Well the 2008 hunting season was a little tough this year for bear hunting. Last winter was the snowiest ever recorded in Northern Idaho, resulting in a late spring. We ended up canceling most of our hunts this last spring. Don Hawkins from MS decided to stick it out though, and took a nice six foot, three legged bear. Leave it to Don.

Our fall hunt started out slow and never really did pick up much. Again due to the late spring, the huckleberry crop was also late. Great for the pickers, but not so for us hunters. Seems that bears like berries more than bread and fryer grease. The berry crop was the best I have ever seen so late. The berries were everywhere until October. Typically they are all gone by the second week of September. The bears did hit our baits though, but with much less enthusiasm. Greg Barcus took another dandy bear this fall, while our other hunters had plenty of stories to tell; many of the one that got away. Last year we got a picture of a huge brown phase bear at one of our sites at the end of season. We had no one to hunt him so he survived. Kip Newton got to watch this bear on the last day of his hunt this year. The bear has grown a bit since last year and he is still out there. The bear came right in under Kip's stand and went to the bait. But he did not stay to give Kip the opportunity to draw his bow.

The biologist for Fish and Game assured me that we did not have a high mortality over the winter. They are doing a study in our area on black bears and had 17 collared bears that went to bed last fall and all woke up this spring. Lets hope we don't get another record snowfall this year. So far so good.

Don Hawkins spring bear

Greg Barcus fall bear

Elk season was pretty good this year. It was a very hot and clear September which made it hard to get much going with the elk during the day. We took three bow hunters and one rifle hunter this fall and killed two nice bulls in archery season and a spike towards the end of rifle. David Allen took his first bull with a bow at about 20 yards. The bull came in completely silent. We had located about five bulls the evening before and decided to drop in on them the next morning. Well, that morning we didn't hear a peep. After our third set -up, we smelled elk in the bottom. So we sat there listening to elk walking all around us for an hour. I still can't believe we couldn't see their feet. Finally after an hour of very subtle cow calls a nice five point decided to come and check us out. Little did he know that two bow hunters at full draw awaited his arrival. Long story short Dave killed the bull and we packed him out.

 

David Allens first elk

Modi Weiss first archery elk

Modi Weiss from North Carolina came down for a one on one archery hunt towards the end of September. We didn't have to go far to locate his elk. We heard several right from camp the day before his hunt and went after them the next morning. After 10 minutes of hiking we had a good bull reply to our calls and was coming in. At that point it was pouring down rain and the wind shifted his direction so we never did see this bull. A spike did make an appearance at about 10 yards though. After that everything just shut right up and it rained solid for two days. After it let up on the third day we decided to give the camp bulls another shot. We hiked way up the mountain and located a number of rubs and decided to set up. After about ten minutes of calling we could hear something breaking branches. No bugling though. Well pretty quickly I could see a large blond body about 25 yards from Modi. I gave one more soft cow mew and watched as the bull walked right under Modi's position. One shot from 20 yards through the lungs of this six point and he didn't go far. Another fine bull down.

Neil Meffords first cat

As I write this it is Mt. Lion season. I just got back this last week from a successful hunt with Neil Mefford from North Bend WA. Neil took a nice mature cat in one day of hunting. Good thing, because after that day and through today it has been friged in Northern Idaho. We decided to wait out the cold before our next couple of hunts.

2007 huge brown

2008 look familiar?

Thank you to all of our 2008 clients for being prepared and just being good folks. It was a fun season and we look forward to many more in the future.

Travis Clemenson