The adventure of a Lifetime!!! Totch on the trail of a Grizzly...

Nice bear! Can't wait to pick back up on the rest of the story.

Attn: moderators! I think story should be nominated for 'Hunter of the Month'...
 
I wonder how many of us keep coming back numerous times a day to see the rest of the story? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 


When I booked this hunt, I was looking for an escape for the mind. I had spent the previous year going through a very messy divorce. I really needed to have something to focus on and plan towards to keep my mind sharp.

As I sat one night and reflected on what my father would say to me if he were still here (He passed away in May of 2000), I started to remember a special admonishion he had offered me one night shortly before he had died. Dad was a true outdoorsman to the core. He loved hunting, fishing, shooting, camping and all of the adventure associated with it. As we sat talking about life, he told me that he had always dreamed of traveling the west and living all of the great adventure hunts that men like Jack O'connor wrote about. He said that he always put it off until "next year". He worked very hard to support my three sisters and I and would always rather give to us that take for himself. As he got a little more financially secure in his fourties he said that he began to look to retirement and started to say that the adventures he dreamed of could wait until then. Suddenly at 49 Dad suffered a heart attack, bypass surgery that went bad and found himself disabled. He went on to live until he was 61, but his dreams of hunting the mountains of the west died that day at 49.

I decided that very night that I would start to live the dreams that I was harboring until "later". I had been blessed with a very good career and comfortable living, good health and plenty of vacation time. What was I waiting for? I had a bass boat collecting dust in the garage that would be spared for my first adventure. After meeting Jordan in Dallas all was on go for May!

As I hiked the mountains and glassed the burns, I had more and more thoughts about my Dad. It was almost as if I was living the dreams that he had had as well.

The day after taking my color phase bear was my son's birthday. I really wanted to take a Griz for the boy and be able to tell him it was his birthday present. We hunted harder than ever and late that afternoon we had a Grizzly cross a road quickly in front of us as we hiked and looked for sign. He looked a little on the short side, but we followed him up the hillside and tried to inspect him a little closer. We got into some rather thick cover and it looked as if he was close. Jordan began with the rabbit distress again. I don't have to tell you that I was not entirely comfortable with calling a Griz in very close cover. The bear never showed and I have to admit I wasn't all that disappointed.

We got home that evening and found that my buddy Dale had taken a nice Black Bear that morning. For some unknown reason Dale and his guide skinned the bear and already had the hide salted without thinking to take a single picture. I informed him right away that Weas was not going to be happy about this.

The next morning dawned with the realization that time was starting to close in on me and I had not punched the Grizzly tag that was riding in my pocket. While Jordan seemed to feel a little stressed about this prospect, I was mainly disappointed that I had to acknowledge that time was starting to run down on what had already been the time of my life. Jordan and I had become fast friends and it was no longer hunting with an outfitter, but more like spending time with an old hunting buddy. I was not stressing about killing another bear, just trying to soak up every thing around me and not miss a thing. I began to take more pictures and look a little longer at the mountain vistas with only 5 days left in my time in British Columbia. It was as if a transformation happened on this trip and I no longer had that "I have to kill something" mentality. I think Dad would have been proud.

We still were in very hot Grizzly sign and Jordan was working as hard as possible to try to find the big boy that we were looking for. Big Game was everywhere, just not the bear we were searching for.

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As we were riding down the drainage shortly before dark, I was half asleep and enjoying the cool air when Jordan quickly dismounted and grabbed my horse's reins all at once. He whispered "get down and grab your rifle!" As I got down, he explained that he had just caught a glimps of a nice black bear up ahead on the side of the skid road that we were traveling on.

We quickly tied the horses and started making our way up to get a closer look. When we got in range we realized that the bear was unalarmed and feeding about 135 yards down hill from the road. We had plenty of time to look him over and discuss the possibilities. He wasn't the biggest bear in the world, but he had a beautiful coat and sure would make a nice matched set with the brown one from 2 days ago! We decided that since Black bears were only supposed to be a "target of opportunity" and we were finished for the evening, this would be a great opportunity to collect another fine trophy and spend the next 4 days with nothing on our minds but a Grizzly. I set up, got the sight picture, the .338 barked and I had a beautiful black to go with my brown bear!

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This was an extremely old bear. Teeth were almost gone, but measured only a little over 5 feet. The coat was absolutly beautiful and as with the previous one, It was long enought to loose your hand in it all the way up to the wrist. The coats on these high elevation mountain bears in the spring are really something to behold. If you haven't ever hunted one, I'd highly recommend it.

I can't tell you how happy I was to have collected a black and brown bear each on my very first bear hunt. I wasn't even here to hunt black bears and I had already taken a pair that many guys hunt a long time to find. Between Dale and I, we had made it 3 bears in 3 days and Jordan was needing to find a steel to sharpen up his skinning knife!

Days were drawing in and it was getting time to find a Grizzly. I discussed it with Jordan that evening and he was beating himself up a little for not telling me to shoot on the smaller bear earlier in the week. I told him that I had no regrets no matter how it ended. Enough looking back, we had 4 days left to hunt and it was time to strap it on!


****************** More to come soon*******************
 
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif another excellent chapter in the story of your hunt. Oh, give Dale a kick in the britches for not taking photos. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
Outstanding Totch!! Congrats on two handsome bears!

Welcome to the mountain west! First time? Being a 'flatlander' is one thing, being a 'sea-level flatlander' is another...man it gets you in the lungs, doesn't it? Guess what...you are doomed...doomed to return again and again, and all the while you are back home, you will be pining for the northern Rockies. Food will lose its flavor, the air will seem thick and stale, life in flatland will be missing that indefinable something, your eyes will have the thousand-yard stare....you will have to come back...and come back...

BC is stunning, isn't it? The mountains of the west with the green of the east. By the way, if you liked Glacier, you'll love Banff and Jasper further north in Canada (western edge of Alberta). And then there is the Yukon....drive to Alaska and back some time my friend, you'll get an eyefull!

What's with Montana and their Continental Divide pass at only 5216? I could actually breathe at that height! Heck that's a thousand feet lower than Colorado Springs, which is down on the prairie at the base of the mountians, fer cryin' out loud! Around here the pass roads over the Divide are 10,000-12,000 feet! But then, the surrounding mountains are at 12,000-14,000. Breathing doesn't work so well there, even if you are born here, which I wasn't, being another sea-level flatlander transplant myself.

Now go getcha a big griz!!!!!
 
NOW THOSE a cool looking bears!! Great story /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
 
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Your hunt is going great. I know it can be a hassle to write this all out. Thank you for taking the time to sit down and do it. I'm sure you're already on top of it, but make sure and save a copy of this somewhere. Your son and family, especially the ones that aren't even born yet, will love reading this at a later date. Great job.
 
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bowingsmilie.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/bowingsmilie.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif

Don't stop! I think we should send you on hunts so we can all relive with you. Outstanding job on the keyboard!!

DD
 
Not only a successful bear hunter but also a skilled outdoor writer. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grinning-smiley-003.gif
 
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