Ep. 35: Spot and Stalk Spring Bear with Ryan Lampers

Ryan Lampers has spring bear dialed!!! Year after year he finds success in multiple states and these aren’t just run of the mill bears, Ryan targets mature boars.  In this episode Jason wanted to dig into all of Ryan’s spot and stalk bear hunting experience in hopes you can find something that may help you spring bear hunting this year.  They discuss finding bears, how the weather will affect them, time of day to find them and how long to hang out in an area before moving on, amongst a bunch of other topics.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Today's guest is a Washington native who many may say
has made better life decisions than I have and moved
out of our home state to Montana, which has allowed
him to consistently hunt spring bears year in and year out.
In addition to being a season spring bear hunter. He
does pretty dang well with dear l whatever he decides
to pursue. We're talking about mister Ryan Lampers, also known
by many as the Stealthy Hunter. Over the past few years,

(00:35):
Ryan and his crew have had a ton of success
on their spring bear hunts. But he doesn't just stumble
into the success. He has put all the information he's
gathered over years and years and the experience that's available
to him, and this puts him in spots where he
will find big bears year in and year out. Welcome
to the show, Ryan, Thank you, Jason. Wow, quite an
intro there. I appreciate the acknowledgement of making better life

(01:02):
choices than you. I don't know if that's true, but
on one level it definitely is um As I moved
to Montana and away from the state of Washington. Yeah,
I would agree with you there. Yeah, about this point,
all of these Washington residents that just realize we're going
to talk about spring bear hunting. They've all just like
that turned us off. Yeah, because there's no there's no

(01:23):
hope for hims. They need more turkey calling probably in
their world right now with Washington and where it's at it. Oh, so,
how's everything going there in Montana? It's very white, very snowy,
very um. I don't know. It's been a long winter
and we're ready for it to be done. It's uh,
we are all jacked up and ready to get onto

(01:46):
some spring bear. I tell myself, it's the snow is melting, um,
but it it doesn't look like it's melting out there. Man,
It's the mounds are white. Um. But now we're we're
all ready ready for season. It's coming quick or a
couple of weeks out from when you could possibly go
out and start chasing some bears. But I think that

(02:08):
you little get delayed, a little bit, a little delayed. Yeah,
we're not going to jump the gun here, but a
lot of our questions. We've got kind of a special
podcast here, the way that we put this together, and
a lot of it is going to jump into that
conversation on finding bears. And then with that, what are
you gonna do on a you're like this, So we'll
get into that here in a little bit. So, No,
I appreciate having you. Like I said, you've been you know,

(02:29):
I would say you even joke with me, which I
hope it's a joke that you may even put like
spring bearing above archery, running elk, which is it's tough
to take. But no, you you've been very successful. The
groups you've taken have been very successful. And it's one
of those hunts that I kind of I'm jealous of,
Like I just want to be out there and see
what you guys do. The country that you guys are

(02:50):
in for spring times amazing, and you know, the success
kind of speaks for itself, you know, consistent on big
boards here for the most part, Man, there's spring bear hunting.
You know, I can honestly say, coming from Washington, we
didn't get a whole lot of opportunities back there. We
had to travel and cross borders in Idaho and Montana.

(03:10):
But um fall bear was always very popular with us.
We never missed a fall bear season over there in
the high country, chasing them in the barry fields. But
um Man this spring bear hunt has in the last
ten years has just it's really found a soft spot
in my heart because I I wasn't lying Jason. It

(03:33):
is my number two um right Rice square behind Meal
there which will never be overtaken. But I there's just
something about spring bears. I think it's the time of year,
the adventure you can make it right. I think, you know,
there's there's there's hunts that you can make somewhat easy,
there's hunts that you can make as difficult as you want.

(03:54):
So the challenge of a spring bear hunt is incredible.
You can you can basically plan a trip around whatever
you want to do in the mountains, like we chase
these things in mountain goat country half the time. So
m I absolutely love the places that bears bring you
and the time the year that we're able to get

(04:15):
out there and chase them. Yep. And that's one thing
that I've only got the spring bear hunt once living
in the state. I was lucky to draw very shortly
before it was taken out of the big game rigs,
you know. But I love that it can check so
many boxes for so many different people in the way
that they want to hunt. You know, if you some
states if you want to bait, you can bait some

(04:36):
states that allow hounds. And then you know, like you
a guy that's looking for adventure wants to go hunt them,
you know above the tree line, um at the snow line,
like you can check all those boxes and we've been
cooped up for you know, it's like your first time
out your back backpack in. You know. It's just it's
one of those one of those hunts that can check
whatever boxes you need it to check. Um and you

(04:59):
almost get to make that ring bear hunt your own,
and you can. You can. There's so many tactics and
ways to go about spring bear hunting, you know, and
different topographies, different terrains you know, you could and they
can be vastly different from like a Southwest Montana type
more open pines to a North Idaho country type where

(05:20):
baiting and hounds and things like that, or just man,
it's almost the d way to go in certain places.
Um yeah, I I honestly I have settled on the
um the glassing, spot and stock type of tactic. I
love it. It keeps you on your feet, it keeps
you moving. It's a great way to grab a lot

(05:41):
of endurance. And and just glass a ton of country
I love. I love that type. I can't sit still.
That's why I don't sit and tree stand or anything.
But yeah, yeah, spring bear can can be as easy
as you want it to be or as difficult as
you want it to be. And couple that with the terrain,
the drastic differences in terrain that bears in habit. Yeah,

(06:04):
there's a lot of challenges there. Yeah, and I loved it.
From another thing I like about spring bear the same
things that baiting and hounds give you is the the
ability to take certain bears that you're after, you know,
And that's why I love spring bears. It gives you
that edge when they're out there doing they're mating. You know,
you can it's easy to tell which is a boar
where you know, a lot of times fall hunting when

(06:24):
you get those kind of tweener bears, Like if you're
not very skilled at knowing what you're looking at, like
you're you know, for some guys that maybe fifty fifty
until you just do a lot of looking and like
you know, identifying if you're shooting a boar or you know,
a dry sow or something that just doesn't have cubs.
So this gives us like a management tool to make
sure we're you know, a guy like you that's specifically

(06:44):
after large boars or for somebody that would rather do that.
It gives us just another tool to help manage um,
you know, the resource. Yeah, I mean there's no question
if if you're looking to or a sportsman are looking
to take out a certain class bear, you know, those
old ancient bores or the old dried up size. You

(07:04):
know that that is very manageable and doable with hounds.
You know, you can be picky, you can choose which
bears to let live and which bears to take as
well as you know on baits and you know, sizing
them up you know, um, in opposition to that, that
bait barrel and stuff like that much easier. So there's

(07:25):
a lot less guesswork in it with those two methods.
And you know, I'm sure we'll end up talking about,
you know, how we size up bears in the mountains
at a distance. It can be difficult. I don't care
who you are, how long you've been doing it. There
are times where you you might screw up a little
bit in your judgment. But there's definitely some things to
look to. But um, yeah, I love those two management

(07:49):
tool the hounds and the baiting. It's just definitely not
the most adventurous for me personally. I like it the
other way. I like the difficult part of it that
I can see that, you know, but it's still it's
still hunting. It's still a great, great time to get
out there, and you know, we need to take some
of these predators, you know, off the landscape. So this

(08:10):
is going to be a different podcast than normal. A
lot of times we'll take a couple listener questions and
then we'll jump into some of my discussion. Today we're
going to bring you basically all listener questions, so it's
it's a different format. But if you have any questions
of your own for myself or our guests, m feel
free to email us at CTD at Phelps Gamecalls dot com,

(08:32):
or like we done in this episode, we put a
post out there on social media and just to ask
people what they want to know about spring bear hunting
for and we can see all these up for Ryan.
So we're just going to kind of jump into these
questions and kind of the first couple are a little
uh different, and then a lot of these will start
to run in, but they all kind of m segue
into each other. So it kind of gets us on
a little bit of a role here. So the first question, Ryan,

(08:54):
is it realistic to be successful spring bear hunting when
only weekends are available? Okay, yeah, that's a great question, um,
And kind of going along the same lines as like
I mentioned before, you know, you can make these hunts
is as difficult or as easy as as possible. Absolutely,
bear hunting, more than almost anything else that I do,

(09:17):
can be something that I can grab my daughter after school,
run up to the closest range and start glassing. I
can glass from the truck and pick up bears and
it's not that difficult to do. So, Um, you know,
hitting hitting a logging road and you don't have to
go far. You know, it's not always a five to
ten mile thing. It's not necessary by any stretch when

(09:40):
it comes to bears, um, you know, especially as they're
just coming out. You know, most of these bears, they're
in this region, you know, the rocky mountain states in
this western front we got i'd say on average, we're
finding them den up at about three thousand to fifty
five feet up to maybe six thousand feet, so you know,

(10:01):
it's not like you're having to get into the eight
nine ten thousand foot level or elevation. You know, we're
finding these bears on those south slopes, fairly low on
the hill in a lot of these states. So I
would say, in short answer, I guess absolutely, you can
do it in an evening, you can do it on
a weekend. It's bear hunting is one of those things

(10:23):
where you know a couple hours is all you need
to go out and maybe glass up a bear. Now,
I don't know if you're gonna have time to go
get him that night, but definitely opportunities to see him
and not have to put too many miles on yep.
And you know this applies to all hunting. If that's
the only time I have to hunt, I'm still gonna
be out there. There's always a chance, you know, there's

(10:44):
always a chance that we would be lying if we
said that your probability of success doesn't go up the
more time you can invest or if you're looking for
something specific. But I remember we had to my buddy
had to win a haf spring bear take. It went
over for like a week and we were kind of
coming back on just a BONDSI weekend trip. You know,
for us it was a five and a half six
hour drive. We we drove four times longer than the

(11:04):
hunt was. We walked down a trail, um you know,
two hours in, shot the bear and had him back
to the truck, and uh a lot less time than
than we it took to even get to the unit.
So there's always a chance. But you know, I think
we'd be lying to say, if you're your chances of
success don't go down. But um, yeah that's all you've
got by by all any means, you know, I would

(11:25):
still be out there hunting absolutely, so, UM you know
this this next question, a guy's hunting with his dad,
who it sounds like maybe can't get around as good
as um, you know you or or it maybe even
him and get into the back country. How would you
deal with, you know, working around baiting and hounds. So
this guy maybe sounds like he doesn't want to take

(11:45):
advantage of the baiting or wants to give them space
or the hounds. Do you have any you know, this
is more front country stuff, but how would you deal
with with those two aspects of other guys out in
the woods, you know, hunting the same same criter. That's
a great question. Um, you know, And I'll be honest,
and I don't tend to run into a whole lot

(12:06):
of guys on baits. Now, it is very popular in
some of these states. You know, Idaho is there's a
lot of guys that do it, and with good reason,
great success. But when I go over to that state,
I'm just going in too far. But you know, I think,
you know, for someone that's not able to put in
a lot of miles, most of these guys aren't baiting

(12:27):
too far from the road right there. I've heard I've
not done it. I've heard to go even a half
mile or a mile in is pretty far for a
lot of these base sites. Um, now, there are guys
that go above and beyond that. But man again, I
think I go back to grabbing a logging road and
just hiking in. It doesn't have to be too much

(12:49):
exertion to find areas to glass from. And uh, you know,
some of these logging roads out here, these gated ones,
you just don't have to go far and you're picking
up bears. So yeah, and we'll get into it a
little bit, but we just have to find that food
that they're on. If they're not on a bait, and
they're not you know, if they're not crossing the main
road where the hounds can pick them up, they're going
to be kind of left alone in those pockets. And

(13:11):
that's all you really fine, Absolutely, yea, this will kind
of be the last and then we're going to really
jump in. We'll start with snow. But this is the
last question here, or so earlier in the spring, do
you guess more on those up facing slopes or the
north facing den areas. So, I guess it depends on
how early in the spring. You know, we always try
to time it just on the front end of where

(13:33):
we're just starting to see those first bears come out.
You know, it's my opinion that the most mature boars
are out in the open. It's almost I can't believe
I'm saying this, but out in the open first, and
they stay there visible more often than not than later

(13:57):
in the season, for sure. So some of the best
boars that we've ever taken are on that very front
end where the snow is just receded enough and you're
not necessarily seeing any green, but it is just starting
like it is just on the cusp of starting to
green up on the mountains. So you know, some of
those north slopes prior to the green up, you know,

(14:19):
those bears, they'll generally come out sometime in April, sometimes
front end, sometimes middle, sometimes late. They'll be there, they'll
be out and you are able to pick them up.
But obviously when that south slope starts greening up, it's
at that point when your focus should be turned to
the south facers, or at least you know, there's some

(14:41):
north facers too that just have topography laid out enough
to where it's grabbing some sun. You know, it's still
getting some opening enough to to get some light and
grow that vegetation. So yeah, I guess very front end.
You know a lot of these bears will den on
those north northwest side faces. Um. Generally it's like a

(15:04):
could be anywhere from a twenty to a fifty degree
pitch slope um on those north slopes. And uh, it's
those basins in those areas that have an adjacent south
slope with some good green vegetation. Man, those are the
those are the money spots. Those are the places that
I kind of key into. But um, you know, obviously
you're looking on both sides, but at the very very
front end. Um, I'm I'm looking in those north slopes

(15:28):
and as soon as that green starts popping though, I'm
looking at those, um, those sun filled south facers. Yeah,
and it seems like, you know, watching some of you
guys's videos, you guys are sometimes looking into north Bass
and the bear like crosses the head of the basin
and is on the south side. It almost seems like
there's no right or wrong spot. You know. Really you're
looking at everything. Yep, yep, Yeah, you're looking at everything.

(15:50):
And and the interesting thing, you know, you hear south
slope used a lot, and it's yeah, it's where the
sun hits. Um, that's where the grass first starts to show.
But man, it really doesn't take that long for you
to start seeing some growth on a north face too,
if if it lays out right, you know, if you've
got some sparse timber, you got some beetle kill, or

(16:14):
you know, a sparsely logged area for example, where just
enough light is getting through there. You know, all slopes
are different. Some north slopes are absolute jam packed with
uh you know, deep timber and dark timber. And you're
not gonna get much grass in there. But there's other
north slopes that are wide open and they'll still offer

(16:34):
some good green up and a lot of those bears
will do just fine sticking to the north slope. Yep, yep.
Um Okay, let's let's jump into snow. We we've talked
about right off the bat. It seems like it's a
big driving factor on where you're gonna hunt spring bear.
Where the bears are going to be out. You know,
we've talked about spring bear usually following the snow line

(16:56):
up or right there behind the snow line is where
you know you're gonna get that green up you've talked about,
like that bright green chartrous color, like you're looking for
the vegetation that's that color. So when a year like
this where you're you guys have a lot of snow
down low, your your your typical spots you'd mentioned, you know,
trying to get up into. Will this snow keep you

(17:16):
out of the alpine? Will it force you to come
down into that mid range where there's timber or are
you just going to wait longer so you can hunt
these bears where you want to hunt these bears? Um,
so I'm gonna treat it like most years, you know,
I love to get these things right out of gates,
or at least target them out of the gates. And
they're just before that green starts, so still gonna be

(17:38):
looking early. Um, definitely going to be on that front end.
But we're gonna be fairly low. You know, we're gonna be,
to be specific, when we're gonna be in that three
thousand to four thousand foot range. You know that's those
are the slopes that I'm gonna be checking out first,
and um, you know, it all goes up from there.
But it is gonna be a later season, no doubt

(18:00):
about it. You know. I think a lot of guys
are in a situation where they're trying to figure out
what week of work to take off. That's very important
right now, and I'm getting hammered with a lot of
people asking that question. Like I had scheduled this for
that April fifteenth timeframe, but this year it's looking much
different than I thought. And that's true, and I would

(18:24):
say if I would probably schedule it another week or
two later this year, I don't think you're gonna hurt
yourself by moving your dates. Out a little bit. I'm
still gonna be chasing them, but I'll probably be on
the front end of it and I'll just hunt through it.
But yeah, there's not gonna be a whole lot of

(18:44):
green show. And even in that three to four thousand
foot range mid April, it's gonna be a little later
this year. You know, we've had a crub ton of snow.
Looking at the snow layers and the depth this time
of year, we kind of you know, or over those
numbers and those and seeing what prior years and historical

(19:04):
data has been. Yeah, this year's a little bit deeper
than it was last year in several places, some not.
But um, yeah, we are definitely above and beyond in
the places that I'm looking to go. We have more
snow this year than we did last. So it's going
to be a little bit later unless some drastic changes
and we have this you know, big heat wave come

(19:25):
through and just melt this stuff quick. Yeah, and with
with the snow then, so you're you're talking about hunting
them maybe in a lower elevation than falling up. Do
you feel that they're they're going to hibernate a little
bit longer? Will they come out earlier and just maybe
head down to find food. Do you feel that like
effects when they're actually going to start showing. I don't think.
I don't think they're necessarily going to be sleeping in longer.

(19:46):
I guess if you want to call it that, Um,
they're still going to be up, but they're probably not
going to be moving away from that then much. You know,
they'll they'll be there, but it's it's it's very few
and far between on the sidings. When we a snow
year like this, you know, they just don't show themselves.
They don't move around. Um. You know, we've seen years

(20:06):
where you know, they've they've come out, we've actually had
some green up, and then we'll get a big snow,
a big you know, four or five inch spring snow,
and the bears that we've been seeing just disappear. They
just disappear. You don't you don't get your eyes on them.
It's not like they went back to bed. They're just
they're just hunkered up and they're not going to move
around much. And that's what I feel they do on

(20:27):
a year like this. You know, they'll be wiping the
sleepy out of their eyes and they'll be there, but
they're not going to be probably making themselves visible too much.
So UM, you know, I don't know that necessarily going
extremely low is going to help you. Much like I said,
I think most bears are going to be denning in
that three to five fifty five six thousand foot range anyway. Yeah,

(20:50):
and then my last question on timing, Um, you know,
on the spring bear hunts I've been involved in, I
think I've got to go on five or six of
them down there in nor Southeast Corner. I know you've
there are seasons, at least the year I had, I
don't know what the typical season is, but we ran
through like the middle of June, and so I went
over there early on the on the COVID year and
then went back late May early June and noticed that,

(21:11):
like our bears were finally locked down there late. Is
that going to change? I mean, I know you're out
there after them kind of ahead of that part of
the part of their schedule, but is that going to
kind of push for maybe people that want to get
out there, why they're more active or kind of lockdown
on salsum? Is that gonna get pushed back or is
that just based like all the other ruts just kind
of on photo period and it's gonna happen at the

(21:33):
same time, no matter where the snow is at. That's
a great question, and you know, I can just go
on my gut on that. On my opinion, maybe it is.
They're probably going to be running about generally the same time.
Maybe it pushes it back a little bit, but not much.
You know, usually by late May, you know, those bears
are starting to travel. You're grabbing bars, running ridges and

(21:55):
looking for sALS and then yeah, usually you know, come
June they can be lockdown pretty good at times. Yeah.

(22:18):
The next question we got is how often can you
reliably find bears or bears of kind of the same
caliber in the same area year after year. Yeah, surprisingly
quite often. And I'll have disagreements with people. I know
guys will say, no, it's not the case, they just
moved too much. But I can't tell you how many

(22:39):
bears we've been able to relocate and with absolute certainty,
you know, year to year, that is the same bear
we saw last year. Now it changes, you know, But
early in the season, I keep going back to early
in the season, the front end of the season. I've
found that a lot of those older mature bars will

(23:01):
frequent the same general area as they did the year prior.
On multiple occasions, I've gone back and found bears that
I've seen I had seen the year prior, and gone
back and relocated that bear the following spring. Now everything
changes once that green wave just goes from top to bottom.

(23:24):
When it's green from two thousand to sixty five feet,
you know, number one, it's going to be hard to
pinpoint those bears. They're kind of all over the place.
They're really starting to range at that point. You know,
they'll hang more into the timber where they're not as visible.
You know, the green up is just such that it's
kind of everywhere. But absolutely, I've even found fall bears

(23:46):
in similar drainages. When I think back to my Washington
fall bear days, I've found bears that I could relocate
year after year after year in the same small drainage
on Barryfield. So it's definitely it's definitely something that that
you can It's not going to happen every year, but

(24:08):
we've proven it to be the case that you can
go back and relocate year after year. Yeah, And on
that same thread, um, do you feel you know, similar
to deer and elk. You know, you take a giant
buck or a giant bowl or a big buck or
big bowl out of it, do you feel that you
can like overharvest you know, the more mature bars if
you're hunting the same areas or are they just pulling

(24:28):
sALS into an areas out like their home range? Um?
Or will the quality eventually go down? Like? What's your
opinion on that? I have a theory, Jason, have a theory.
I don't know if it's fright or not, UM, but
I will take an area, for example, there's an area
that I'd hunted and took some incredibly old bears out

(24:49):
of for years, so multiple years UM and took the
oldest and baddest mofos up on the mountain and U
and then about year five you go back and not
seeing those old mature bears, you know, there hadn't been
enough time for another one to move in and take

(25:11):
these prime feed locations. You know, generally what you find
with the oldest, most mature is they finally these just
magical areas out on the mountain. It's got everything, it's
got feed, it's got the water, it's got everything. They
need now. Eventually that area will get filled in with
another old bore. But I've noticed that when you hunt

(25:33):
an area out and you've taken the oldest baddish bears
on the mountain for multiple years in a row, You're
gonna hit a point where there's gonna be a little
gap from what I've seen. And for example, last year,
I'd gone back to an area that I'd taken some
great bears out of, and all of a sudden, you know,

(25:54):
in years past, I hadn't been seeing a whole lot
of cubs. It's rare, you see, Like I don't know,
on a trip, you might see a couple of South
Cub combos right last year, I can't remember the exact numbers,
like eleven, twelve or thirteen different South Cub combos in
these areas where now I'm not seeing any old boars,
but I'm seeing these young bears and the sALS or

(26:17):
like feeling, you know, confident enough to run their cubs
through there. I feel like what happened. And I'm just
telling myself this, Maybe it's not true, but those old
boars were were annihilating those cubs for years and and
I think by taking them all out. It actually caused
a boom in bear population in that general region because

(26:40):
now there is just most every south cub combo we
were seeing had at least two cubs, often three and so. Um,
but we were really struggling to pick up the most
old mature boars. It was slim pickings on that front.
But man, we saw a lot of bears. Yeah, that
makes a lot of sense. And then you always wonder

(27:01):
once there's that high of a population of bears and
there is that not allowing like boars to reach that
like very high level of maturity or have they just
not moved in? Um? Interesting? So I know we've talked
a lot about food source or you even said like
finding some of those big bares like before the food
even starts to grow there. So we know food's very important. Um.
What do you like to see as far as like

(27:22):
certain features or a combination of food and features? So
if you're to take you know this this prime lush
green food. Is that all that matters? Or are there
features you like to see, like the ability to go
lay in timber? You know where we hunt in the blues.
It seemed like when it rained, Um, you know when
when when it stopped raining, you were going to find
them right on the fringes right there coming back out
from stand dry or um, you know, holding up. What

(27:45):
features are you looking for during a spring hunt to
kind of combine with the food source. UM. I'd say
the most obvious like UM, Like I mentioned before, my
go to areas are steep, nasty, rocky type drainages that
have a lot of water in the bottom. Generally they're
a longer drainage and uh, you know, you get that

(28:07):
moss covered rock kind of on the bottom end of
the drainage and then it kind of goes up from
the air and opens up. I'm looking for those type areas.
But one thing I've found on these spring spring bears
is when you can find and high on the mountain
spring like a spring that's up there forty five to
six thousand feet and that snow receeds and you gotta

(28:30):
you know, you got this ridge and you got a
north slope on the other side with deep timber. Those
bears are able to go back and forth, you know,
grab that shade on the north slope and then come
right back up and over and get that lush green.
Oftentimes it's like avalanche lilies that inhabit that area, you know,
the very tip top of the hill, and then you

(28:51):
know balsam flowers and the leaves that come with them
and all that kind of stuff. But man, when you
can find a traditional water source, a spring that just
runs and offers some good green up on the top
of a mountain, man, that has been money for me.
I've really done well in those type places. Now they
can be hard to find. There's a lot of boots

(29:12):
on the ground to find them. A lot of these
don't show up on the map. But but those spots
have been really really good. But like you said, I
think having the ability to most often these bears aren't
out in the wide wide open, especially the bigger ones.
They are on the fringes. They are in an area
where they can tuck back in and grab a nap.

(29:34):
They're pretty lazy on the front end of spring and
then just come on out and and they like that
fringe habitat where the sunlight's grabbing. It's growing grass just
inside the timber and just outside the timbers, getting enough
shade that it's not getting burnt off and enough sun

(29:54):
to allow it to grow. And those little fringe areas
that are kind of um, you know, fifty yards inside
the timber, fifty yards outside of timber. Those just whole
grasses longer, and that stays greener there if you ever
you kind of notice that when you're on glass and yep. Okay,
so we've kind of elevation and feed kind of end

(30:15):
up going together, especially with the snow. Right we've we've
determined all right, there are bears at this elevation throughout
a hunt. Will you stick to the elevation or will
you start to like diverge from what? Will you go
up and see if you're finding bears above it? Or
once you see that there are big boars at a
certain elevation, Let's say it's a seven day hunt, things
aren't going to change drastically, or maybe they will. Are
you going to kind of hone in on that or

(30:36):
are you going to still continue to venture out and
and you know, go up or down and just continue
to look or is it similar to like when you
find that dough group meal deer hunting, Like I'm going
to stay focused here or do you continue to branch?
I guess yeah, so generally with I'm gonna keep hammering
on the old mature boars because young bears they travel,
they do all kinds of stuff. I mean, you can't

(30:58):
they're not patternable in my and they'll wander all over
the place. They'll be on a rock slope one day,
and north slope and then south slope. They just kind
of wander. Now, the oldest, most mature boars that we're
going for, boy, it's really hard to pull them off
of that elevation band. When you find them at an
elevation band, say they're at fifty two hundred feet. Now, yeah,

(31:20):
they'll dip down there a little bit, but it's rare
that they're going all the way down to the bottom.
And so once we find multiple bears that, say fifty
two hundred feet, we're going to continue to look at
those places, and you know, we're going to start going
to our maps and really keying into areas if we're

(31:40):
in a new place, looking at that elevation exactly, and
we're going to keep basically our eyes on that level
as much as possible. You know, they tend to not
go back down. Opinion, those older ones, they ride that
green wave right up to the top. And once it's
to the top and up and over they can absolutely
disappear on you, but that that front end, when they're

(32:03):
just slowly working their way up that that receding snow line.
I would say what I've noticed, and what is seven
hundred and fifty feet below the snow line to a
thousand It's kind of like a rough estimate as to
where you generally find that green up starting. You know,
you're seeing the shoots from the avalanche lilies and whatnot.

(32:24):
Sometimes it's a little bit higher than that, but that's
kind of a good range to focus in on. Is
seven fifty to one thousand feet below snow line. I've
found that that's really where those older bears really like
to focus, and they just don't tend to come back down,
you know, even though there's a ton of green grass,
and I know a lot of guys will get stuck

(32:45):
on looking at these shartrusse lime green patches way down
on the mountain. But if there's a shar trees patch
on the top of the mountain that just popped up,
he's going to be there nine times out of ten
versus that spot lower on the mountain. Yeah, and you
just mentioned, you know, when green's up to the very
top bears getting up and out of there. So my

(33:06):
question for you is, do you feel if you spot
a bear like in a drainage or in a basin,
that you until that snow line gets all the way
to talk to the ridge, it kind of walks him
in that basin. Or do you feel like if you
spot a mature boar in a basin, you should be
able to stay there for three or four days and
you're going to turn him back up? Or is there
a chance he's gonna leave? Or what happens most of

(33:26):
the time there, Most of the time we turn them
back up. Now, bears. Bears are like teenagers, man. They
sleep a lot, they take naps, and they'll fall behind
a log and disappear for you on you for like
a half a day, and you'll think he's gone, But
oftentimes they're still there. You know, if you if you

(33:47):
see on the front end of that spring within a
couple weeks of green up, if you find a big
old bore, I'm going to focus on that spot, and
you know, I may grab different bandages to look at
different angles of the mountain and look at little creases
where I may not be able to see from that
first glassing point. But oftentimes I've found that they will

(34:07):
tend to stick to that area. Now, once calving happens,
once fawns start dropping, you know, things get crazy. Bears
go every which way and they disappear. And I wouldn't
expect to see that bore in late May in that
same drainage when they're keyed into some meat and they've

(34:28):
heard some or they've smelled some fawns dropping. Man, there
are all over the place changes them like it changes
it does. But at that front end, when they're still,
you know, they're kicking out the mucous plug and they're
keyed into that fibrous grass and and um, they need
that to get their digestive digestive track back. Man, they

(34:50):
just don't move that far. So when they're when they're
focused on a little green patch. You know, unless it's
just a brown mountain and that bear is traveling from
his say, his dan to somewhere where there might be
some food. Now that could be different. Um, a traveling
bear could end up anywhere. But if you witness a
bear that is just parked on a green line, Patrick

(35:14):
ass An, he's stuff in his face and there's not
a whole lot of green above him. That's that's a
bear that I would expect to be able to relocate, gotcha. Yeah,
So we've talked a lot about where to find these
bears and more specifically these mature bars. Um so somebody's
getting ready to go out. They may not be as

(35:35):
confident as you. You know, we've talked about a lot
of it, but you still get out there. You're unsure.
So our next question was how long do you give
an area before you write it off? Do you feel
you need to give it an evening, a morning, both
multiple days like you know, and this all this is
very dependent on your glassing skill right there. There's different
there's different levels of people's ability to glass. Where you're

(35:57):
very you know, you may be very confident, but but
kind of what do you fuel? Um your confidence level
is how much how much time you need to give
an area before you need to, you know, pull the
anchor and go somewhere else to find a bear? Yeah.
Um so bears aren't really just they're not hiding, you know,
they don't they don't hide from you. They're just outdoing
their thing and feeding that that front end of spring.

(36:19):
They are there to feed and put some weight back on. Um. So,
like I said, I love traveling and cruising country and
all that, but depending on the topography that I'm looking at.
If I'm looking at a burn, that's that's got some
good green growth underneath it, and I know that I'm
just not being able to see everything. There's enough timber
in there that I just can't pick everything up if

(36:41):
it was there, Um, I'll probably stay a little longer
in that type place. But if I'm able to see
most of everything, and there's a day spent there and
I don't pick up a bear, I'm out of there.
I'm going to go check something else, you know, off
the list. Um. And that's that's just me. You know.
I feel like at some point throughout the day, if

(37:02):
there's a bear on an adjacent hillside and I'm glassing it,
I should be able to pick that thing up. And
you know, as far as timing goes, don't put all
your eggs into just glassing in the morning. That may
be a time when that bear is just not standing yet.
You may be sleeping in a little bit. But I'd

(37:24):
say from ten eleven twelve to the end of the days.
That is my opinion, that is your prime glassing time,
and it changes as the season progresses. It'll get much
more evening dependent. But man, that time for him in April,
front half of May. You know that ten o'clock to noon.

(37:46):
I can't tell you how many bears we start seeing
moving around from ten to noon and then one to
two they're just up and on their feet. And that's
a great time. That is not the time for you
to take a nap like sleep in, if anything, and
grab a little extra coffee in the morning, but focus.
You're glassing throughout the day, even if it's sunny and bright,

(38:07):
and you know, if you're thinking about if you're a
new bear hunter and you're an elk guy or a
dear guy, and that's the time that you kind of
lay off the glass. It's kind of the opposite when
it comes to bears. If you're going to sleep in,
sleep in in the morning, and make sure you keep
eyes on the mountain through that throughout the day. Because
it's what's funny, Jason, is one thing I've noticed. I'd
be curious if anybody else has noticed this too. But

(38:30):
sometimes I'll be looking at a mountain and it'll be
dead till about ten o'clock and then all of a sudden,
I'll pick up like three or four bears on this
open face right and they're all on their feet, and
then they're all napping again, you know, and say thirty
forty five minutes, they're napping again, and then say like
one o'clock at the age almost the exact same time,

(38:50):
they're all on their feet again and they're feeding around.
It's like this internal time clock that gets them up
and then puts them back down. I've noticed that over
and over and over again, like, well, that one's on
his feet, I bet if I look hard, I might
be able to pick up another one. Um. That's just
something that I've always wondered why that is. But it

(39:11):
seems like they have these certain times throughout the day.
It's almost like the old soul in art chart when
you're fishing, you know, you know, a moon phase or whatever.
There's there's something to it. I just haven't quite put
my finger on it. Yeah, I'm in the same boat,
you know, being originally only hunting blacktails and elk here,
it was always, you know, very first half hour of
the day, very last half hour of the day were

(39:32):
always your best. And then I got to experience CU's
deer hunting, and it was kind of the first animal, like, man,
I might as well just slept in because I mean,
but you you never miss that. I mean, I would
still never miss the you know, first first part of
the day, even spring bear hunting. But the same thing
on these spring bear hunts I've been on. It's like, man,
am I really wasting like my focus and I wit,
you know, my but you're still out there. But the

(39:52):
same thing, um, you know, ten o'clock on eleven o'clock on,
we've seen a lot more bears. And the one time
if I had to, like, you know, if I was
to write a spot off, it would be as we
talked about, we get a lot of those spring showers
in the spring, you know, and ours rain and then
it suns up right after that, like in the blues.
Especially like if I didn't see a bear in that

(40:14):
like sun up time, when then I was like, all right,
there's no bears here, because we could almost set our
clocks to it, you know, all right, rain, let's let's
let's not glass or let's stay in the dry And
then as soon as that sun started hitting those slopes, um,
it seemed like everything popped at the same time all
over the mountain. I'll bet you if you would take
to take a pole from guys that have spring bear
hunted a ton a tony of years over their lifetime,

(40:37):
they would all agree with you on that one. Like
when you get a storm, even if it's a multi
day storm or it's just a half day storm, and
then the sun comes out and the grasses start steaming
and the mountains warming up. I don't know that there's
a better time to be bear hunting than that time
right there. Those are far and away the best days

(40:58):
I've ever had and experienced, where I've had the most
sightings are those days. And you're right, if you're not
seeing a bear after that happens, after that big nasty
storm or even like a snow storm and then the
sun comes up and it just starts melting everything. If
you're not seeing bears at that point, move it along,
you know, hike to a different drainage. They're just not there. Yep. Okay,

(41:22):
So these bears in the springtime, I've heard. I've heard
things up to thirty to thirty five percent body weight
down from where they'll be in August. You know, they're
down whatever percentage that is. But they don't necessarily look
like they do in the fall, and it may cause
some difficulty on sexeing a bear. But but what are
some of the telltell signs or what do you look
for specifically when you're trying to tell you know, if

(41:45):
it's a mature boar, mature boars or maybe the anomaly right,
because they can carry some features that maybe those tweeters don't.
But walk us through the features you're looking at. Yes,
every time I immediately up a bear in the glass,
you know, sometimes and often is the case in the
first few seconds, you know, like, wow, that is a

(42:07):
tank of a bear. Like it's just blatantly obvious. There's
some features that you always key into. I think with boars,
you know, we'll speak to the obvious. The front end
of a boar is much blockier, much bulkier than that
of a female, you know, the female. The front end,
you know, those legs kind of go straight down. It's

(42:28):
much more narrow upfront, much wider in the back. It's
much fatter back there, complete opposite. You know, bears have
that old man look. It's like they don't have an
ass and they've got them, but they've got them big
like pitbull shoulders on them, you know, the big rolling
shoulders when they walk. And I think, for me, you know,

(42:49):
when I'm trying to size up a bear, I'm looking
for more of their their mannerisms, like their behavior, how
they're feeding, how they're moving through country. It is a
very slow, deliberate movement through the mountains. On those older
age class boars, the younger or just sus in general,

(43:11):
younger bars, they're gonna have a much faster pace. Their
steps are gonna be less deliberate. They're gonna walk with
their shoulders a little straighter. You know, there's much more
streamline versus that big, rounded, you know, waddle that a
big old boar will do. Now, one thing you got
to be careful of because I have seen on multiple

(43:33):
occasions young boars try to bear stomp like an older boar.
Like you'll see a young bear do the bear stamp
and try to act as if but um, it's funny
to watch them do that. They just don't have the
swagger that a big old boar is gonna have. Now,
there's some other things to look at, you know, obviously,

(43:54):
when you're going for size you know. One way I've
found to to help in that, because you don't have
a barrel or whatever, you know, when you're out glass
and to size them up to you know, I'll use
just some of the vegetation that's out there. Balsom user
balsom flowers are easy. You can you can kind of

(44:14):
get the general idea of the size of them and
the and the vegetation that's around there, you know, the
trees and whatnot, and they'll give you a good idea
of how tall that bear is or how big that
bear's head is, you know, because their faces are buried
in those flowers like crazy in the springtime. Um, you

(44:35):
know obviously the blockiness of the head, but you got
to be careful with that. I mean blocky heads, you
know where there's a very defined triangle between the tip
of the nose and both ears. Yeah, that's probably a
big old headed bear. But there are some skinny headed
bears out there that'll fool you and you'll pass on

(44:56):
that might be a great bear to take, you know,
I've I've taken some bears that are very streamline in
their in their features and yet their bodies they're like
polar bears. They're just like a polar bear. Some of
the longest bears are just like that. They're not those
those front heavy blockheads. They're more of a slender, long

(45:18):
bodied bear, and some of those are the best bears
to go for. So, yeah, there's a lot of different ways.
But my favorite way to kind of determine if it's
a bear that we really want to target and go for,
obviously targeting the mature boars, is just that we watch
them for a long period of time. We watch for

(45:39):
that swagger. Yeah, and that when you say swagger, I
kind of related it to it's almost like they've got
to throw their shoulder out and around in front of them.
They got to throw their back leg. They can't just
walk in a straight line. They're kind of throwing their
arm out in front and then they kind of almost,
you know, zig zag as they walk because they're they're
not walking in a linear line. They're kind of waddling
side to side. One thing we didn't touch on. I'm

(46:00):
curious to get your take on. One thing that we
do look at a lot is ears. Earplacement on the
head and then how big the ears look like relative
to the head. Is that something you look out as
well to kind of help determined size, but it is
I think ears. Ears also are one of those things
that can be They can kind of throw you at
times though, too, because I've seen some pretty big eared

(46:21):
old boars. But the one thing you won't see is
a very small bear with ears on the side of
its head that look like buttons. You know, those are obvious,
that's a giant. But I've also taken some big noggin
bears that have had fairly larger ears. Now they're not
going to be pointed like a younger bear, they're not
going to look like a German shepherd, but larger than

(46:44):
other older bears. You know, there's a there's definitely a difference,
there's a range there. But yeah, they do help. I
think again, though, you might pass on something that may
have been worth taking if you only are going by
button ears on the side of their head. Yeah, you know,
there's a lot of bears that don't have that. Yeah. Yeah,

(47:05):
we put a little more weight into location versus like
the size of the ear, like when they start to
roll over, you know, pass on top seem to seem
to be be a better indicator, at least the more
mature boards that we've killed, but yeah, it was. It
can still foil you. You You know, anything on a bear
can foil you some of the time. But yeah, if
you start I think the important thing is if you
start to similar to like when I was mountain go hunting,

(47:26):
like you should be able to pick up like the
dark patch on their rump. You should be able to
pick up this. And then when you put three or
four of those things together, like you said, they've got
the swagger, they've got the small ears. You know, one
of those features may be off, but at least if
you can put two or three together, your confidence level
of what you're what you're looking at should go up. Yeah,
And I think, um, you know, just throw it in
there as well. But that crease in the forehead, you know,

(47:47):
on a big bear, they get those big cheeks. You know,
there's big meat cheeks on the top of their head
there that we like to cook out later. Um, but man,
those things they'll throw a pretty mean crease right down
the side or out forehead. And that's another way, Like
if you see that on a bear that's got some swagger, man,
that's gonna be a good bear for sure. All Right.

(48:23):
So we've identified a bear. Um. And and before we
get going after that, I'm gonna throw another question in there.
You know, bears probably their best scent is you know,
they can see, okay, not very not great by any means, um,
but they can they can smell well. Um, what in
your opinion he closest too close? If you're if you're

(48:44):
glassing across like a real steep box canyon. Um, if
the wind's not right, like what's your safe distance? Man?
If if I'm glassing across canyon, I'm not gonna be
as worried about it. Often I find the scent doesn't
go from one I do any other. You know, when
there's a crick raising through the bottom, I'm much less

(49:05):
concerned about my scent. Just traveling over and even getting
five hundred yards to the adjacent side on a on
a forty degree or you know, thirty five degree pitched slope,
I'm not as worried there. But if he's on the
same side as me, you know, and that bear is
eight hundred yards away from me, and I got a
wind to my back, the bear is probably gonna smell

(49:26):
me without hesitation, even if he's a thousand yards out.
If I got wind to my back and he's on
the same side as me, and there's no cuts between us.
I would put no faith in that. I would bookie
and try to eliminate that. Yeah, I was a little
taken back. There was an episode with Stephen Clay bear
hunting there in Montana, I believe spring bear hunting, and

(49:48):
you know, there's extra guy camera guys and whatnot. But
Steve couldn't believe that that bear winded him at eight
nine hundred yards and there were a few rolls in
the same hillside that they were on, but it was
on the same face that they were on, and that thing,
you know, it just by its mannerisms, it picked up
something that didn't like and got out of there. And
it was like, all right, these things are at a
different level. Um man nose on those things is unbelieve.

(50:09):
What is it like a hundred times better than humans
or whatever. I don't know how many how close it
is to a bloodhound. I know it's above and beyond that.
But one thing I've noticed on that front as well,
and people may have picked up on this, but when
you're hunting an area in the beginning, you know, you
tend to see everything but once you've moved through an area,

(50:29):
especially with predators, you know, wolves and bears, it seems
as if like once they've picked up your scent in
that area, all of a sudden, your sightings go way down.
Like it's not it's not, it's not just that you're
in front of them at the time. But once you've
put a little scent on the mountain, you may have
a bear wand or through that spot, but the likelihood

(50:52):
of you seeing a bear that's not at heightened at
a heightened state is pretty slim. Man. Your scent sticks
to the mountain and they will pick it up. If
you've ever seen one come across to your scent after
a line that you've taken, they stop and they know
exactly where you were. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's a great

(51:12):
point and maybe something people should pick up on. Like
with a very defined you know, move with a purpose.
Don't just you know, walk through a base unless you
need to, you know, similar to white tail deer hunt,
and you don't go through you know, their betting area,
you know, on a on a predator um you know
hunt of any hunt, like be very careful on where
you're putting your feet, um you know, stay in it,

(51:34):
stay in the kind of a neutral area. I think
the best approach is always in those type mountain scenarios
is you know, it's always trying to find that great
vantage point that doesn't throw your scent into where you're
looking obviously, and try to stay there unless you absolutely
have a bear to go for and you have to move. Um, yeah,

(51:56):
less movement to better in bear country in my opinion, yep,
unless you're moving drainages. So we've taken all this information
you know, you've shared, and you finally you've spotted your bear.
So now we're gonna, you know, decide on are we
gonna stalk this bear? Are we're gonna wait and kind
of all the factors that dictate that decision. And then

(52:16):
once you do decide, what factors dictate your approach. So
I'm I know you're very patient. You say you're impatient,
but you're very patient when you need to be. I think,
you know, we talk, we go back to like the
big Colorado buck that you killed like at what six
seven days until you made your move and you finally
slipped up. Um, I'm guessing you're the same way with bears.
You're you're impatient until you need to be and then

(52:38):
you're very patient. Um, what are some I guess this
question kind of all rolls into itself when you decide
to stock and when you do what what? What do
you have to think about? Then you know? And there
there's all of those things like you know where you're
gonna shoot from, bear movement, time of day, all that stuff.
But kind of give us, give us your your opinion

(52:59):
on all that. I think with patients, you know it.
It plays more of a role in bear hunting almost
than anything else. Patience and glassing is one thing. You know,
your day is consumed with just glassing and not seeing
much with another small percentage of it hopefully making a
play on a bear. But even when you pick up

(53:21):
a bear, you kind of have to make the call
of am I gonna potentially blow this bear out if
I go hastily over after him right now? Say the
wind isn't perfect or whatever, and it's just my style, Jason,
but I will tend to if it's not, it's never
gonna be perfect. But if the deck isn't stacked in

(53:46):
my favor, like if the cars aren't stacked in my favor,
I'm probably gonna sit back and wait for a better play.
You know, maybe that bear is just not in the
right spot at the moment. And you know, especially if
you pick up a traveling bear, you know, a bear
that hasn't been just parked in in a spot for
an hour. You know that bear, I feel like I'll

(54:06):
probably be able to pick him back up when I
get over to this area, and you know, put myself
in a place to shoot him. But a traveling bear,
sometimes it's best to sit back. And I can think
of multiple areas where I've hunted, you know, steep sided
river type drainages where I'll pick up a bear maybe
on the other side of the drainage, and probably the

(54:28):
worst thing that I could have done is taking my
eyes off that bear and change locations because they're moving
so much. You know, there are times when they just
they grab a bite and they're walking. They grab a
bite and they're walking. You kind of want to sit
back and maybe this is a bear that you won't
even get a play on. But maybe he's gonna feed

(54:52):
right out of the basin, or he's gonna park it,
take a little snooze. It's gonna give you time, But
you want to know where that bear's going. You want
to know where he stops and give yourself the best chance.
But I'm not gonna jeopardize the hunt by moving too
fast crossing the canyon getting up on the other side
if I don't have to, Because again we just talked

(55:12):
about the scent thing. I want to keep that scent
lockdown as much as possible. Um. You know, I like
gimmes when it comes to bear hunting. I don't take
a whole lot of chances. It's just like anything else.
So yeah, I'm very patient with you know, trying to
not put a bear to bed necessarily or really get
an idea of what that bear's doing. Does it look

(55:34):
like he's gonna stick to this spot? Can I get
closer all the things that you know, similar to what
you do on a on a classic mule deer hunt
or whatever. Yep, yep. And you know, as you just mentioned,
you don't want to necessarily go over there and not
get a shot. Now you've just you know, stunk up
his favorite area and put your scent there, and yeah,
so be I like it. Um. Yeah, A lot of

(55:56):
times we use the phrase like what do we say
is because we'll see something and media we're like, well,
he's ours. All we gotta do is not screw it up,
like it's on us, like we'll get this thing unless
we screw it up. And that's often the case with bears. Yep.
And like the bear I killed specifically, we were three
hours away from where he was at from where we

(56:17):
spotted him, like in order to go all the way around,
hike out the ridge, get down on the finger. But
you know, some of the things we were looking at
was all right, there's one sow and two bars. There
is that going to change the equation. And then we
really monitored like where when we first spotted him to
where we last seen him, it's been half an hour
and they've moved fifty yards, so they're not interesting getting
out of the area. We've got two bears or actually

(56:38):
three bears to look at instead of two, and so
we used all of those things. Time of day it was,
you know, earlier in the morning. I think we picked
him up at like nine to thirty, so we had
all day to go over there and try to relocate them.
They were in a pretty isolated basin, so like you said,
this is kind of all those stacking the deck features. Right,
We've now got all of this in our favor. Yeah,
there's still a chance they can get out of there,
but it was worth the time and f for to

(57:00):
go over there, um, you know because of these things. Now,
if they would have been moving, if they would have moved,
you know that that five hundred yards in five minutes,
then it would have been very we would if we
would have went over there, would have just been hastily
you know, we would have stunk the area up, probably
never relocated them. And so similar to you, um, you know,
you just you put all those factors together and like

(57:20):
if the probability of me thinking to have a ninety
percent chance of killing them, you know, or him on
this this plan, then let's just sit back and wait
so we don't screw it up. Yeah, And it's a
case by case basis, right. I can I can think
of a time where you know, I I picked up
a bear and he was over two miles away, you know,
on an evening and that bear um was coming out

(57:43):
like he was like three o'clock or something like that,
and you know we at that time obviously we're not
going to get get to it. We had a river
to cross, we had all kinds of stuff to deal with, um,
so we made the call like it was an area
where the best feet feature was a play that we
could get a great shot on if we just got
within three hundred and fifty yards of this thing. But

(58:05):
we had to spend the rest of that night and
next morning to move country to get to this new
spot where now we're gonna sit there and park it
and wait for this bear to come out and most
likely get back on that feeding feature, which is like
this grassy meadow. And it worked like like a charm,
you know, we ended up taking a giant bear, but

(58:28):
it took us a long time to get there. And
then once we got there, we basically took turns napping,
and one guy was always on the glass and we
just waited that bear out, and sure enough that evening
started rolling by and and out came to bear, and
we got him exactly where we wanted to. But then
there's also the other situation where you pick up a

(58:51):
bear in the evening and I've seen them, you know,
just feeding in this big basin, and you know, you
might be getting a little bit low on light, and
you might be getting a little bit low on days
at the end, you know, maybe you only have a
couple of days to do this. You know, that would
be a scenario where I would say, go for it, like,
do whatever it takes to get there, hustle your tail off,

(59:12):
and there's a great chance that you're probably going to
get a shot at that bear. M It's just it's
situation by situation, right, yep, yea. So one of my
favorite parts of hunting is the calling aspect. But I
feel maybe out of any other animal I go out
there to call spring bear, I feel like my calling
is like the very small portion, and I'm curious, um,

(59:39):
you know, being as we mentioned the whole everything we've
been talking about mainly has been like a spot in
stock type hunting, which is exactly how I spring hunt
for bears. Um, when do you use calling? What calls
you use? Kind of what's your approach on when you
pull a call out? And then when you do kind
of what's your your technique or strategy for calling and
spring bears. Yeah, so generally we you know, spring bear

(01:00:02):
calling is so hit and miss, you know, on the
front end of it. It's just I've never found it
to work. I've never found it to work much in April.
I've not found it to work much the front end
of May. As you get later and pushing towards the
calving time, you know, they're digestive, tracks are moving along
and they're maybe already kicking around some rocks and feeding

(01:00:23):
on some grubs and larva, and now they're eating a
ground scorel on occasion, they're ready for some meat. Man.
That is the time where calling can be probably the
most intense, exhilarating way to hunt bears that you'll ever experience.
You know, it doesn't work all the time, but you

(01:00:44):
know when you hit that later part of the season,
just before the rut, oftentimes the bears aren't going to
be out maybe as long during the day, and that's
a great opportunity to get yourself on almost like a
glassing knob type place and just rip on that distress call.
You know, you've built some incredible distress calls. I've got

(01:01:07):
three of them, and those things work great. But man,
it is a ton of fun just sitting on a
knob hitting that distress call. Keep on with it. You know,
you don't want to let off the gas on a
distress call, and oftentimes those bears will be on you
in no time, you know, within seconds if they're close.

(01:01:30):
And I've also had experiences where I'm looking at a
bear and I'm hitting with a distress call and he
may look my direction, but it's just not that time
for him. It wasn't his day, and he's not going
to make the decision to come my way. But I've
also seen the opposite where a bear is, you know,
five six hundred yards away and he hears that thing

(01:01:50):
and he is booking it. I mean he is boogieing
across that mountain to get to where you are. So
sometimes they come in slow. Sometimes they come in extremely fast,
and you better be ready for it. Yeah, you know,
to kind of reiterate what you said, bears get they
get sidetracked very easy. So you said, kind of whale

(01:02:11):
on the call and don't let up, which is one thing,
and then m Yeah, the speed that they approached the
ones that we've called tom we used a calf distress
on my buddy Charlie's hunt. You know, it's twelve hundred
yards away across canyon. We couldn't get any closer. Is
that we started whaling on just a calf distress, just
our our normal col call, and that being closed six
hundred yards within a mere minute, you can see him

(01:02:34):
just sprint down through the timber. Of course he never
came all the way and he had to cross the
creek and come up. But at that point we had
no other option, Like it was either gonna work or
we weren't gonna kill him anyway, so it could only add.
You know, we've used distressed calls a little bit, like
we know he's went maybe into a patch of timber,
we're maybe running out of light, and we're maybe our hunt,
like maybe that will pull him out so we can
at least see him. But yeah, a lot of times

(01:02:57):
it may actually I don't want to I don't want
to say, it can screw up, but early in the
season when they just want to be a little bit
isolated and left alone, like all you're doing is drawn
attention to yourself and they may not be that interested
in it. It may be for nothing anyways. So yeah, yeah,
and oftentimes, you know, if you're a rifle guy, the
distress call just gets him out of the timber, just
gets them interested enough to get that clean shot. You know,

(01:03:21):
you don't necessarily need to call them within a hundred
yards or whatever. But you know, many many times, if
you're in an area with a cut, you know, some
type of an edge to it, you can at least
draw those bears to the edge and they're curious and
they look and you know, maybe not to the point
of coming all the way in, but just enough time
to get that shot. And you know, I think I'll

(01:03:43):
just say, be careful in Grads country when you're in
Grays country, which, yeah, calling in Montana is is different
than a lot of the places we've chased them in
Idaho where there are no grays, calling can be very effective,
but it sure brings grizzlies into all right. Uh, so
we've did everything right. We've either made our stock, we've

(01:04:04):
called him in. Um walk us through middle of middle
a little bit. Um, we're getting ready to shoot this bear.
And there's a lot of um. I believe it was
iron Will. Maybe he had made a post here recently
on where you shoot a bear, and um, there was
a lot of confusion. There was even a lot of
arguing on you know, some of us answered middle of
the body, you know, halfway up, halfway between the legs,

(01:04:24):
like literally the center of the body where you wouldn't
think about being a great shot on a deer. And
now walk us through that. You guys have killed a
bunch of bears, and I know on some of your
videos are you know, people have maybe out it's like,
why the heck did you shoot him so far back?
But um explain that to us and maybe a little
of the anatomy and then why it works so well. Yeah,
it's going to be controversial every time when you talk

(01:04:45):
about shot placement on bears, for sure. But I I
can confidently say you shoot a bear middle in the middle,
that bears not going far at all. You shoot a
bear in the front shoulder, you may be trying to
track a bear for a very, very long ways. Now
maybe this changes when you're talking about like a coastal

(01:05:06):
brown bear or something in Alaska. You know, I know
those guys are trying to knock those shoulders out. Number one.
I think, I don't shoot anything in the shoulder, Jason.
I don't shoot deer in the shoulder. I don't shoot
open the shoulder moose. I care about that meat to
the point that I'm just not gonna risk wasting any

(01:05:26):
meat whatsoever. So I'm always a little off the shoulder.
But with bears, you are so far better off shooting
middle of middle. If you want to bring it a
little bit forward, maybe two three inches front of middle
of middle. Great, But those lungs on a bear, I
will challenge anybody next time you break a bear down,

(01:05:46):
look at how far those lungs go back. Those things
literally go back to like that second rib back rib
on a bear. And man, nothing deflates a bear. Bears,
in my opinion, are softer than even a white tail
Jason soft. They're soft. You shoot a middle of middle,

(01:06:08):
those things deflate and they go down fast and hard.
But where most people run into trouble is they shoot
a little too far forward and good love track and
a wounded bear. And that's where those wounded bears come from.
This guy shoot them in the shoulders. You're not going
to track a bear far. If you shoot middle of
the middle, they're never gonna happen. But I'm sure there's

(01:06:29):
guys that will forever and always claim to shoot them
on the front quarter there. But I have seen, and
I have heard from, and I have had so many
people reach out and frustration about hitting them in that
front shoulder. Now, is a bear that they tried to track,
and we all know how hard they are to track
if they're not if they're not down within you know,

(01:06:51):
fifty to one hundred yards. Man. You know, they get
into that timber and they don't leave blood. They tend
to clog up with the at and the hat and
the hair. It can be tough. So you want to
put them down quick and the best way, in my opinion,
to do that is to take out those lungs. It's
not to go shoulder. Um. You spend a lifetime of

(01:07:13):
hitting shoulders, you're gonna have a good amount of wounded
bears at the end of it. You shoot middle of
the middle, you ain't gonna have any ye. Yeah, Well,
thanks for joining us there, Ryan Um. Inclosing, what is
one tip you'd give a new spring bear hunters maybe
somebody hasn't found a bunch of success, just kind of

(01:07:34):
that main tip, like, what's what's your voice of encouragement
for him? Here? Oh man, I think I think bear
hunting has been overlooked by many. I think it's underrated.
In my opinion, absolutely love it. I spoke to It's
overtaken Elk for me as far as like one of
my most anticipated I'm gonna I'm gonna pretend like I

(01:07:56):
didn't hear that. Yeah, but I would encourage people to
go give it a shot. We got a ton of
opportunity here in these Western states. It's a great time
to be out bear meat. We didn't even talk about.
It's incredible. There's a lot of different ways I've got
I've got some in the suvied right now from last year.
Then I'm gonna feed some folks with tonight. But I

(01:08:20):
think as anything else, you know, make the hunt however
it works for you. If you don't have the time,
you know, look to those areas that aren't too far
off the beaten path where you're just going to have
nice you know, feed zones to glass or get yourself
in wicked ass good shape and treat it like any

(01:08:42):
mountain hunt, whether it's like a sheep hunt or a
goat hunt. You know, you can get yourself into some
awfully incredible places chasing spring bears if that's the hunt
that you're looking for. So for adventure, guys, I don't
know that there is a better time to do it
than after we've kind of shaken the rust off this
winter to get out there and start chasing bears. Um,

(01:09:05):
you know, take your time, be picky, you know, trying
to take those older age class bears. Number one, I
think they're better to pull out of the pool. Number two,
You get a whole lot more meat off of a
big bear than you do with some medium size bear.
So I would just I would just say, um, you know,

(01:09:25):
get after it. I encourage anybody to give it a shot.
Maybe it's not for you, but give it a try. Yeah,
I spring bear hunting, you know, on those times I've
got to go. It may not pass oak, but it was.
It was an absolute blast I had. I loved it.
I loved the glassing aspect um. And and they're just
cool critters. And and like you said, we didn't talk

(01:09:46):
a lot about it, but my kids, Um, when they
found out you can kill two of them here in Washington,
wanted to know why I only brought one home. So
they eat it really, really well, and they do. We
love them. So inclosing, Graham, Um, how can people find
out more about you? Where can they all your adventures
get a hold of you? Um? Give them give everybody
a way to contact you or to follow with your adventures. Yeah,

(01:10:08):
I guess the easiest is on the old ig um
at Stealthy Hunter st el and um. And then yeah,
we we have put a lot of bear videos out
over the years. Um, folks can find that over on
the gritty youtubees. Um. We're about to drop some more

(01:10:29):
that we haven't shown in the past. In fact, this
weekend we're dropping some of the trips from last spring,
so guys want to kind of see some of the
country we're hunting and the ways we're doing it, you know,
maybe tune into some of those, um those YouTube videos. Yeah, well,
like always really appreciate having you here. UM, I'm a

(01:10:49):
little bum like we'd kind of semi planned the spring
bear hunt together and then, um, I let a trip
to Disneyland get in the way at that, So maybe
twenty twenty four Sarah alright, alright, yeah, thanks Jess, carry
and have a good one. H