4LongGun]

All clowning aside, OP, your asking questions which means your thinking your hunt through-which is a good start. Don't fall victim to overthinking it. Play it safe and smart and have a great hunt!

 

[Where's Bruce?]

Sleep supplements can make you dream some crazy dreamed sometimes. I have my tac light runs off two cr123 batteries love that light, I keep it tied around my neck like a necklace when I sleep and I also will tak my belt and loop it around my thigh and have my pistol holstered in there. I have been woken by being stepped on by mule deer does sleeping on a tarp that was interesting.

Q. "What did the hunter say when startled by a deer stepping on him?"
A. Doh!

 

[Bullzeyez61]

The time I shot a spike and had a assisted pack out was last year. I woke up early i wheeler several miles down the road to where I was going to enter in high make my way over to where I needed and drop down and make my way down and out and hoof it back to camp. I had talked to some people and they said if I needed any point I was out there swing by and they could give me a lift to where I needed to enter or back to my wheeler after I exit. I wheel past a pop up camper at the summit (at 1:30am woke his ass up and beat him to the trail) I made my way over working slow hearing bugles but hard to pinpoint exactly where with the wind and fog. I got to location listening till sunup. Made a move on 2 bulls that were on the move couldn’t get even close. Seen another one i was waiting for it and it’s cow to make their way around the bend and I rolled a rock down making noise and that made them turn toward the bottom where I can not pack out. Make my way back up and over to my glassing spot looking over the bowl and drainage, sit there till about 11 am did not see or hear a thing. I decided to make my way back to the wheeler and try south for the night in another drainage. I stand up turn around and I see someone right there (guy that was in the pop up) I wait and watch he’s hanging out and scare the living shit out of him when I said what’s up. He didn’t know I was 10 feet away. Long story short we concluded the elk are pressured and may have moved from the weekend and are not here today. He said he wanted to work this slope and timber and I said you do that I’ll go back out to my wheeler and you drop down I’ll pick you up and drive you back up to camp. I get to my wheeler at the summit and check my phone he left me a message saying he seen a herd of 40 no big bulls but lot of elk drop into the bowl. So I turn around and hoof it the 4 dang mile back to where I was. We glass and see one cow the whole time but we knew they were in there. So we decide to wait for them to move. About 3:30-4 he see a herd of elk and I say man that looks like a big bull to me and he sees him and damn right that was not the same herd he had seen. So it was game on we could see the wind was in our favor sun to our backs everything is perfect. We drop in and we had the perfect setup you could not draw a better picture, I said we get a shot at the bull it is yours you seen the elk, but our rookie mistake cost us a shot opportunity. We should have got into the cover on this knoll/lip/edge and waited to pinpoint them before exposing ourself, instead we anticipated them moving a bit faster and we cut ahead of them and lead cow spotted us at 60. She turned them around and we watched this 330 bull 5x5 that would have been and easy set up if we were more patient, watch them walk up and out. Still cow calling and sitting still spike runs out and I shoot him twice at 79 yds he ran right to a flat spot on the loose rock along the creek and expired. We didn’t get the pie but we got a slice.

We cut it up and packed it out and I had mentioned if he wasn’t here I would have left my bow and gear hidden in the brush and come back for it and get it out in 2 trips throughout the night. And he had said he thinks it is important to get your gear out first before the meat. I did not tell him or debating him what or why I though that way, we are having fun on the mountain and don’t need to debating opinions with somebody you just met. But the reason why I would have done that is the money and time invested into this trip to get to the point where I am holding a bloody rear quarter, the money it took me to get to this point could have re bought all that gear over again and then some, but all that money can not and will never buy me the meat of a sucesfull hunt and it was and still is very important to me to get every pound of meat out and home safely. If I shot a elk and cut it up and somebody approached me and put a gun to my head and said I have two options keep my gear and he is stealing my elk or I keep the elk and he is stealing my gear 100% I am keeping that meat. But that is the two mentality’s of two different hunters. He is a resident and he can do this every year and is going to have literally 100 packout of his, friends, and family over his lifetime and his gear is more important to him that the reward of meat. While me being a non resident playing the game of getting tags, funding the time and money for the trip to get out there really puts it in a perspective that the reward is irreplaceable.

I am the person who over thinks thing especially when it comes to hunting and that is why I hunt by myself. I am a pain in the rear to plan things out becasue I have the vacation and time others don’t where I can change plans or tags on short notice while others can not. And when I am out there I get after it and I do not know anybody that is willing to lace up their boots as early in the morning every morning like myself and I do not know anybody that can keep up with me either. There are a lot of downsides to hunting solo but many upsides too. We are trying to workout a trip together this year hopefully we can make it happen.

 

[Bullzeyez61]

But I will say this, over thinking is preparation, not execution. Don’t let your overthinking impair your execution.

And Bruce.. haha that is a good one.

 

[drra]

I wouldn't sleep by myself without a Bear fence when spiking out in griz country.

 

[FLATHEAD]

I wouldn't sleep by myself without a Bear fence when spiking out in griz country.

THIS.