Live Hunts - Washington Whitetail Deer & Black Bear Hunt

September 1, 2002
Washington Whitetail Deer &
Black Bear Bowhunt

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Hunt Introduction
This hunt takes place in northeast Washington state in the Selkirk Mountains range. We are hunting with BearPaw Outfitters, owner Dale Denney. This is an archery hunt for Whitetail Deer and Black Bear. We will be hunting Bear most likely in the mornings and during the day, using a variety of techniques. The Bear should be eating berries and other soft and hard mast at this time of year, so we'll be trying to spot and stalk in on them. We may also hunt some waterholes for bear. This area has a pretty high occurence of color phase black bears.

For Whitetail we will be hunting the evenings and our primary method of hunting will be hunting from treestands overlooking trails heading to some of the many Alfalfa fields in this area. This area has some good bucks, probably a few of which will still be in velvet right now. One of the neat things about hunting this time period is that the bucks are still in their summer routines and somewhat predictable. We'll just how predictable they are!

Accompanying me on this hunt is Lance Kacko, of Dayton, Texas, who won the hunt through a Free Hunt Giveaway at http://www.huntinfo.com/.

Sunday A.M.

The hillside where I heard the bear this morning

This morning I still-hunted an old grown-up logging road in an area where Dale's hunters have seen and killed a lot of bears in the last few years. Right at daylight I heard some bear vocalizations across a big ravine, but despite my best efforts with my binoculars, I never could spot it. The brush was very thick and very tall. After still-hunting for a little while, I heard a few logs breaking about 50 yards off the trail, but it was too thick for me to see anything, and trying to stalk through the brush right there would have been a waste of time. It is really dry up here right now and the brush is crunchy and loud.

The logging road where I still-hunted

Bear sign

I spent the first several hours of daylight working my way down the mountain on the logging road until I met up with my guide. I didn't have any more bear action on my stalk, but I did see several piles of bear dung. All of it was a few days old, though. One of the guides saw a 300+ lb. bear in this same drainage about 4 days ago.

Lance hunted a small water hole this morning that had deer tracks galore, and some bear tracks as well. Water is a precious commodity up here right now with things being so dry. Many of the streams aren't running. He sat there until about 10:30 and didn't see anything, but the animals are coming in here sometime of day for sure, as all the tracks indicate.

Lance's set-up this morning

The water hole had a large amount of deer tracks....

....And a few bear tracks too

This evening we'll be hunting whitetails from treestands near Alfalfa.

Sunday P.M.
This evening I sat in a 16-foot ladder stand overlooking a fence crossing into an Alfalfa field. Lance sat the upper end of the field in another ladder stand, a few hundred yards away. We didn't see much except turkeys until the last hour or so of daylight. Then the floodgates opened and deer started coming from every direction. By dark, we probably had close to 30 deer in view in different parts of our field and an adjacent field. I saw a decent buck but not one to shoot the first evening. He was about 13-inches inside spread and 5 points on each side. He'll be a good one next year. We saw several other smaller bucks as well, but no big boys made an appearance this evening.

One neat little thing happened this evening that doesn't happen every day. I was sitting there minding my own business when a small bird flew over and landed on my broadhead! It flew away and I got out my camera and got it ready. About 2 minutes later it flew and landed there again, and I got a photo that time. Doesn't happen everyday, gave me a laugh.

My special visitor this evening

Check back for more action tomorrow!

Trip Notes
This hunt takes place in northeast Washington state Selkirk Mountains range. We are hunting with BearPaw Outfitters, owner Dale Denney. This is an archery hunt for Whitetail Deer and Black Bear. We will be hunting Bear most likely in the mornings and during the day, using a variety of techniques. The Bear should be eating berries and other soft and hard mast at this time of year, so we'll be trying to spot and stalk in on them. We may also hunt some waterholes for bear. This area has a pretty high occurence of color phase black bears.

For Whitetail we will be hunting the evenings and our primary method of hunting will be hunting from treestands overlooking trails heading to some of the many Alfalfa fields in this area. This area has some good bucks, probably a few of which will still be in velvet right now. One of the neat things about hunting this time period is that the bucks are still in their summer routines and somewhat predictable. We'll just how predictable they are!

If interested in hunting with this outfitter, contact:

- Longleaf Hunting Adventures Web Site -

Equipment
I'm shooting a Martin Jaguar bow, set at 67 lbs. Arrows are 29-inch Easton 3-60 ACC's, and I'm trying out Simmons LandShark 160 Grain 2-blade broadheads for the first time.

Joshua Flournoy owns and manages the Livehunts.com web site. He also arranges exciting hunts through his business Longleaf Hunting Adventures. Joshua resides in east Texas with his wife and four children.

e-mail Joshua Flournoy

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