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Hunt Introduction This black bear bowhunt takes place in central British Columbia, in the Prince George area. I'll be hunting with Jeff Lander, owner of Primitive Outfitting. I've bowhunted with Jeff several times previously for mule deer in Alberta. He just aquired a new, 900 sq. mile outfitting area in British Columbia for black and grizzly bear and moose. This hunt will be 100% spot and stalk, which is the kind of method I really get excited about. The bears will have been out of hibernation for a few weeks by now and are very visible out eating new, green grass along old logging roads, railroad right of ways, and other areas open to sunlight. This time also should be during their rut. The scouting reports from Jeff have been very encouraging. They are seeing multiple bears just about every day and there has been no shortage of close encounters. I have 2 bear tags, and I hope to use them both! Stay tuned for all the action! Saturday P.M.  This is our view from the ranch house I got into camp a little earlier than expected and we decided to go out for a few hours this evening and see what we could see. We hadn't gone 1 mile from the ranch house and we had already seen 2 bears, but they were both young, and both out eating grass alongside the logging road. Just a few more miles down the road we spotted another young bear eating new grass along the road. A few more miles down the road we saw yet another bear! He was about 30 yards off the road in a little depression. We marked the spot mentally, drove past a ways, then I got my gear out and started a stalk to see if he was worth shooting. It was a little hard to judge size when just driving by. I put on a slow stalk, but unfortunately could not ever locate him again. The day was at an end, but we saw 4 different bears in just a few hours on the first day - not bad! We'll see what tomorrow brings....  One of the small bears we saw this evening  A beautiful rainbow I saw right at dusk from camp Sunday A.M.  I did some spot and stalk hunting down this cut line this morning  Spotting for bears This morning we drove to an area to do some still hunting down a long cut line through the woods. We didn't see any bear, but we did see some good sign and the area really looked good. There was a lot of clover and new green grass growing. We'll probably come back to the area sometime during the week.  A bear was here....  We crossed this pretty stream several times today On the way back to camp we passed a small meadow and there was a good sized bear feeding on the edge. We went on past, checked the wind, and I bailed out, got my gear ready and started on the stalk. I made it to the edge of the meadow by the road and the bear wasn't in sight, so I moved real slow, figuring it couldn't have gone far from the meadow in just those few minutes. As I slowly still hunted towards where we had seen the bear, I heard a bear coughing or sneezing, kind of like he had a bug caught in this throat. That helped me to pinpoint it's location. As I got closer, I saw it stand up and start clawing a huge tree. There was some brush between us so I couldn't really tell how big it was. It then laid down and appeared to be resting between two trees, in the shade. As I moved slowly closer, I could see an ear twitching occasionally. I was within 20 yards now, but couldn't see all of the bear, had no idea how big it was, and didn't have a clear shot anyway because of some brush in the way. While I was contemplating exactly how to proceed, something happened that I didn't expect. About 10 yards to the left of that bear, another bear materialized through the brush. It may have been laying down there and I just couldn't see it. It slowly dawned on me that I may be in a sow/cub situation. I still couldn't tell the size of the bear I had been stalking. The new bear was a good sized bear, and it seemed to have caught my scent. It was looking in my direction and sniffing, and plainly new something was up. About the time I decided it would be smart for me to back out of there, they decided the same thing and took off themselves. As I was walking out to the truck, I happened to look up in a tree and saw a bear up in the top of a tall birch tree, only 50 yards from where I was stalking the other bear. We took a look at the bear through binos and although he wasn't big enough that I wanted to take him, we did get a few good pictures of him. It's hard to tell from the photos, but the tree that bear was in was probably 40-50 feet tall, and the bear was at almost the very top. After the exciting stalk, it was about lunchtime, so we headed on back to the ranch.  The bear I was stalking was bedded down between those two trees  The bear we spotted up in the top of a big birch tree  A little closer view.... Sunday P.M.  This afternoon and evening we did a lot of driving looking at new country and a bunch of different logging roads. About 6 p.m. we saw a sow and 2 cubs out right by the road, eating new grass. Then we saw a lone boar just about 300 yards past them. About the time we saw him, he walked into the brush off the road, but he was walking right toward the railroad, so I shadowed him and I went up onto the railroad too. Sure enough, there he was, chowing down on grass and dandelions. At that point he was 150 yards away. I slowly closed the distance, but it was slow going because the old, matted grass underneath the new growth was quite dry and loud. He was slowly eating away from me, but I eventually had closed the distance to about 40 yards. Then, I heard a bad sound - the train horn. That meant the train would be here imminently. Unfortunately, I was not able to close the distance and take a shot before the train came into view, and when it did, the bear bailed. I waited out there for a bit afterwards hoping he might come back out but I didn't see him again.  The sow and cubs we saw in the road this evening  The railroad boar I put a stalk on this evening A few minutes and miles later we momentarily saw a large bear in the brush beside the road, but when we came back past, we didn't see him again. Later in th evening, we saw a good boar on the railroad tracks about 20 miles from where I put on the earlier stalk. The other fellow hunting with us, Bob Gilbert, put a stalk on this bear, but the wind betrayed him and the stalk didn't end with a dead bear.  The boar Bob Gilbert put a stalk on this evening  If you need to send a letter while I'm here, this is where it will go We're in lonely country up here.... Check back tomorrow for another hunt update!
Joshua Flournoy owns and manages the Livehunts.com web site. Joshua resides in east Texas with his wife and four children. |
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