Pine Ck/ Keating bear hunt report....

[TheRogue]

Left Saturday night, hunted Sunday and Monday. Saw no bears on Sunday, not much of anything really, except one of the original Sheep Mountain bighorn rams....they call him "flare horn" or something like that, even still has an ear tag, pretty incredible. Most people will NEVER see a 180+ ram, even mounted, we got to see this one at less than 100 yards.

Monday, shifted areas, up into Eagle Creek, around the 5000ft level. Ooodles of elk, dozens of deer, lots of turkeys, and finally even a few bears!! First found a sow with 2 cubs...sow was almost red, and the cubs were blonde. Less than a mile away, we scoped on a little 150lb bear..very light blonde, really neat color. I would've taken him at about 60 yards, even though there wasn't much meat there, if he would've had a decent hide. He had rubbed half of his winter coat already, poor thing really looked pathetic. Left him to grow. We played with some of our predator calls....he took off running when I blew on my fawn bleat :whazzup:

Had a bear wuff at me twice, growl, wuff, growl, and wuff one more time...I had the wind at my back, never got to see him, but I think it was probably a her. In my experience, a lone bear will usually blow out with one or two wuff's...but a sow with cubs will do it until the cubs get going.

Had three soon-to-be branch bulls come within 20 yards of the pickup. I was walking back up a closed road to the rig, which was parked in a saddle. Saw the elk heading for the saddle, and busted butt up there. I got there the same time they did...stood still in the road (completely camo'd out). The big bull came within 20 yards of the pickup a couple of times, sniffing. He'd back off a ways, and then come closer again. I was less than 40 yards from the elk..this went on for 23 minutes, finally getting almost dark, so I started walking toward them. Freaked 'em out pretty bad, I was standing there the whole time!! :grin: One of the most impressive sights I've ever seen.

We had snow off and on both days, with rain showers and then 50 degree bursts of sun!! Spring in Oregon, yeehaw!!

Won't be going back, my hunting buddy has his first kid on the way in a few weeks, so he doesn't get to leave the house again. :shocked: :shocked:

TR

[RogueFishr]

sounds like a fun time. I love the Keating unit. I have hunted in the Eagle Creek area a lot. I burned a lot of miles in those mountians and shot my first elk over there. thanks for the report.

RF

[birdhunter]

Sounds like a great time over there. Our party camped along the Snake from April 27th till May 4 just north of the tunnel on the Oregon side going up to the powerline road. Good group and a good time, but not too successful for the bear. We concentrated around Halfway for the most part. I didn't have a tag and the people who did needed road access more than the hiking I'd be willing to do. Worked over the turkeys pretty hard and got a few. Plenty of hens, cold mornings and lost of pressure combined to make it a tough atypical hunt. Lots of deer, elk, sheep, etc. 1 bear for our party offa sheep mt.

If I'd had a tag I could have gotten one too. Going out scouting one evening I snuck within 10 yards of this blonde bear. Nothing huge, maybe 150, but a really cool looking coat. Probably not the smartest idea seeing as how all I had was a shotgun w/ 4's and I smelled like fish from the day's crappie exploits, but it worked out. Ended up watching each other from 20 yards for about 5 mintues. Pretty cool.

Snow was virtually nonexistent. Weather might go from snow to rain to hail to sun in an hour. Tough to predict. Fishing for the most part sucked. Caught one nice trout while crappie fishing (19"). That was a battle on an ultarlight. Very few crappie, but the one's we did catch were 10"+. Tons of carp if you wanted to go there I suppose. A few smallmouth, but nothing really impressive (only one over 15"). Looked like they weren't letting much, if any, water out from Oxbow so the currents were really funny, the river was a little low and covered with algae. Made for pretty lousing fishing compared to what I'm used to.

All in all, good trip though in some of my favorite country out there. Sorry you don't get to go back out there Kyle. 2 days isn't much time for such a long trip. Better luck next time. Good report though.

[TheRogue]

thanks BH, sounds like your trip was about the same.

Yup, 2 days just isn't long enough...next year will be different, hope we draw!! My buddy we stayed with in Halfway is a tournament bass fisherman, so he wasn't really available to show us around....he works for the USFS there, so knows the country!!

Next time, we'll probably do a bunch of hunting from the river out of my boat...go along the Idaho side, and glass back to Oregon up the canyons. That's how some of the locals do it, makes it a little more fun because you get to fish while you hunt

When I went to school in Ontario, we snagged carp with salmon gear and treble hooks, and sold to a processing plant in Weiser or Payette, not sure which. They'd cut into the head and dig out the pituatary gland, use that for some Asian s e x pill :grin: , and grind the rest up for cat food. It was a blast, we had a big bin in a pickup, and we'd fish most of the morning, then take the fish back to the plant. We had 2 fish over 40lbs in the three months we did it.

TR

[ 05-09-2003, 06:00 AM: Message edited by: TheRogue ]

[cjk]

I agree with you on the fact that seeing a bighorn in the wild is something amazing. I ran into a herd of about 20 or so of them in the burnt river canyon last year during my elk hunt. I would lucky enough to get a good 20 minutes of them on video from less than 100 yards. It was an experience that I will never forget.

[redfish89]

Great story....