Speaker 1: Welcome back to cutting the distance. Today's guest is a
Speaker 1: lifelong Washington resident. My buddy, Jeff Roberts, grew up hunting
Speaker 1: in eastern Washington. Meal Deer is a traditional wall tank
Speaker 1: camp with his dad and uncles. Success was low, but
Speaker 1: morale was high and memories were plentiful. If first hunting
Speaker 1: was just something like many of us, he did in October,
Speaker 1: but rapidly turned into year long obsession. In twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: he started P and Wild to share his adventures with
Speaker 1: everybody else. Today, P and Wild is a successful small
Speaker 1: business providing professional imagery and videography, as well as running
Speaker 1: a podcast and YouTube channel dedicated to showcasing not only
Speaker 1: the beauty of Washington State, but all other Western states
Speaker 1: where we can pursue big game. Washington State hosts an
Speaker 1: amazing fall bear season, allowing hunters to harvest two bears
Speaker 1: statewide beginning August first. Over the years, fall bear hunting
Speaker 1: has become a top priority for him in P and Wild,
Speaker 1: and in twenty twenty two, last year, the three members
Speaker 1: of P and Wild harvested seven bears, one being in Montana,
Speaker 1: six in Washington. And I know they help friends and
Speaker 1: family with many more so, I figured there wasn't a
Speaker 1: better guest to have on the show to talk about
Speaker 1: fall Bear season right in the middle of it, and
Speaker 1: welcome to the show, Jeff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Are you chomping at the bit you
Speaker 1: have to get out there? I know we've started to
Speaker 1: see some success on the social media and whatnot, and
Speaker 1: it seems like it's going pretty good right off the bat.
Speaker 2: It is, man, I'm actually kind of learning to love
Speaker 2: the opener rather than just kind of waiting for it,
Speaker 2: you know, getting into September when a lot of people
Speaker 2: think it gets better, which it does, but the opener
Speaker 2: can be really good. But yeah, I went out last
Speaker 2: night actually and turned up not a bear, but a
Speaker 2: decent buck. So that's always fun to just get outside
Speaker 2: and have a tag in your pocket. Just feels good
Speaker 2: to be out there. And it's August first, is a
Speaker 2: pretty early opener around the West. I think we're one
Speaker 2: of the ones that kick it off, really, but yeah,
Speaker 2: it's good. I'm super excited to get rolling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is one of those weird years where I
Speaker 1: don't I'm not going to pretend to know, you know,
Speaker 1: usually you get the bad winter, Like we had a
Speaker 1: big snowpack and everybody's like, oh, the berries are going
Speaker 1: to be late. But then we've had like this accelerated
Speaker 1: late spring in the summer, so is it going to
Speaker 1: like speed the berries up or they And it's always
Speaker 1: kind of interesting to see, are you gonna miss, you know,
Speaker 1: have like a bad barrier year, you know, at least
Speaker 1: for us hunting the west slopes of the Cascades or
Speaker 1: even here where we're picking up huckleberries or BlackBerry bears,
Speaker 1: like where the berrys at? And are they gonna come
Speaker 1: on right or late or early or not at all?
Speaker 1: So we're trying to sit and wait that out. And
Speaker 1: what are your buddies seeing right now? Are they are
Speaker 1: their berries low? Are they still late?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So I'm right there with you, man. I was
Speaker 2: this whole off season in July, just get leading into it.
Speaker 2: I was super concerned that we were going to have
Speaker 2: a really really late very year because our snowpack was
Speaker 2: so deep up high, and then it's completely opposite of
Speaker 2: what we were kind of fearing. Mid July, Zach and
Speaker 2: I went on a scouting trip and we were finding
Speaker 2: huckleberries ripe around thirty six and last night they were
Speaker 2: at forty two, So it's kind of accelerated, and just
Speaker 2: like you said, kind of right in the July, just
Speaker 2: a lot of consecutive really really hot days, and I
Speaker 2: think huckleberries, I mean, I know huckleberries are ripe at
Speaker 2: forty two, and a couple of my buddies are smashing
Speaker 2: them right now at four thousand. My buddy John actually
Speaker 2: went out on opener lat yesterday, which was recording this
Speaker 2: on August second, So the opener was yesterday and they
Speaker 2: killed one at forty one. So it's it's right there
Speaker 2: with maybe on on our normal year. Last year, it
Speaker 2: was its way ahead last year on opening weekend, we
Speaker 2: were killing them right around twenty four to twenty six,
Speaker 2: and that was the only ripe berry source. So it's
Speaker 2: definitely it's past that, gotcha.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're gonna dive a lot deeper into the food
Speaker 1: sources and stuff here in a little bit, but just
Speaker 1: trying to get a recap on what you're seeing. So
Speaker 1: I have to tell a funny story. You know, we
Speaker 1: were as we got to know each other, you were able.
Speaker 1: I think we first kind of met up. You came
Speaker 1: down to the Western Hunt with me yep, and worked
Speaker 1: a booth. I think two years came down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're so twenty. I think it was twenty just
Speaker 2: one year and there was twenty seventeen, I think, yeah,
Speaker 2: or twenty eighteen maybe yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we got to know you there and then.
Speaker 1: But the original time we met, I think maybe you
Speaker 1: were fairly You had obviously hunted meal, deer and stuff
Speaker 1: before you chwa washing, but I think you had just
Speaker 1: drawn an ELK tag and that's kind of how we
Speaker 1: had met. You were kind of picking me for information
Speaker 1: where we'd go, and your spot was good, and I
Speaker 1: think we kind of, you know, together, kind of you
Speaker 1: told me what you had seen and it kind of
Speaker 1: correlated with what I thought. But there was this one
Speaker 1: spot in the unit that I really wanted you to
Speaker 1: check out, and you were I think you were over
Speaker 1: there scouting like every weekend and I'm like, what do
Speaker 1: you see that. He's like, Oh, we didn't go in
Speaker 1: there yet or I didn't set a cam there yet.
Speaker 1: And it was one of those drain It was two
Speaker 1: drainages that met, but they were just a little bit
Speaker 1: kink from each other, so it had these two passes
Speaker 1: where it kind of connected it at a diagonal, and
Speaker 1: so the best thing I could do is to make
Speaker 1: up a story about my neighbor having an elk tag
Speaker 1: that had been over there scouting as well. It was
Speaker 1: a rifle tag, but he had been seeing a giant
Speaker 1: in this area. But hey, Jeff, just just just don't
Speaker 1: go tell if you see this guy up there. You
Speaker 1: didn't talk to me, and so I can remember, real,
Speaker 1: real vividly on a Sunday morning, I'm like, oh, Jeff
Speaker 1: Roberts is facetiming me. And as I answered the phone,
Speaker 1: I actually answered it into the spotting scope and there
Speaker 1: was a real good bowl there, and you know, I
Speaker 1: wasn't a giant, but it was like a what three
Speaker 1: twenty three thirty type bowl, like a.
Speaker 2: Great Yeah, it was great Washington, one of those the
Speaker 2: bigger bowls that we've scouted. So I was super excited.
Speaker 2: I was like, man, this Jason guy is super nice man. Yeah,
Speaker 2: nice guy.
Speaker 1: I don't remember if I told you the truth then,
Speaker 1: or if I waited a while to tell you that
Speaker 1: I'd actually lied to you about that, but it's kind
Speaker 1: of funny. I'm like, well, at least at least my
Speaker 1: my hunch was right that there should be a good
Speaker 1: bowl there. But that was kind of that was kind
Speaker 1: of a funny, funny little story as we we got
Speaker 1: to know each other there as we were you know,
Speaker 1: you guys were just I think that was the first
Speaker 1: year you guys did anything with p and wild, right,
Speaker 1: that was your first year of filming and whatnot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the year that I drew my my
Speaker 2: Quality east Side Archery tag and U super excited about it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, like you said, grew up meal deer hunting
Speaker 2: and didn't know anything about elk hunting. My dad never did.
Speaker 2: It was always just meal deer, meal deer, mild deer,
Speaker 2: did nothing but meal deer, so no elk bear. So
Speaker 2: it was all kind of on my own to learn it.
Speaker 2: And I just kind of hit the ground running and
Speaker 2: came across you and your content that you were putting
Speaker 2: out on the local forums and stuff, and then I
Speaker 2: reached out to you there. We kind of exchanged numbers,
Speaker 2: bought a lot of your calls and stuff, and then
Speaker 2: ended up I don't know how you gave out your
Speaker 2: cel phone to me. That's a big problem right there,
Speaker 2: but you did. And then I got a tip from you, like, hey,
Speaker 2: I heard there was a nice bowl in here, and
Speaker 2: sure enough went up there and at first light scouted
Speaker 2: that bowl out. He was with like two or three
Speaker 2: other bowls just kind of batched up in that summer stuff,
Speaker 2: and I was like, holy cow, this is the one
Speaker 2: Jason was talking about. For sure. Just I had a
Speaker 2: nice three twenty three thirty bowl or something.
Speaker 1: It was all made up. I just had to get
Speaker 1: you there somehow to check it out.
Speaker 2: I wanted to know well it worked. Man. I was
Speaker 2: a sucker and I just went right in there and
Speaker 2: put some glass on it. I was like, worst thing,
Speaker 2: you know, get in there and get some glass on it,
Speaker 2: and sure enough it turned up.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, that hunt. That hunt was a good one.
Speaker 1: If you guys want to go check it out. I
Speaker 1: think it's one of the original p and Wild videos,
Speaker 1: So go check that out. But like every Cutting the
Speaker 1: Distance podcast, we're going to start this thing with listener questions.
Speaker 1: So if you have a question for me my guests,
Speaker 1: make sure to hit us up on social, send us
Speaker 1: a message, email us at CTD at phelpsgame Calls dot com,
Speaker 1: and we'll do our best to get those questions answered
Speaker 1: for you. So we got three questions today I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give these questions Jeff first, and I'll either add to
Speaker 1: or take away from that, or disagree or agree with them.
Speaker 1: So the first question we got, which is important right
Speaker 1: now as I think it's maybe eighty five degrees outside,
Speaker 1: how do you take care of your bear in the
Speaker 1: field when it's hot? You know, you got hot weather
Speaker 1: you're dealing with, which effects the meat you've got Taxi, Dremy,
Speaker 1: you've got this hot weather. Bears more so than any
Speaker 1: other critter, like very quick to slip the hide. You
Speaker 1: don't want that hair to start slipping. So give us
Speaker 1: kind of what your your field carry is and what
Speaker 1: you're thinking about in the you know, the field when
Speaker 1: you get to a bear after you're done taking pictures.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is this is something that is a
Speaker 2: huge question of ours as well. And I actually just
Speaker 2: did a video on our YouTube channel about how how
Speaker 2: I rug something out. And again I'm not a tax
Speaker 2: nermous I'm not you know, some professional. We just do it,
Speaker 2: you know, a couple times a year and it seems
Speaker 2: to work. I got two of them behind me that
Speaker 2: Jason can see. Those are both of our soft hands
Speaker 2: from last year. Both of them are beautiful chocolates. So
Speaker 2: it's like, man, I got to take these and get
Speaker 2: these taken care of. But I think it's especially for me.
Speaker 2: I hunt primarily on the East Side in August, early
Speaker 2: August into that early September. It can dip into the hundreds.
Speaker 2: It can get really really hot. So one of the
Speaker 2: priorities that we really prioritize. Prioritize number one is just
Speaker 2: get into the shade. And if you're if you're not,
Speaker 2: you got you gotta find some kind of shade, especially
Speaker 2: when you're processing, because that can take, you know, several hours.
Speaker 2: And so this is exactly the process that I did
Speaker 2: last year. Get these bears into the shade while you're
Speaker 2: caping them, while you're taking them, you know, quartering them out,
Speaker 2: whatever you want to do. So get them into the shade.
Speaker 2: Get cool. Just step one is get get into a
Speaker 2: cooler place, and if you're next to a creek or something,
Speaker 2: even better, get down into the shade. Get some wind, going,
Speaker 2: get some air to that hide. And like you said,
Speaker 2: if you're going to keep that rug or keep that trophy,
Speaker 2: the hide is the first thing that's going to start slipping.
Speaker 2: But if it started getting to meet as you start
Speaker 2: quartering them out. What we'd like to do, it's in
Speaker 2: that video as well. We just get the quarters off
Speaker 2: into shade and if you've got to have a buddy,
Speaker 2: you know, leap frogum one hundred yards down the creek
Speaker 2: or whatever you're at, just get them into some shade,
Speaker 2: get them out of the direct sunlight, and get them
Speaker 2: in a game bag. Hanging the air to that quarter
Speaker 2: is going to help a ton too. It doesn't have
Speaker 2: to be cool, it just has to be that air
Speaker 2: running to that that excuse me, that quarter. So have
Speaker 2: a buddy, leap frogin or you can get up and
Speaker 2: you guys can just take turns cutting. If you're solo,
Speaker 2: you just got to get it into the shade. And
Speaker 2: as you kind of work that bear down and you're
Speaker 2: getting rear hands off and you're getting neck meat off.
Speaker 2: I would just get that meat out off that hide,
Speaker 2: exposed to you know, into a game bag and exposed
Speaker 2: the wind of some sort and some shade and then
Speaker 2: just like it's cliche, but get back to the truck
Speaker 2: as fast as you can. A big tip is keep
Speaker 2: your coolers pre cooled, so don't just show up to
Speaker 2: the hunt with no ice. In your cooler. Yeah, expect
Speaker 2: to be successful. It's gonna pay off if you are
Speaker 2: spend the ten dollars on ice or a cheap way
Speaker 2: to do it is just everyone drinks milk at home
Speaker 2: or has water. If you don't, you know, throw a
Speaker 2: milk jug full of ice, so freeze them overnight at home.
Speaker 2: You know, get those coolers nice and cooled down. On
Speaker 2: your way to a hunt. We're kings of just weekend
Speaker 2: warriors and sometimes Friday after work you have that cooler
Speaker 2: in your truck already filled with you know, those those
Speaker 2: frozen milk jugs of ice or on at least your way.
Speaker 2: Get the block ice. This seems to last longer rather
Speaker 2: than this crushed. So get a couple of things of
Speaker 2: block ice in your cooler so when you get back
Speaker 2: to the truck you have the nice cool spot to
Speaker 2: put that meat and right away. Unfortunately, we experienced a
Speaker 2: little bit of spoilage last year on one of Bobby's bears,
Speaker 2: just one of our seven, just that top layer of
Speaker 2: the cooler, and it could have just been weigh the
Speaker 2: way that we stacked it, or it just could have
Speaker 2: been you know, it was one hundred and five and
Speaker 2: you know, got to get six miles and that takes
Speaker 2: some time. And what's in your backpack and it's next
Speaker 2: to your back, that heat from your body can just
Speaker 2: get to that meat. And unfortunately, I don't know if
Speaker 2: it's spoiled on the way or just you know, the
Speaker 2: next couple of days after we got back to the
Speaker 2: truck and continued to hunt, we had a little bit
Speaker 2: of spoilage in the very very top of one of
Speaker 2: Bobby's quarters. So it does happen, and it's a reality,
Speaker 2: and I think just you know, being cautious of it
Speaker 2: can pay off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, bears, And I'm not responsible for these numbers, but
Speaker 1: like you know, on a deer elk, we kind of
Speaker 1: always figure we've got two to three days as long
Speaker 1: as it's not scorching hot like before that hide starts
Speaker 1: a slip to get it to the tax nermos to
Speaker 1: get it salted. But a bear, I mean, on a
Speaker 1: warm day, you're dealing with with twenty four hours. You
Speaker 1: got less than a day to deal with that thing,
Speaker 1: get it cooled down. And one thing to reiterate what
Speaker 1: you said about air flow versus heat, Like I'm willing
Speaker 1: to let something if I had to set something down
Speaker 1: in the shade on let's say a game bag or
Speaker 1: on my waterproof sack versus let it hang and ninety
Speaker 1: degree heat, like air is just as important, especially in
Speaker 1: that first twenty four hours as heat is. Now. Ideally
Speaker 1: you get both, you know, get stuff to the shade
Speaker 1: and hanging. But I'd rather let something hang, you know
Speaker 1: if it's a little bit warmer, but get air to all,
Speaker 1: you know, every side of that meat. And then in
Speaker 1: that first twelve to fourteen hours, I don't pay as
Speaker 1: much attention into to the meat or not the meat,
Speaker 1: but the but the the heat. I would rather get
Speaker 1: airflow to it. And like you said in your pack,
Speaker 1: when that thing, you know is not able to breathe,
Speaker 1: and you're like, that's where you're gonna get that spoiled.
Speaker 1: So the quicker you can get that thing to air
Speaker 1: and get it to air out let some out some
Speaker 1: of that heat. Like it's it's all, it's all to
Speaker 1: the benefit of the quality of that meat. But yeah, bears,
Speaker 1: bears are interesting. One thing on the tax germy side.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of ways to do it. Some people
Speaker 1: will make a decision down the back and then like case,
Speaker 1: skin the legs I did. It seemed easier for for
Speaker 1: the way I run a knife. For what I thought
Speaker 1: was to cut down the inside of all four legs
Speaker 1: and then I connect them with angled lines that connect
Speaker 1: down the belly. A taxidermist has to sew that anyways.
Speaker 1: And so as long as don't get too nervous, as
Speaker 1: long as you're making clean straight cuts, you can connect
Speaker 1: the four legs down to a center line, you know,
Speaker 1: come down at angles, meat and then the tax and
Speaker 1: then case skin out the neck the tax terms is
Speaker 1: gonna be put that together, no problem, you'll never know.
Speaker 1: You know, mine mine had a white chevron on it,
Speaker 1: the one that I had full mounted, and so I changed.
Speaker 1: I just changed the angles of my line so I
Speaker 1: didn't have to deal with like but you still had
Speaker 1: to take your center line through it, which was it
Speaker 1: was a little disheartening, but a good tax nurmers will
Speaker 1: put that back together like it should go.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I haven't had the you know, the the chance
Speaker 2: to life size a bear yet, so that's a I
Speaker 2: guess that's a good problem to have. Yeah, is it
Speaker 2: a different cut? Thinking about it, is it going to
Speaker 2: be a different cut than than a bear rug? Your
Speaker 2: traditional rug no.
Speaker 1: No, it'll be real. It'll be real similar, so similar
Speaker 1: if you imagine like the bear, so the same cuts,
Speaker 1: lay the bear out as white as it can. So
Speaker 1: if you go on the inside of everything, when you
Speaker 1: lay that hide out, you're getting the max. You know,
Speaker 1: there'll be some trimming and whatnot, but yeah, you would
Speaker 1: do it the same.
Speaker 2: Way, gotcha, gotcha?
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the next question, which is something that I
Speaker 1: had to learn a lot coming from deer elk cutting,
Speaker 1: especially Archiel cutting, where we don't glass as much during
Speaker 1: bear how long are you going to glass before you
Speaker 1: move spots?
Speaker 2: Oh man, in some of our spots, if if we
Speaker 2: know that there should be a bear in that particular area.
Speaker 2: So just like kind of rethinking last season where it
Speaker 2: was just lights out. It was one of the best
Speaker 2: bear seasons we've had in a long time. And and
Speaker 2: and I'll move fairly quickly, especially if I know that
Speaker 2: the rest of the trail, or if if can you
Speaker 2: know further on down, if a couple basin's over that
Speaker 2: we still got a check, we're gonna We're gonna move
Speaker 2: fairly quickly, especially in the fall. If the berries are right,
Speaker 2: huckles are right, there's a very small window of time
Speaker 2: that a bear's not going to be on those, especially
Speaker 2: the later in the fall you go so early in August, Yeah,
Speaker 2: sit and sit on a clearcut, sit on a on
Speaker 2: a berry patch that you see is right for a
Speaker 2: little bit longer as you progress through the falls, as
Speaker 2: the huckle berries kind of kick off up higher and
Speaker 2: the and they're drying out down lower, and they're kind
Speaker 2: of going into that fall like vacuum mode where they're
Speaker 2: just only caring about a food source and I'll just
Speaker 2: keep checking basins. I'll move faster. So it kind of
Speaker 2: depends on the time of year that we're in, early
Speaker 2: time or early season, like right now, Yeah, i might
Speaker 2: hang out for half a day and just wait for
Speaker 2: see if something's gonna come out, especially if I'm on
Speaker 2: clearcuts or something like that. You could sit all day
Speaker 2: on a clear cut that you know is going to
Speaker 2: hold a bear at a point in time. But as
Speaker 2: you progress through the fall, I'm going to be moving
Speaker 2: more rapidly, especially if I know, you know, in certain
Speaker 2: some of our areas where we have so many areas
Speaker 2: intertwined on a trail system, or if I'm on a
Speaker 2: ridge line that has base and base and base and
Speaker 2: basin and the high country like we like to do it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm moving pretty frequently. I might stopping glass for thirty
Speaker 2: minutes and see if I can pick something up, and
Speaker 2: if not, I'll move on to the next one. And
Speaker 2: we'll kind of just do a back and forth on
Speaker 2: a you know, six mile trail or you know, you know,
Speaker 2: back and forth on a three or four mile a
Speaker 2: ridge line or something like that, and just keep checking
Speaker 2: little basins.
Speaker 1: Yep, and we'll get into it a lot more. But
Speaker 1: one of those things like once you realize where those
Speaker 1: barriers are at what elevation, Like you're being a smart hunter, right,
Speaker 1: so you're gonna know, all right, the barriers are on
Speaker 1: from forty six to fifty two or whatever, and you're
Speaker 1: just gonna you really have to you only have to
Speaker 1: concentrate on a ribbon of the mountain, you know, you
Speaker 1: don't have to go above it so much. You don't
Speaker 1: have to go below it. So you're your glass is
Speaker 1: literally on a tripod just swinging at in elevation and
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, but around now that's different, you know,
Speaker 1: like when I have the goat rocks, you know, some
Speaker 1: of our mountainous stuff versus if I'm hunting here on
Speaker 1: home where I'm industrial timberland, you know I'm dealing with
Speaker 1: BlackBerry brush or alders or Devil's Club. We were talking
Speaker 1: about this before the podcast. I can sit in glass,
Speaker 1: I know that I'm in a spot where we've been
Speaker 1: seeing bears. So you know, you're you're just not willing
Speaker 1: to move clearcuts, right, You're just gonna You're gonna glass
Speaker 1: this big clearcut all night. But you can literally glass
Speaker 1: hours and within an instant, all of a sudden, the
Speaker 1: bear pops out of nowhere. And that's where I feel
Speaker 1: that if you're hunting more industrial timberlands clearcut type stuff,
Speaker 1: it's tough to do right because I'm not very patient.
Speaker 1: But if you know there are bears in the area,
Speaker 1: you've seen them there before, Like, your best bet is
Speaker 1: not to leave a bear to go find a bear, right,
Speaker 1: I would I hammer that more than than it than
Speaker 1: going to find a new area. And so I've learned
Speaker 1: to be a lot more patient. It gets boring as heck.
Speaker 1: It seems like you're looking to the same, you know,
Speaker 1: same thing over and over and over, but it's penciled
Speaker 1: out more times than not around here versus you know,
Speaker 1: just driving around looking at new clearcuts that I don't
Speaker 1: know if there's bears that have been frequenting it exactly.
Speaker 2: And if you don't know there's a food source in
Speaker 2: that clear cut, you know, most chances are that there's
Speaker 2: going to be some kind of berry in that food
Speaker 2: source or in that clear cut. But yeah, if you
Speaker 2: know that you're on a clear cut or you're in
Speaker 2: a basin that holds huckleberries and that you know is rife,
Speaker 2: Like you said, we already have the leg work done.
Speaker 2: We know there's elevation wise where they're fifty five to six.
Speaker 2: I'm going to just sit there and kind of back
Speaker 2: and forth, go to basin, the base in the basin
Speaker 2: at those elevation lines and tell something is in there.
Speaker 2: And when they are, man, you got plenty of time
Speaker 2: to make a play because they're going to be on
Speaker 2: food for a long time.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. Rolling into our last question, shot placement on
Speaker 1: a barrier, And this is one of those topics that
Speaker 1: as I get questions from guys, you know, as we
Speaker 1: just it is August second, so our season just started yesterday.
Speaker 1: But a lot of questions like where do you shoot
Speaker 1: a bear? You know, or guys arguing with their hunting
Speaker 1: buddies where you know, a lot of this new stuff
Speaker 1: has come out where to shoot a bear? And so
Speaker 1: I'll let you explain and all kind of see what
Speaker 1: we if we match up there? Where are you going
Speaker 1: to shoot a bear?
Speaker 2: Jeff? Well this, I mean debated this, and everyone's got
Speaker 2: a different answer. Middle of middle. I'm a little forward
Speaker 2: of middle of middle, especially on a perfectly broadside like
Speaker 2: I have an awesome video last year on our last
Speaker 2: last episode on our YouTube channel from last fall, I
Speaker 2: just got a beautiful bear in like picture perfect alpine meadows,
Speaker 2: just wide open, and I just wait for ended up
Speaker 2: being a sow. She turned completely broadside and you can
Speaker 2: see that I just aimed slightly forward of middle of
Speaker 2: middle and it was lights out in you know, thirty seconds.
Speaker 2: So you can't really argue with that. Some people do
Speaker 2: have the argument of you know, shoulders shooting them if
Speaker 2: and so this anchorm right there. You hear that on
Speaker 2: forums and stuff, and it's it works for people. Everyone.
Speaker 2: There's a nine ways of skin a cat. I guess
Speaker 2: where are you sitting? Are you? Middle middle guy?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm I'm middle middle, just slightly forward of middle.
Speaker 1: Like you know, it's hard to say, you when you're
Speaker 1: shooting at a bear to push it three inches forward,
Speaker 1: But so I always imagine you take the heads in
Speaker 1: the leg, you know, off of a bear, and you're
Speaker 1: left with what's a body. So if you just you know,
Speaker 1: for those of you that don't know what we're saying
Speaker 1: by middle of middle, if you just draw a line,
Speaker 1: you know, halfway up horizontally and halfway up vertically and
Speaker 1: set your crossaters there and then just go a little
Speaker 1: bit towards the front front end of him, like that's
Speaker 1: where we're shooting.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: I there are guys that will kill bears by shooting
Speaker 1: them like deer and elk. You know they're going bottom third,
Speaker 1: bottom quarter and then going slightly behind the shoulder or
Speaker 1: through the shoulder. It will work, and it's killed bears.
Speaker 1: But I also think that more bears are lost due
Speaker 1: to that shot placement versus more conservative go you know,
Speaker 1: go up to that middle of middle, give yourself a
Speaker 1: bigger target, and the bear's going to die really really
Speaker 1: quick when you hit him in the in that spot.
Speaker 1: You know their their lungs are back a little bit
Speaker 1: further than most you know, compared to our deer and
Speaker 1: elk that that most people hunt. Yeah, so it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a more conservative shot. You got more room for air,
Speaker 1: and the bear's going to die real quick versus trying
Speaker 1: to break them down to the front shoulders.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. It does feel weird when you got
Speaker 2: crosshairs and you're kind of this like it feels like
Speaker 2: you're aiming too far back. But like angulit's like you're
Speaker 2: saying dark deer and elk, they're just their anatomy is different,
Speaker 2: so that the bears just tend to sit back a
Speaker 2: little bit farther, and it does feel weird. But middle middle,
Speaker 2: slightly forward. It that's a that's a great way to
Speaker 2: look at it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Well, once again, if you guys have
Speaker 1: questions for me or my guests, make sure to email
Speaker 1: them to us at CTD at Phelps game Calls dot com,
Speaker 1: or send us a social message and we'll do our
Speaker 1: best to get them on here for the guests. So
Speaker 1: now we're going to jump into our discussion. Jeff, you know,
Speaker 1: we come from a state where we no longer get
Speaker 1: the hunt bears in the spring, which was one of
Speaker 1: my favorite favorite types of hunting, and it gets a
Speaker 1: lot of attention. But rightfully so, right spring bear there
Speaker 1: in the whole lot of else going on aside from turkeys.
Speaker 1: A lot of big game hunters despise turkeys for some reason.
Speaker 1: I love it. But you know, it was that first
Speaker 1: time too, man, it was that first time to get
Speaker 1: back in the mountains kind of chase the snow up
Speaker 1: those bears are, you know, and but but we don't
Speaker 1: have that anymore. So here in Washington. We've got a
Speaker 1: great bear population and our fall hunt is pretty dang
Speaker 1: good as well. Not to mention these bears have put
Speaker 1: on an extra sixty eighty pounds since the spring. There
Speaker 1: a little bigger, a little tastier, a little more fat.
Speaker 1: So we've we have to love fall bears season. As
Speaker 1: we mentioned, it's a great state. Like I would never
Speaker 1: recommend anybody come here for dear elk, but if you're
Speaker 1: just looking for a fall bear hunt in August to
Speaker 1: get ahead of big game, like I apologize for our
Speaker 1: pricing for non residents, but it's it can be a
Speaker 1: pretty it can be a pretty dang good hunt to
Speaker 1: come here. And we would really appreciate if you helped
Speaker 1: us out with all of our bears.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent agree with you, man, I can't recommend
Speaker 2: it enough. We've had a couple of friends and partners
Speaker 2: from other states come out to Washington to hunt with
Speaker 2: us and been successful so far. I mean, I don't
Speaker 2: think it's actually too terribly bad. I think a non
Speaker 2: resonant bear is like two hundred and eighty bucks or
Speaker 2: something like that if I remember correctly. I apologize if
Speaker 2: it's if I'm way off on that, but I think
Speaker 2: it's in the two to three hundred ballpark there, gotcha.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not bad at all. So let's jump in.
Speaker 1: We'll kind of start this start to finish. So scouting,
Speaker 1: do you do any scouting for fall Bear or are
Speaker 1: you just going back to your your existing spots year
Speaker 1: after year.
Speaker 2: So this year actually with with Sack drawing another ELK tag,
Speaker 2: we haven't been doing the scouting that we usually do
Speaker 2: for fall Bear. But yes, a on a I'll say,
Speaker 2: a quote unquote normal year for us where we don't
Speaker 2: have a priority ELK tag that you know takes nineteen
Speaker 2: points to draw, where our kind of efforts have been
Speaker 2: down there scouting for that, hanging cameras and doing that.
Speaker 2: But on a more normal year, yes, we're in the
Speaker 2: field scouting and we're not really necessarily looking for bears,
Speaker 2: although that's going to be you know, a great bonus
Speaker 2: if you do find one. We're kind of just keeping
Speaker 2: our finger on the pulse of the berries, what's going on,
Speaker 2: where the elevation is, and we're kind of planning out
Speaker 2: the fall because we've wanted our you know, our local
Speaker 2: spots or our favorite spots for a decade over a
Speaker 2: decade now, and we kind of know what to look
Speaker 2: for at certain times of the year. You hit these
Speaker 2: milestones of you know, I got pictures on my phones
Speaker 2: of you know, the basins that we like to hunt
Speaker 2: and their snow depth as the as the spring and
Speaker 2: summer kind of you know, progressed and we're getting closer
Speaker 2: to fall and and it's kind of like a stopwatch
Speaker 2: after that snow in those high on those high basins
Speaker 2: is completely melted off and you're getting the sunlight onto soil.
Speaker 2: It's a stopwatch and we like to say sixty days
Speaker 2: and it's it's right there on on on. Let's just
Speaker 2: say an average year, maybe not accelerated drought or some
Speaker 2: kind of crazy rainfall. On a normal year where're just
Speaker 2: getting kind of normal weather, it's about sixty days and
Speaker 2: from that snow melting off and getting sunlight on soil,
Speaker 2: you can you know, pretty much guarantee that sixty days
Speaker 2: from then you're gonna have huckleberries starting to become ripe.
Speaker 2: And it's worked out in the past for us. So
Speaker 2: let's say June first, you got hook or you got
Speaker 2: sunlight on soil. You can say that August first around,
Speaker 2: then give or take a week or so, you're gonna
Speaker 2: have right berries, and then that'll work on for you
Speaker 2: know that higher country stuff where you know July first,
Speaker 2: so that pushes you out to that labor day window
Speaker 2: and time and time and time. Again we've been able
Speaker 2: to prove this, if you will, where that it kind
Speaker 2: of it works out more times than not. So scouting absolutely,
Speaker 2: keep your eye on weather, keep your eye on the
Speaker 2: berry sources, keep your eye on basins. And obviously, like
Speaker 2: we got to a road last time last year, we
Speaker 2: got to a road and our main in and out
Speaker 2: road was closed due to a landslide, so you might
Speaker 2: not know that when you get there August first ready
Speaker 2: to go for a hunt, and you can't get there.
Speaker 2: So now you got an audible right, So it always
Speaker 2: is going to benefit to keep your finger on the
Speaker 2: pulse and get in your area, keep glass on the hills,
Speaker 2: and kind of keep your eye on the berries too.
Speaker 2: That's a huge thing. So then you know that, you know, okay,
Speaker 2: I need to be at you know, forty one for
Speaker 2: open or not twenty six. This is a huge swing
Speaker 2: from last year. We're two thousand feet above. And I'm
Speaker 2: not speaking for everyone in Washington State, so don't hang
Speaker 2: me out to dry if it's not if I'm talking
Speaker 2: about areas that don't kind of add up to you,
Speaker 2: but in our areas, the Northern Cascades were way different
Speaker 2: from last year. We're way above what we were last
Speaker 2: year for berry ripe and and that's why I think
Speaker 2: it's very important that you should be out in the
Speaker 2: field as much as you can.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And like you mentioned, you know, he's talking
Speaker 1: Northern Cascades. I'm in kind of the Central Cascades. But
Speaker 1: I think the important thing to take away is use
Speaker 1: data and start to develop a plan. Like you know,
Speaker 1: these guys have been doing it enough where they know
Speaker 1: sixty days, and you know, so they if they if
Speaker 1: they're paying attention to the snow line, they're going to
Speaker 1: have a pretty good idea where those bears are going
Speaker 1: to be once August first gets here. And then once
Speaker 1: they're out in the field, they can kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: keep track of them and keep track of how they
Speaker 1: move and how the bearers are moving up. And like
Speaker 1: I say, if you're being a smart hunter, you're also
Speaker 1: going to be able to see where the berries are
Speaker 1: moving just as you're on the ground or as you're
Speaker 1: trying to eat the berry path, you know, eat the
Speaker 1: berries as you go, like you're at the right elevation
Speaker 1: when you're trying to eat the berries. So I do
Speaker 1: want to touch on e scouting, but I'm gonna save
Speaker 1: that a little bit later in the podcast when we
Speaker 1: talk about train and elevation and whatnot. So eat scouting
Speaker 1: is a very important part, especially you know, I think
Speaker 1: for bear hunters to look for some things, but we'll
Speaker 1: separate that from scouting. It relates a little more to
Speaker 1: terrain and and what you're looking for for you know,
Speaker 1: finding food sources and whatnot. Do you find that the
Speaker 1: bears that you guys are hunting travel a long distance
Speaker 1: or are they just going up and down the mountain?
Speaker 1: Are they are they pushing out of an area to
Speaker 1: get back or are you are you guys do you
Speaker 1: believe they're just going up and down a drain. It's
Speaker 1: almost like say a migrating deer from where they're danning
Speaker 1: in the spring, you know, if they come out in
Speaker 1: April May. What's your opinion on where these bears are
Speaker 1: traveling by the time the fall season gets here. Is
Speaker 1: there a way to scout in me around? Are they
Speaker 1: just kind of hanging out in an area eating you know,
Speaker 1: the cadmium layer on for trees and eating the brush
Speaker 1: that they do that the new fresh grasses kind of
Speaker 1: what's your opinion on travel or is it Do you
Speaker 1: guys even try to pay attention to any of that?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, man, And I racked my brain a lot of
Speaker 2: the times trying to figure that out because and let's
Speaker 2: just say Labor day, that's like our peak timing for
Speaker 2: fall bear. I think everything is primarily ripe up an
Speaker 2: alpine And that's just, in my opinion, the funnest time
Speaker 2: to hunt them, because they're way exposed, they're way up
Speaker 2: in the alpine on berries, and they're very stationary. They're
Speaker 2: going to be sitting there. Like last year, I shot
Speaker 2: my last beer this season, my second bear of this season,
Speaker 2: at like one fifteen in the afternoon, and you could
Speaker 2: see that bear for she didn't she couldn't get away
Speaker 2: from you know, a mile and a half in each basin.
Speaker 2: She's in the wide open, very little cover. So it's
Speaker 2: very fun. You know, they're they're very exposed. They're out
Speaker 2: in the wide open, you know, kind of making themselves
Speaker 2: pretty vulnerable. So anyways, that's at seventy two hundred feet
Speaker 2: pretty high, sixty eight to seventy two, And you got
Speaker 2: to wonder where did this thing travel from? You know,
Speaker 2: where did you where do you den? Obviously down in
Speaker 2: the valley somewhere, but maybe not. Maybe they do stay
Speaker 2: up high those you know all I don't know if
Speaker 2: they're like old gnarly mule deer bucks that just don't
Speaker 2: want to come down, or but yes, I try to
Speaker 2: figure that out. And I know for a fact that
Speaker 2: they're going to have to come down because it's just
Speaker 2: it's just too high up there. The food source is
Speaker 2: just so rare up there. And then at their springtime
Speaker 2: they're going to be half they're going to need to
Speaker 2: come down and find a food source in the early spring.
Speaker 2: And I have found bears in some of our higher
Speaker 2: basins in that later springtime, so like early June, you know,
Speaker 2: you're driving through and you whip the glass out and
Speaker 2: you're checking out a basin and you're like, whoa, there's
Speaker 2: a there's a bear up there eating that really lush
Speaker 2: green grass. You know, at you know, sixty two hundred
Speaker 2: feet in June fifth or something. But yeah, I don't
Speaker 2: really have a finger on the pulse as far as
Speaker 2: they're they're traveling goes, but it is something that's very
Speaker 2: curious to me. Where do they go, What are they
Speaker 2: doing in that time where they're not really exposed up
Speaker 2: in the alpine, and then in their early August, early
Speaker 2: August early I guess it's gonna be late summer early August.
Speaker 2: Then they all start coming out. They'll start they'll start
Speaker 2: at that thirty two hundred feet elevation is really kind
Speaker 2: of the elevation I start at in the Northern Cascades
Speaker 2: on the eastern slope, and you kind of work your
Speaker 2: way up so you can hunt creek bottoms in August first,
Speaker 2: and then as the fall progresses. As we get into fall,
Speaker 2: you know you're going to find them at seven thousan
Speaker 2: seventy two something like that. I shot at a bear
Speaker 2: last year at like seventy three. So they're going to
Speaker 2: go to the top where that food source carries them.
Speaker 2: So they're just going to go wherever that food source
Speaker 2: is going. So you're going to start early August down
Speaker 2: in the creek bottoms is kind of the vegetation is
Speaker 2: ripened down there, and they're just really going to go
Speaker 2: with it. They're just going to travel that water line,
Speaker 2: if you will, up to the top when that food
Speaker 2: source is. As long as that food source is lasting,
Speaker 2: they're going to be on them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I know there's been some studies where bears
Speaker 1: will move, you know, thirty plus miles just in the fall.
Speaker 1: So like we're talking late July and you just to
Speaker 1: find the berries or find the right food source. And
Speaker 1: there's a local guy here, you know, Capital Forest up
Speaker 1: up just southwest of Olympia. He killed a bear just
Speaker 1: out my back door that was collared in Capital Forest
Speaker 1: and then got killed in almost pel Washington. So you know,
Speaker 1: we're talking fifty miles as a crow flies real old
Speaker 1: I don't remember, that's thirteen or sixteen year old bear,
Speaker 1: really really old bear. But yeah, they it just they
Speaker 1: will travel a long long ways, either looking for you know,
Speaker 1: during the route, looking for sALS or looking for the
Speaker 1: right food source. And it kind of kind of snapped
Speaker 1: my mind a little bit that that a bear let
Speaker 1: go there. I wouldn't believe it if it wasn't collared
Speaker 1: that you know, it travels fifty miles as a crow
Speaker 1: flies to it, you know, from Capitol Hill to Willipa Hills.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 1: It just seemed like a long waist for those bears ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it doesn't really surprise me, but I mean,
Speaker 2: on the other hand, it kind of does like that
Speaker 2: there's got to be food sources for him and they
Speaker 2: don't need to travel that much. But like you said,
Speaker 2: it could be the rut for them, or it could
Speaker 2: just be food even you never know.
Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah, and then there we did. We're not going
Speaker 1: to talk a whole lot about it, but there's like
Speaker 1: the the you know, alpha boor or whatever you want
Speaker 1: it like, just getting kicked out or displaced out of
Speaker 1: his area. And and one thing that uh, you know,
Speaker 1: talking to some some bear hunters that have a lot
Speaker 1: more experience than I do, at it is there are
Speaker 1: prime spots on the landscape right that that big, big
Speaker 1: mature bears, bores they like to have the easy pickens,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna take over that spot as soon as
Speaker 1: they're their pedigree or there there, you know, their their
Speaker 1: names on the pecking order. At a high enough place,
Speaker 1: they're gonna kick all those other boars out. And so
Speaker 1: it sounds like on a lot of these spots you
Speaker 1: can go back almost yearly, you know, as long as
Speaker 1: you gonna shoot out in an entire area and find
Speaker 1: those biggest bores and similar spots.
Speaker 2: Here after year. Absolutely, man, I have a pretty funny
Speaker 2: story about this exact situation. So last year a buddy
Speaker 2: of mine, Chris McCollum, was watching this just absolute slob
Speaker 2: of a bear in a high alpine meadow and they're
Speaker 2: trying to make a move on him. Get up in
Speaker 2: there to that exact meadow, and they watch this bear
Speaker 2: go up in over cliffs and I'm talking like mountain
Speaker 2: goat country type of cliffs kind of watch them go
Speaker 2: up and over and they're sitting on him hoping he's
Speaker 2: gonna come back down in the evening, come down on
Speaker 2: those cliffs and onto that food source, because he was
Speaker 2: on a really really ripe, just amazing huckleberry field. And
Speaker 2: then two or three hours after that big jet black
Speaker 2: bear went up and over, a little tiny chocolate comes
Speaker 2: out of the trees and starts feeding in his meadow.
Speaker 2: So exactly back to that kind of alpha boar or
Speaker 2: something like that, where they kind of command their respect
Speaker 2: to the other bears when they're there and they're feeding,
Speaker 2: that's their spot. And then after he went up and out,
Speaker 2: you know like, oh, I'm kind of full, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go take a nap, you know, midday after he left,
Speaker 2: a couple hours later, here comes this tinier, lone boar,
Speaker 2: you know, two three hours later and just takes his
Speaker 2: little berry patch. So it is funny to watch that
Speaker 2: kind of interact and kind of think about that and bears.
Speaker 2: How many times have you seen, you know, multiple bears
Speaker 2: in the same meadow and within a couple of days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot. You know, when I had you know,
Speaker 1: a good spot up here where we had multiple bears.
Speaker 1: They it's almost like they gravitate towards each other, and
Speaker 1: that's where like, if you find a bear, there's typically
Speaker 1: going to be more around there, even in the fall,
Speaker 1: you know, springtime, especially when they're running. But it just
Speaker 1: seems like our good clearcuts are bigger clearcuts that are
Speaker 1: at that right age, you know, six to twelve years old,
Speaker 1: not typically your fresh clear cuts. You're gonna have multiple
Speaker 1: bears all in that same general area. Now they might
Speaker 1: hang out on opposite sides, they don't want to be
Speaker 1: around each other, but yeah, multiple bears and similar spots.
Speaker 1: Because once again we're going to talk about it here
Speaker 1: in a little bit, it's really tied to the food
Speaker 1: source in that area, the prime food source. They're all
Speaker 1: trying to get a piece of that.
Speaker 2: I absolutely agree, absolutely agree. I've seen it time and
Speaker 2: time again where there's just multiple, multiple bears in the
Speaker 2: same general area and they're kind of playing hot basin two.
Speaker 2: But last year, in one of our premier spots that
Speaker 2: we just kind of hold on that labor day, we
Speaker 2: can do a you know, a ten mile loop and
Speaker 2: I'm talking five in and then kind of five around.
Speaker 2: We say, you know, ten plus bears, you know, and
Speaker 2: that's counting cubs with soals and stuff. But that's a
Speaker 2: lot of bears in the same ecosystem, and I think,
Speaker 2: and there's got to be more too. I think we
Speaker 2: saw thirteen in one day, just kind of doing our
Speaker 2: ten mile loop, you know, out and around, just kind
Speaker 2: of hopping basins. You're riding ridge lines and you're looking
Speaker 2: this way, and you're glassing you know, miles and miles
Speaker 2: and miles. But within a you know, five square mile
Speaker 2: you know radius, seeing thirteen bears out in the wide
Speaker 2: open and the alpine feeding on berries, you know, just
Speaker 2: like you say, they kind of g gravitate towards each other.
Speaker 2: And I don't think it's necessarily because they want to
Speaker 2: be around each other. I think it's just food sources.
Speaker 2: Once there's a really really good food source in that area. Obviously,
Speaker 2: this localized area that's five square miles, it has just
Speaker 2: a ton of food sources, water source, cover everything that
Speaker 2: bears need. And once you find that it's a really
Speaker 2: you gotta hold it near and deer because that's that's
Speaker 2: a really good spot. And then every year, you know,
Speaker 2: year after year, we get back in there and we'll
Speaker 2: harvest a couple of bears.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we'll talk about wind here in a little bit.
Speaker 1: But I think a bears nose and their keen sense
Speaker 1: of smelling is so good like that you don't have
Speaker 1: to They know exactly where the food's at. Right. Whether
Speaker 1: they can get all because of a more mature bear
Speaker 1: or whatnot is a different story. But they're gonna try
Speaker 1: to eat on the fringe of that of that good
Speaker 1: food source. So let's jump into That's a great segue
Speaker 1: into this, because this is probably the most important topic
Speaker 1: when it comes to fall bear hunting is food sources
Speaker 1: and what elevation are you gonna hunt at? You know,
Speaker 1: we talk about all this other stuff, but I would
Speaker 1: say it's an accessory to this as far as finding
Speaker 1: bears and figuring out how to kill them. Bears bears,
Speaker 1: some of them have said to eat you know, fifteen
Speaker 1: thousand calories a day and be on their feet, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty hours a day to do so. You know, so
Speaker 1: these bears are trying to fatten up. I've also heard
Speaker 1: stats where they will eat quite a bit in the
Speaker 1: spring and summer, but in the month of August alone,
Speaker 1: they may put on twenty percent of their body weight
Speaker 1: in that one month of August, which correlates very timely
Speaker 1: to the beerries usually popping, and so I kind of
Speaker 1: I kind of agree with all of that, but kind
Speaker 1: of give me, let's roll all the way back to
Speaker 1: let's say springtime. You know where they're food sources, grasses
Speaker 1: and and you know, bark and you know, wild onions
Speaker 1: or whatever may have in that area, whatever whatever's available,
Speaker 1: some roots and yeah, yeah, whatever they can dig and
Speaker 1: scrounge for. Versus we start to get into the fall,
Speaker 1: like we were through through the beginning of the summer.
Speaker 1: How does their food change and what food sources they
Speaker 1: looking for? You know, berries are at the top, but
Speaker 1: they are still looking and keying in on some other
Speaker 1: stuff as well. But kind of walk through food sources
Speaker 1: and elevation and you know we've we've touched on a
Speaker 1: little bit, but the process to find them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so just in my northern Cascades is kind of
Speaker 2: where I spend majority of my time. But I've drawn
Speaker 2: you know, I've been on several other spring bear hunts.
Speaker 2: I think you and I both drew the same unit
Speaker 2: the same year. So kind of bounce to a lot
Speaker 2: of questions, you know, off each other back then what
Speaker 2: you see and where you're at, you know, but going
Speaker 2: back to just my experience in the spring, they're so
Speaker 2: unpredictable and we would see, you know, upwards of fifteen
Speaker 2: to twenty bears a day from one glassing knob. And
Speaker 2: I went with a guy that I just really just
Speaker 2: admired lot was Shane Vandergeese and he's in you know,
Speaker 2: up in the north side of s Gadget County, Wakam County,
Speaker 2: I think, and just wanted with him and learned from
Speaker 2: him just on the spring bear thing, and they're so
Speaker 2: unpredictable and they're just there's everything is so green in
Speaker 2: the spring, and I think the majority of the stuff
Speaker 2: that we were watching was them just on grass and
Speaker 2: then traveling these ridge tops, rolling rocks, eating grubs, eating
Speaker 2: these bolsom roots, eating these wild onions, and then they're
Speaker 2: just kind of cruising, kind of looking for We never
Speaker 2: saw bears being you know, stationary, and that was kind
Speaker 2: of more in the eastern side, and then we kind
Speaker 2: of more moved towards in my experience where I've been
Speaker 2: out scouting in the spring for mule deer and we're
Speaker 2: talking early early June, late May, you know, Labor Day
Speaker 2: or excuse me, Memorial Day is kind of when I
Speaker 2: start scouting, you know, getting my lay of the land
Speaker 2: and stuff, and we'll see bears at five thousand feet
Speaker 2: in late May, early June, it's still snowing on us
Speaker 2: and we're finding bears just kind of cruising country. I'm forgiving,
Speaker 2: but I don't know exactly what they're eating that time
Speaker 2: of year. It's just got to be you know, you
Speaker 2: see their scat and it's just full of grass and
Speaker 2: green stuff. And I'm sure they're doing the same thing
Speaker 2: stumps and rolling rocks, neat and grubs. But I think
Speaker 2: their primary target at that time in the spring kind
Speaker 2: of moving into summer is is just kind of vegetation. Obviously,
Speaker 2: they're omnivorous, so they're gonna be you know, if they
Speaker 2: come across the fawn at that time. It's horribly sad
Speaker 2: because we need to protect our mule deer, but of
Speaker 2: course they're gonna you know, eat that as well. So
Speaker 2: I think calling, I'm sure we're going to get into
Speaker 2: this later, but calling, if you're spring bear, if you're
Speaker 2: listening to this for spring bear help or advice or whatever,
Speaker 2: calling is gonna be way more effective in my you know,
Speaker 2: my scope here. Calling is more effective in the spring,
Speaker 2: just because they're so opportunistic and they're coming out and
Speaker 2: they're lethargic if you will, Laura Smith, and they're just
Speaker 2: so dangerous, you know, vulnerable. You're gonna be more effective
Speaker 2: in that springtime as you move into the fall time,
Speaker 2: where I kind of spend more time in the woods,
Speaker 2: just because our seasons are more Washington State, we don't
Speaker 2: have a springtime anymore, so I have way more experience
Speaker 2: in the fall. It is so much onto the berries
Speaker 2: as primarily as I can say, like I've called it
Speaker 2: a bear, I'm just trying to get him to stand up,
Speaker 2: and alls I needed to do was stand up. It's
Speaker 2: on one of our films and I used one of
Speaker 2: your distress calls and try to get this bear to
Speaker 2: stand up, and he just wouldn't do it. Just lift
Speaker 2: his head up and look at me. I just need
Speaker 2: him stand up so I could shoot him, and just
Speaker 2: wouldn't do it. So that just tells me that their
Speaker 2: primary focus is not really on they've kind of switched
Speaker 2: out of that opportunistic If I, you know, find a
Speaker 2: distressed ane, I'm going to run and chase it down.
Speaker 2: I need the calories now when they're on a food
Speaker 2: source in that fall time, that late summer like we
Speaker 2: are right now August September. If they're on a food source,
Speaker 2: that's really all they're going to care about. They're just
Speaker 2: going to suck up those berries. And like you said,
Speaker 2: I have personally harvested a bear that I have watched
Speaker 2: in a meadow on a hillside for fourteen hours. It's
Speaker 2: on film on our YouTube channel. I spot him right
Speaker 2: at like five point forty five in the morning on
Speaker 2: September eleventh, twenty twenty one. So I watched him, you know,
Speaker 2: on that barry patch and now he's six miles away.
Speaker 2: We make our way down there, set up camp, drop camp,
Speaker 2: and then kind of get my stock on. And I
Speaker 2: didn't shoot him until eight fifteen at night, So I
Speaker 2: know that bear did not move. He's in the same
Speaker 2: exact meadow unless there was a bait and switch in
Speaker 2: the middle of my transition that I couldn't, you know,
Speaker 2: keep an eye on that hillside. But there was a
Speaker 2: bear in the same exact meadow that I was stalking on,
Speaker 2: you know, fourteen fifteen hours later. So that's how food
Speaker 2: driven these things are. Later in the fall, this was
Speaker 2: September eleventh, So we're kind of getting into that phase
Speaker 2: of the year where they're really trying to pack it on.
Speaker 2: Like you said, they're eating fifteen thousand calories in a day,
Speaker 2: and that bear, I could guarantee you he was pushing
Speaker 2: that number and he was on his feet for twenty
Speaker 2: hours a day, completely exposed wide open hillsides, just sucking
Speaker 2: berries down. And I did a you know, fourteen fifteen
Speaker 2: hour stock on him and was able to get over
Speaker 2: there and get him killed. But with that being said,
Speaker 2: that time of the year, I think it's just holistically
Speaker 2: berries and that's in that country that I'm in. If
Speaker 2: you it might not work in the area that you're
Speaker 2: you're hunting, so it might not correlate all over Washington State.
Speaker 2: You could have bears that are working salmon are you know,
Speaker 2: kind of spawning you know, sakei or coho or you know,
Speaker 2: pinks coming into the rivers that they do, and they
Speaker 2: can be working on that. But as far as the
Speaker 2: bears that we hunt and that we focused on, they're
Speaker 2: just strictly berry bears at that time of the year,
Speaker 2: working into that fall, and that's been my favorite time
Speaker 2: of year to hunt them.
Speaker 1: Yep. I like no, No, I like it for the
Speaker 1: same reason as you do. Is those bears, once they
Speaker 1: find that food, they're not going to leave a whole lot,
Speaker 1: which is a blessing anachurse. Because we talked about earlier
Speaker 1: glassing a little bit like man there, if they're in
Speaker 1: a wrong spot or they've found berries where you can't
Speaker 1: see them, you're not going to pick them up for
Speaker 1: a while because they're not going to leave. And that's
Speaker 1: one thing I wanted to touch on a little bit.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you have those there. I've
Speaker 1: always kind of categorized. We've got three different types of
Speaker 1: berries here, like more in the Central Cascades. We've got
Speaker 1: like the very low laying blueberries, which tastes more like
Speaker 1: a real blueberry to me, but they're only about a
Speaker 1: foot tall bush, not very tall. And then you got
Speaker 1: your huckleberries that are maybe two to three feet tall.
Speaker 1: And then we've actually got like blueberry trees is what
Speaker 1: i'd call them. They got like this weird crushed velvet
Speaker 1: type berry on them that are very good. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: the one thing that I like when we do hunt
Speaker 1: in the mountains is if I can get the when
Speaker 1: those small short or blueberries are on, Like, that's my
Speaker 1: favorite because those things can't hide from me if I'm
Speaker 1: half in the glass and steeper and the steeper the better,
Speaker 1: because that bear can't hide from me as well. But
Speaker 1: if you start to get to like moderate slopes or
Speaker 1: getting close to flatberry fields, like, it's very very tough
Speaker 1: hide in, very very tough, and so like, you know,
Speaker 1: those those short blueberries seem to hit just a little
Speaker 1: bit later, more towards the end of August. But when
Speaker 1: those are on, like that's very very easy bear hunting
Speaker 1: because those things are a little more dense than huckleberries.
Speaker 1: And so that's just one thing to keep in mind,
Speaker 1: Like when those come on, like if you can prioritize
Speaker 1: your hunt around those, like you may see more bears
Speaker 1: in the right area, or they may be more visible
Speaker 1: versus you know, and some of those patches of what
Speaker 1: I call blueberry trees, I honestly don't know what they are,
Speaker 1: but they're over the top of my head. Like, if
Speaker 1: bears get into those patches, you may never see them.
Speaker 1: But when you're on the ground or when you're on
Speaker 1: the trails, like you can see that there's obviously a
Speaker 1: lot of bear scat and bear sign and bear tracks
Speaker 1: around them. You just can't see into them when you're
Speaker 1: glassing across the canyon or whatnot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, are you talking about the blueberry trees that you're
Speaker 2: talking Are they like creek bottom stuff you find a
Speaker 2: lot in the creek bottoms yea, in like bottom of
Speaker 2: burns bottoms a little. Well, you're talking about saskatoons and
Speaker 2: those are kind of what right now you should be on.
Speaker 2: But this year, like I was talking about on that
Speaker 2: particular trail that we hunted last year on remember the
Speaker 2: particular area that we hunted last year, the saskatoons right
Speaker 2: now are already gone and they can get you know,
Speaker 2: six to eight feet tall, droop and just be loaded
Speaker 2: with those blueberries. But there they look like a blueberry,
Speaker 2: but they're super tart, they're not nearly they're not a huggled,
Speaker 2: they're not blue.
Speaker 1: So the saskatoons are what usually find the grouse around, right,
Speaker 1: Like the grouse are usual to eat, So not a saskatoon.
Speaker 1: This is actually like a velvety like a blueberry. It's
Speaker 1: a light blue to start with, and if you like
Speaker 1: rub your thumb on it, it kind of turns to
Speaker 1: a dark blue. But where we're at, we've got yes,
Speaker 1: eight to ten foot. But yeah, those those bears love
Speaker 1: to kind of hang out in that they hit ripe
Speaker 1: about the same time as the rest of them, but
Speaker 1: they're they're more loaded up like in bunch berries, kind
Speaker 1: of like those saskatoons, and yep, yep, they'll sit on
Speaker 1: those things forever and not move, which drives me nuts.
Speaker 1: Versus it's like, all right, at least if you're sitting
Speaker 1: in one spot out in the small blueberries, you know
Speaker 1: your glass is a lot more effective, or you can
Speaker 1: turn them up. So do you find them on any
Speaker 1: other food source or is it ninety nine percent berries
Speaker 1: during the fall?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's ninety nine percent berries. And there's, like
Speaker 2: you're saying, where we're talking about right now, there's so
Speaker 2: many different types and species of berries that they kind
Speaker 2: of ripen at different times, they like different times of
Speaker 2: the year, and then as you move up elevations, that
Speaker 2: kind of causes ripeness to kind of be all over
Speaker 2: the place. And that's why you really just have to
Speaker 2: have your finger on the pulse. If you're you know,
Speaker 2: not going out all year long. You have no idea
Speaker 2: what's going on. You're completely disconnected to social media and
Speaker 2: forums and that. If you're just gonna take a person
Speaker 2: out to the woods and just be like, hey, go
Speaker 2: find a bear in August fifteenth, you're gonna have a
Speaker 2: little bit of trouble there because you don't know what's
Speaker 2: going on. You don't know where you need to be
Speaker 2: focusing on should I be high right now? Should I
Speaker 2: be low right now? Where do I need to focus
Speaker 2: my time and energy on. So I think it's a
Speaker 2: benefit to be out and kind of understand the ecosystems,
Speaker 2: learn the berries when they're going to kick off, keep
Speaker 2: your eye on the snow lines and elevation lines. You're
Speaker 2: just helping yourself out. You're keeping so many more tools
Speaker 2: in your toolbox. It's going to help you be successful.
Speaker 2: So even let's just say you don't have a big
Speaker 2: bear hunt planned until September first Labor Day weekend, you
Speaker 2: could still get out and kind of check berries, check
Speaker 2: snow lines, and glass. If you signed a bear, awesome,
Speaker 2: you know even better, you might even find a bear.
Speaker 2: Like last week and a buddy of mine, Austin, found
Speaker 2: a bear at you know, sixty four hundred feet and
Speaker 2: he was just on grass. The blueberries weren't right yet,
Speaker 2: the huckleberryes weren't right yet. He was just there on grass.
Speaker 2: Probably not going to stick around very long. Would be
Speaker 2: a very hard bear to stock and shoot. If that
Speaker 2: commute was going to be, you know, three plus hours long,
Speaker 2: he's going to be gone by then. But once you
Speaker 2: find them stationary on that food source, wh is huckleberries, blueberries,
Speaker 2: and there's all sorts of different species of blueberries, like
Speaker 2: you're talking about, and they're going to be kicking off
Speaker 2: at different times, you know, closer smaller to the ground,
Speaker 2: that snow is on them for a lot longer. If
Speaker 2: they're only six inches tall. And I know exactly what
Speaker 2: you're talking about. Those blueberries are the best. They're like,
Speaker 2: they taste the best, they're the sweetest. And just imagine
Speaker 2: if that snow is just on them for that much longer,
Speaker 2: because they're only six inches off the ground, that snowpack
Speaker 2: is going to be there until July at seventy two
Speaker 2: hundred feet maybe even you know, July fifteenth or something.
Speaker 2: And then as you move to that berry bush the
Speaker 2: Saskatoon that's eight feet tall, that's exposed by March, you know,
Speaker 2: so that causes ripeness to be all over the place.
Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah. Now I food source is by far the
Speaker 1: most important, and it's pretty easy. You just have to
Speaker 1: figure out what elevation they're on, you know, I would
Speaker 1: say that one percent what I've seen in the fall
Speaker 1: is you know, more avalanche shoots, steep stuff they might
Speaker 1: be eating on, like the brush that's on the edge.
Speaker 1: But I would never focus my hunt on like avalanche
Speaker 1: shoots or stuff like that. Try to find a bear, like,
Speaker 1: You're better off figuring out the elevation of the berries.
Speaker 1: And one tip or tactic, whether they like it or not,
Speaker 1: is people that like the hike all of our mountain
Speaker 1: trails will do hiking reports. So let you know where
Speaker 1: they found berries and what point of the trail. And
Speaker 1: you're like, all right, I can quickly jump on Northwest
Speaker 1: Hiker and figure out who hiked what trail. It might
Speaker 1: not be in the same area, but it might be
Speaker 1: a general area where I'm like, oh, they're eating berries
Speaker 1: at forty eight hundred feet because they like can do
Speaker 1: berry reports, and so you can get some good information
Speaker 1: without leaving your seat.
Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, man. There's all combined with the scouting and WTA,
Speaker 2: Washington Trails Association, Northwest Hiker. You can just go to
Speaker 2: a Barr report because they love to tell everybody about
Speaker 2: their berries that they ate, and they'll take pictures of
Speaker 2: them and stuff, and you're like, great, I'm research that trail.
Speaker 2: Let's just say it's the Phelps trail. You research that
Speaker 2: trail and be like, oh, it starts at thirty eight,
Speaker 2: and you know the peak they hiked to is at
Speaker 2: fifty one. There was berries three quarters away to the top.
Speaker 2: Now you got some ammo in your pocket without leaving
Speaker 2: your seat. You can be really effective and just be
Speaker 2: kind of squirrely, you know, look at you use all
Speaker 2: your resources and and I'm absolutely guilty of that. If
Speaker 2: I want to learn a new trail system, I can
Speaker 2: go to that trail on there and then go through
Speaker 2: the history of reports and be like, hey, there's berries
Speaker 2: here all right, that that trail might be worth checking out,
Speaker 2: And then you drop a pin and go check it
Speaker 2: out in the summer see if it. You know, oh man,
Speaker 2: that's gonna be a a nice big basin full of
Speaker 2: berries one day or you know, in the fall. So absolutely, man,
Speaker 2: it's a great tip. We've talked about that tons of times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then use an e scouting to find food
Speaker 1: sources a lot of times if you're if you're good
Speaker 1: at Google. You know, when I'm looking for elk cunting, like,
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, I do not want to walk through
Speaker 1: that brushole, right, Like that's that's brush versus this is
Speaker 1: clean outpine versus this is a this is you know,
Speaker 1: false alpine. It's really just a big brushy pile. Like
Speaker 1: that's where you want to try to focus on, Like
Speaker 1: can you glass into that? You know where where are
Speaker 1: the bear is going to be visible? That's where avalanche
Speaker 1: shoots do kind of come in. I love I love berry.
Speaker 1: You know, elevations that are at a berry but then
Speaker 1: are broken up by vertical lines because those bears have
Speaker 1: to you know, they will expose themselves in them. And
Speaker 1: so you can look at some of that. Once you
Speaker 1: know what you're looking at on scouting, whatever you're using
Speaker 1: you know, Google Earth, whatever mapping software, and you you'll
Speaker 1: be able to start to see different bands of barris
Speaker 1: or bush type and you're gonna keep that in mind
Speaker 1: as well. And then once again, if you go back
Speaker 1: to hiking websites, they've damn near covered every square inch
Speaker 1: of these forests, and you can usually get like a
Speaker 1: picture across the canyon and like, all right, that time
Speaker 1: of year, like what's that look like from this point,
Speaker 1: and is that gonna be a good spot to glass
Speaker 1: for bears?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Man, And I've done loads of this, I've done
Speaker 2: videos on it and just kind of testing myself, you know,
Speaker 2: all e scout a spot first. There's all sorts of
Speaker 2: different tools and stuff you can use. Onyx has stuff,
Speaker 2: you know, go Hunt has stuff, Google Earth has stuff.
Speaker 2: You can use all these kind of different imagery sources.
Speaker 2: But what I like to play around with is just
Speaker 2: historical imagery on go Hunt, where you can kind of
Speaker 2: go back years and stuff as well and check dates
Speaker 2: and exact dates that you're looking for, and then go
Speaker 2: back in there and previously look at the year to
Speaker 2: year and then you can just correlate it to this
Speaker 2: year and you can see if it was a drought.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm gonna go back to twenty sixteen, because
Speaker 2: let's just say twenty twenty three we're expecting a drought.
Speaker 2: Go back to your last drought year. Like in the
Speaker 2: North Cascades, we had a pretty pretty bad drought in
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen. I know that because I was in there.
Speaker 2: And then I'm gonna go back to twenty fifteen, and
Speaker 2: then I'm gonna look at the drought year, and then
Speaker 2: you can just go to the exact dates that you're
Speaker 2: looking to go hunting and just pick it apart and
Speaker 2: see that, Oh my gosh, and that drought year. The
Speaker 2: berries were ripe here, The berries were ripe here here,
Speaker 2: and you start dropping pins on these basins that were
Speaker 2: are going to be ripe. And I think EAT scouting
Speaker 2: is super effective. It's never as effective as getting your
Speaker 2: boots on the ground and getting out there. That being said,
Speaker 2: we've found dozens of trailheads and dozens of trails and
Speaker 2: basins and places that we have found and harvested bears
Speaker 2: on because of being effective on the computer and ES scouting.
Speaker 2: I don't know, really, what's one of your favorite tools
Speaker 2: for ES scouting? What's your trick for bears? Do you
Speaker 2: have any things tally four bears that you like to use?
Speaker 1: Not really, I mean I just so I always relate
Speaker 1: it back to spots. You know, I grew up hunting
Speaker 1: the goat rocks like that was my intro to high
Speaker 1: mountain stuff. And so like where did we see him
Speaker 1: at what times? And then I kind of relate that
Speaker 1: back like does that brush look similar? You know, trying
Speaker 1: to figure out where the snow line's at, but you
Speaker 1: know we still have snow in the goat rocks in
Speaker 1: some places. But it's really just trying to time those berries.
Speaker 1: Like as much as I would love to e scout,
Speaker 1: you just have to figure out on the ground, like
Speaker 1: where those berries are at at that time, and that's
Speaker 1: elevation you need to hunt. And if you need to
Speaker 1: hunt that elevation, I start to look at basins that
Speaker 1: are a little more open at that elevation or where
Speaker 1: you know, because one one basin maybe have timber at
Speaker 1: that level, but then a different basin, you know, three
Speaker 1: more to the north might be might be berries at
Speaker 1: that elevation. So I'm really just trying to put myself
Speaker 1: into a spot where I'm going to be at the
Speaker 1: right elevation but can still see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think there's any way to just replace
Speaker 2: the glassing berry bowls that you know are berry bulls.
Speaker 2: Once you know that there's a food source in there
Speaker 2: that the bears are going to be on, whether it
Speaker 2: be from previous you know, years past experience, whether it
Speaker 2: be a trail report for someone saying that there's berries
Speaker 2: on there, or just firsthand knowledge of you hiking up
Speaker 2: in there checking berries and verifying that there's berries in
Speaker 2: that basin, sitting back in glass in that basin, there's
Speaker 2: going to be a bear that room's in there. Almost
Speaker 2: I would almost say to you know, guarantee that if
Speaker 2: you have a berry basin that eventually you're going to
Speaker 2: find a bear in there. So just kind of knowing
Speaker 2: these things, whether it be from like we said, you know,
Speaker 2: trail reports, eascounting, or your boots on the ground work
Speaker 2: find the berries, that's really the ticket here.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, let's touch on terrain a little bit. We've
Speaker 1: hammered this, hammered this home that food sources are really
Speaker 1: what they're after, and terrain is just like a second.
Speaker 1: But I like the personally hunt steeper train. What type
Speaker 1: of train do you like to hunt? And how come.
Speaker 2: You know? I'm all over the I'm all over the
Speaker 2: board here. So as we as we progress early season,
Speaker 2: I can find myself on some on some trails, hiking
Speaker 2: trails that are next to creeks and rivers, just because
Speaker 2: they're the first ones to ripen up. So I'm not
Speaker 2: really picky or I'm not going to be you know,
Speaker 2: I only hunt step or I only hunt flat, I
Speaker 2: only hunt mild. I'm just kind of going where the
Speaker 2: bears are going to be, and in the early season
Speaker 2: that tends to be a little bit more flatter down
Speaker 2: on the basins, down in the bottoms excuse me, not basins,
Speaker 2: but drainages where you got creeks and rivers and stuff
Speaker 2: like that, because that's going to be kind of ripened first,
Speaker 2: and as we move up, as we progress to this season,
Speaker 2: we'll kind of move into that mild train. And I
Speaker 2: have I kind of have my elevator of spots where
Speaker 2: I'm down at the bottom in August first, and then
Speaker 2: we kind of just progress, you know, two, three four,
Speaker 2: five hundred feet per week. Five hundred feet a week
Speaker 2: is seems to be a little bit accurate, especially if
Speaker 2: you get these super hot days like brigs now, where
Speaker 2: weekend to weekend, we're just kind of trickling that five
Speaker 2: hundred feet until we get to labor day, and by
Speaker 2: labor day you're at the tops, you're at seven thousand.
Speaker 2: Most of the time you're at sixty eight, you know,
Speaker 2: seven th seventy two, towards those tops where you're gonna
Speaker 2: see bears on berries up at the tops of those
Speaker 2: peaks and the North Cascades. That's our top. So if
Speaker 2: you're listening from other states, that's our tops. That's probably
Speaker 2: not that's city, you know for Colorado and stuff, but
Speaker 2: those are our tops. But yeah, as the season progresses,
Speaker 2: I'm just going with him. My favorite time of the
Speaker 2: year is that labor time, labor day time frame, and
Speaker 2: they do tend to be on that super steep terrain
Speaker 2: where the huckleberries the blueberries are really really thick, and
Speaker 2: they just don't move. They stand in those fields and
Speaker 2: they're just vacuum them up. You might catch them, you know,
Speaker 2: going down into the timber to take a little nap
Speaker 2: in the shade, and then they will come back, you know,
Speaker 2: they'll come right back onto a berry patch if they
Speaker 2: have a good food source, if they're feeling secure, they're
Speaker 2: not being buggered up. You know, they're not hearing humans
Speaker 2: hollering and stuff like that, which sometimes on trails that
Speaker 2: we use, you know, popular trails, they do. So when
Speaker 2: humans start acting, you know, start actively, the suns up
Speaker 2: and they start moving down these trails, those bears will
Speaker 2: go those bears, excuse me, We'll go tuck away. And
Speaker 2: then once the hikers are done for the day, they'll
Speaker 2: come back out in the evening and they'll just vacuum
Speaker 2: all night for you know, twelve hours or whatever. But yeah,
Speaker 2: it just really depends. Like I'm not picky. I'll just
Speaker 2: be wherever they are and I'll just kind of follow
Speaker 2: that berry, that berry line, if you will, up the elevation.
Speaker 2: As soon as as it starts ripening up high, I'm
Speaker 2: moving up high with them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, I agree, you got to hunt where the
Speaker 1: bears are out, which is so cliche we say that
Speaker 1: all the time, But you gotta hunt where the bears.
Speaker 1: I just like, if I'm going to go to a spot,
Speaker 1: the steeper the better. It seems like they can't hide
Speaker 1: as much, you know, the flatter that face is across
Speaker 1: the canyon from me or across the finger dge from me, like,
Speaker 1: the better chance I I you know, maybe it's just
Speaker 1: a confidence level. I know I've seen a bear if
Speaker 1: it was there right versus versus you know, if it's
Speaker 1: flat or roly, there's there's a lot more spots to hide,
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm less confident, I'm less you know, confident
Speaker 1: to move because I don't want to leave a bear
Speaker 1: to to go somewhere else. But if it's steep there,
Speaker 1: there's a very slim chance that that thing is able
Speaker 1: to hide from me.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, man, I totally agree with you and kind of
Speaker 2: didn't really think about that. Just kind of giving them
Speaker 2: hiding spots if there's folds, if it's kind of steep,
Speaker 2: and then it kind of peters out and gives them
Speaker 2: a nice little bench. They could be on that bench for,
Speaker 2: like we just said, twelve hours and you never see them.
Speaker 2: So the steeper the country kind of does make it easier.
Speaker 2: And kind of just going back through my you know,
Speaker 2: pocketbook of spots, it's primarily steep spots in that September
Speaker 2: time frame, late August early September. The steeper the better
Speaker 2: for us. And it's probably has something to do with
Speaker 2: that where they don't have any kind of folds and
Speaker 2: stuff to get away from and to hide into. But
Speaker 2: that time of year, they're just they're out for so
Speaker 2: long you feel comfortable that if you're looking at a
Speaker 2: hillside for ten fifteen minutes you're going to catch a glimpse,
Speaker 2: cause yeah, they're always moving. They might be in a
Speaker 2: little fold or a roll or something, but for the
Speaker 2: most part, they're kind of just you know, modoring around
Speaker 2: within a twenty feet circle or something.
Speaker 1: You know, yep, yeah, So what do you think about
Speaker 1: water when it comes to fall bear hunting? Do you
Speaker 1: place yourself on water? Do you not paying any attention?
Speaker 1: Is it a requirement? Like what do you How does
Speaker 1: water enter the equation for for fall bear for you?
Speaker 2: I think maybe a little bit earlier, when it's scorching hot,
Speaker 2: they might wanna be you might want to focus a
Speaker 2: little bit closer to water. But I mean, I've never
Speaker 2: prioritized that, and I'm just being one hundred percent honest.
Speaker 2: Never prioritized it. Never made sure I'm in a basin
Speaker 2: with water. But in the North Cascades in Washington State,
Speaker 2: water is plentiful, you know, on a on a trail
Speaker 2: system that we use. That when I've I keep going
Speaker 2: back to when I mentioned earlier in the podcast where
Speaker 2: we saw thirteen in a day, there is no water
Speaker 2: source for us. They might they might have some of
Speaker 2: the basins that we don't know of, but on these
Speaker 2: trail systems that we're motoring in on. We we have
Speaker 2: to carry, you know, to I carry two forty eight
Speaker 2: now deans and then a thirty two, So we're going
Speaker 2: in with over one hundred ounces of water. So going in,
Speaker 2: you just know that it's gonna be a hot one,
Speaker 2: it's gonna be scorcher, and we're not getting water on
Speaker 2: this trail. So I don't necessarily know if that I
Speaker 2: would imagine that the bears are going to have them.
Speaker 2: The bears that we're seeing, they have some that they
Speaker 2: know where to go to. But up in they prioritize
Speaker 2: food over over water as well, so they'll travel to it.
Speaker 2: They'll travel to it, I'm sure. But no, speaking of
Speaker 2: water me personally, I don't prioritize it in the fall in, Yeah,
Speaker 2: don't prioritize it.
Speaker 1: I don't either, And I don't know if it's a
Speaker 1: product or a byproduct of us both being from the
Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest where I have fall bear hunted. Is there's
Speaker 1: water in every drainage exactly we've got We've got, you know,
Speaker 1: we always have great like moisture recoup, you know, every night,
Speaker 1: like the ground even when it's in the middle of summer,
Speaker 1: the ground is going to be damp when you wake up. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't know whether it's like the deer versus elk conversation,
Speaker 1: where a deer can get the moisture out of the
Speaker 1: food they eat versus an elk needs to go to water.
Speaker 1: I'm unsure on bear. But but yeah, I don't think
Speaker 1: at least the places I've seen bears start the day
Speaker 1: and where they end the day, like, all right, I
Speaker 1: watch that bear for whatever, fourteen hours and the thing
Speaker 1: never had to go get water. Is it going there
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night. But yeah, I think
Speaker 1: some when you're listening outside of Washington, you may have
Speaker 1: a little different situation. And I do know that they
Speaker 1: will require water daily, especially in the hot temperature, so
Speaker 1: water may play an important part, but here in Washington
Speaker 1: not so.
Speaker 2: Much absolutely, And like you touched on, I'm right there
Speaker 2: with you. Everything's got water in Washington, especially the alpine
Speaker 2: basins and everything that we've gone down to and killed
Speaker 2: bears and impact out will find, you know, little puddles
Speaker 2: or a trickle or something like that. But last year
Speaker 2: the bear that I actually kind of goofed up on,
Speaker 2: he was at least eighteen hundred feet down from water.
Speaker 2: Excuse me, he was up eighteen hundred two thousand feet
Speaker 2: from the nearest water source. But at you know, for
Speaker 2: an animal a bear, that that's nothing. They're going to
Speaker 2: just bail down in the middle of the night, go
Speaker 2: get some water and they're kind of come right back
Speaker 2: up to that food. And that one I'm pretty certain
Speaker 2: because you know, I was on a it was just
Speaker 2: a crazy spot to be in. But that bear was
Speaker 2: completely exposed Rocky Sale shale cliffs and then just right
Speaker 2: in the middle of the rocky Shell cliffs, it was
Speaker 2: just this barry patch that he never would have expected
Speaker 2: to see a bear there, but I did and ended
Speaker 2: up shooting at him. I guess missed him. Crazy turn
Speaker 2: of events. But that bear was completely away from water,
Speaker 2: So I don't prioritize it. You know, they're gonna they're
Speaker 2: gonna prioritize food over it, and then they're gonna go
Speaker 2: travel to their little honey hole of water that they
Speaker 2: that they know where to find it. So I don't
Speaker 2: think if you're looking at maps, you need to be like, oh,
Speaker 2: I need to I need to have water in a basin.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's gonna ring true to us, but
Speaker 2: I could be wrong. I've just never prioritized it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how do you how does weather? You know, we
Speaker 1: once again coming back to Washington, we get some crazy
Speaker 1: weather even in the in the you know, the summer,
Speaker 1: early fall, absolutely, and how do you how does the
Speaker 1: weather affect your hunts? What have you found? You know,
Speaker 1: rain storms? He how does that affect it?
Speaker 2: I I personally think it affects us more than it
Speaker 2: affects them. Obviously, they're wild animals. They don't. They don't
Speaker 2: really care that they live through it year round. We don't. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it might suck when you got a thunderstorm and it's
Speaker 2: and it's dump and rain on you. But I don't
Speaker 2: really necessarily think they do, because I've seen them out
Speaker 2: in it. You know. Last year I had actually filmed
Speaker 2: my wife on her first bear hunt, and we were
Speaker 2: watching this bear almost shot it, and then a cub
Speaker 2: came out from you know, behind it, and there was
Speaker 2: thunder and lightning, raining, and that bear just didn't care.
Speaker 2: They're just standing right there on top of us. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we were like maybe two minutes before the storm really
Speaker 2: got it going and it was on top of our head.
Speaker 2: But you know, it was We're in the in this
Speaker 2: big drainage, thunder and lightning was cracking and going, and
Speaker 2: they were just still outfeeding. So they're just gonna do
Speaker 2: animal stuff and as far as the heat goes, doesn't
Speaker 2: seem to bother them. I filmed a bear midday, two
Speaker 2: o'clock in the afternoon. We're me and my wife are
Speaker 2: in the shade, and I just watched this bear cruise
Speaker 2: in this hillside, eating, eat and eating, and then kind
Speaker 2: of comes down, goes through the creek, didn't stop the drink,
Speaker 2: just goes right through it and then just goes back
Speaker 2: to feeding. So and it had to have been on
Speaker 2: a hundred plus triple digits for sure. It was the
Speaker 2: same day that we ended up harvesting her her suit
Speaker 2: for cool bear. And she shot it at you know,
Speaker 2: three and the clock in the afternoon, so again a
Speaker 2: hundred degrees. And he did not stop eating from the
Speaker 2: moment I saw him at like seven in the morning
Speaker 2: all the way until when she killed them at like
Speaker 2: three in the afternoon. So just after everything kind of
Speaker 2: lined up and we kind of got a shot going
Speaker 2: for him, we watched them feed. August had to have
Speaker 2: been fourth or fifth August fourth or fifth hundred degrees
Speaker 2: outside and they don't stop, you know, the obviously, if
Speaker 2: they need to, they will, But I don't think when
Speaker 2: they're on food sources and they're doing what they have
Speaker 2: to do and the weather doesn't bother them. I think
Speaker 2: that's just my opinion.
Speaker 1: No, I agree spring bear get bothered a little bit
Speaker 1: more by rain. They seem to kind of tuck in.
Speaker 1: I think fall bear that we've seen, they'll they'll ride
Speaker 1: out a weather storm. But still I still feel like
Speaker 1: just following maybe a rain event, if you get one
Speaker 1: of those fall rain events, like the backside, if you
Speaker 1: got some good weather on the backside, like that's the
Speaker 1: best time to be out there, they just seem to
Speaker 1: be on their feet. They're they're just on their feet
Speaker 1: more out in the open. Maybe they don't want to
Speaker 1: get as wet in the brush, so they seem to
Speaker 1: kind of get out in the opening, back to that
Speaker 1: food source and kind of stick out a little.
Speaker 2: Bit more absolutely, And I think maybe something to do
Speaker 2: with that is that the duration of those storms could
Speaker 2: vary so much differently from spring that that thing can
Speaker 2: last you know, hours, as you know, been caught in
Speaker 2: one and have to ride it out then to the fall.
Speaker 2: You could have thunder and lightning, pouring down rain, you know,
Speaker 2: one minute, and literally five minutes later it's blue sky again.
Speaker 2: So I think maybe they just like, I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: keep doing my thing. This one might not last long.
Speaker 2: It's going to pass quickly. But I've been through them.
Speaker 2: I've been through hell storms, thunder lightning, you know, one
Speaker 2: hundred degree heat, and been watching bears and all that,
Speaker 2: all those weathers, those weather kind of variations, and I
Speaker 2: really truly don't think that it bothers them at all.
Speaker 2: It's going to bother us more if you're getting soaked
Speaker 2: or getting haled on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. So moral of the story hunt hunt
Speaker 1: through all weather, which kind of comes is a good
Speaker 1: segue into the next question, what time of day? And
Speaker 1: so we're dealing when we're talking fall bear, we're talking
Speaker 1: August to all the way to the beginning of November,
Speaker 1: when our seasons finally closed down. Here, what time of
Speaker 1: day are you hunting or you find the most productive
Speaker 1: throughout that time.
Speaker 2: I'm you're not gonna like this, and not many listeners are,
Speaker 2: but I'm gonna say first light, and it kills me
Speaker 2: to say it. Because in August, I can sleep man,
Speaker 2: I could sleep you around, I could be a bear.
Speaker 2: But in August it's you know, you got to be
Speaker 2: up at four thirty, and especially if you've got to
Speaker 2: get to a travel to a glassing knob. But that's
Speaker 2: you know, on weekends and stuff, you go to work
Speaker 2: and you get up early, and the blue collar guys
Speaker 2: are up early all week and then you got to
Speaker 2: a weekend and you're like, yeah, I would like to
Speaker 2: sleep in, but when fall bear man like, you just
Speaker 2: can't do it. And that's just like the truth bottom
Speaker 2: of my heart. You gotta be up glassing at first light.
Speaker 2: They're so active and time and time and time again,
Speaker 2: I've harvested majority of the bears in the first thing
Speaker 2: in the morning. They're gonna be active throughout the day.
Speaker 2: But if you really want to catch them, especially in
Speaker 2: that September when they're up in those blueberries, they're gonna
Speaker 2: be they're gonna feed out from that. You know, they're
Speaker 2: mostly active at night and then actually in that time
Speaker 2: of year, they're active throughout the day. But if you
Speaker 2: really catch them, like Jason, I'll start my answer up
Speaker 2: first light, the first right right, the first thing in
Speaker 2: the morning, man, my favorite time absolutely.
Speaker 1: I think you catch those bigger bears out maybe in
Speaker 1: the middle, but you know, with that said, like anytime
Speaker 1: during the fall can produce and so if you're out
Speaker 1: there targeting bear, like you just need to hunt all day.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think morning is just is prime. And
Speaker 1: then around home where it's like industrial timberlands, My absolute
Speaker 1: favorite time to be out there is in the evening,
Speaker 1: right as the shade starts to hit clear cuts, like
Speaker 1: you know, when you'd expect deer and elk to start
Speaker 1: coming back out, like that transition from it being too
Speaker 1: damn hot to just starting to cool off. It seems
Speaker 1: as like when we pick up the majority of like
Speaker 1: the Timberland bears.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good. That's good to know. That's you know,
Speaker 2: I don't hunt really the Timberland stuff, but from the
Speaker 2: experience that we, like just the first light thing, just
Speaker 2: kind of majority of the bears get spotted. But like
Speaker 2: you said, they're they're they're active throughout the entire day.
Speaker 2: Back to that story where I said I watched that
Speaker 2: bear for fourteen hours last year, Like I can go
Speaker 2: back and look at the phone scoat footage and it's
Speaker 2: like five forty seven in the morning where he's you know,
Speaker 2: stationary in that spot. I first bought him and then
Speaker 2: when the phone scoat footage of me killing him is
Speaker 2: like eight fifteen at night. So yeah, you didn't have
Speaker 2: to wake up at daylight to go spot that bear
Speaker 2: because he didn't move. But we have seen bears that
Speaker 2: you know, you catch it first light and then they're
Speaker 2: slipping into the timber at seven to go take a
Speaker 2: four hour nap. You might not have known that it
Speaker 2: was there if you, you know, slept in a little bit.
Speaker 2: But I'm gonna stick to the guns there and just say,
Speaker 2: like we prefer in that North Cascade stuff that you're
Speaker 2: going to see a majority of the activity right at
Speaker 2: first light at least most the bears are going to
Speaker 2: be out, and then yeah, you might slip into the
Speaker 2: timber and take a nap, and of course they can
Speaker 2: come back out, so just check some balances there. I
Speaker 2: prefer the morning.
Speaker 1: And then kind of our last question, my last question
Speaker 1: for you, do you any calling for bears in the fall,
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna play I have to ask the call
Speaker 1: question just because it's it's my job, but I'm curious
Speaker 1: what you do as far as running a call in
Speaker 1: the fall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there. I mean, if you want to do
Speaker 2: the call stuff, I gotta tug the I gotta you know,
Speaker 2: plug the old Doug Bows he's a Washington resident too.
Speaker 2: You've had him on the podcast. Just awesome, dude. He's
Speaker 2: got a phone call app. He not to take away
Speaker 2: from your business, Jason, yours, yours are the best. Uh,
Speaker 2: but he's got an app that you can use and
Speaker 2: and and run those predator calls just on a in
Speaker 2: a bluetooth speaker. But I did run your predator distress
Speaker 2: call last season. I always keep it in my binyal
Speaker 2: harness after kind of like the lampers, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: on the spring stuff, he kind of mentioned that he
Speaker 2: keeps one in there and maybe not just to actually
Speaker 2: call him in, but to get him to stop or
Speaker 2: to get him to come back out of the timber.
Speaker 2: I think it's a it's a genius idea. So I
Speaker 2: adopted that and I actually got to use it last year.
Speaker 2: So to answer your question, no, I'm not gonna do
Speaker 2: a calling, you know, set for a bear just because
Speaker 2: I've I have I don't have experience with it. But
Speaker 2: Doug's gonna give you a different answer. Doug's he's got
Speaker 2: a book on it and he's got an app, so
Speaker 2: he's he's found it very effective. Me personally, in our experience,
Speaker 2: we've never done like a calling sequence or a stand
Speaker 2: specifically to call a bear into But I have used
Speaker 2: it now to get a bear to stand up, like
Speaker 2: I was talking about, and we have it on film.
Speaker 2: You guys can go watch it. I'm just ripping on
Speaker 2: this predator call to even get this bear to acknowledge
Speaker 2: me to stand up, to take four steps out into
Speaker 2: the open. But he just wouldn't do it. He's just
Speaker 2: like looking right down at the call. I'm on the rifle,
Speaker 2: I'm on, I'm ready to take a step. If he
Speaker 2: just took a step, I could smoke him. But he's
Speaker 2: just behind this big boulder and you could just see
Speaker 2: his head and he's just panting like a dog, just
Speaker 2: tongue out. He's just panting, and then his head would
Speaker 2: go down, and I'm like, Zach, what are we gonna do?
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna I'm getting fried right here. You know,
Speaker 2: it's August, August sixth or something. It's you know, nine
Speaker 2: in the morning at this point, and we're just on
Speaker 2: this bear. We watched him for a half hour or
Speaker 2: so and just kind of get him to get a shot,
Speaker 2: and so Zach's like, I'm gonna rip on the call.
Speaker 2: So I tossing my call and he just rips and rips,
Speaker 2: and the footage is crazy because his head would just
Speaker 2: pop up and he just looked down at us and
Speaker 2: he'd just go back to panting. And then after two
Speaker 2: seconds of the call, he just lay back down and
Speaker 2: then we're like, okay, let's try it again. In five minutes,
Speaker 2: the same thing. He just lifted his head up and
Speaker 2: then he and then when he started moving, we thought
Speaker 2: he was gonna like come down and check us out. Nope,
Speaker 2: opposite direction, goes away from the predator call, away from
Speaker 2: the call and just into the timbers more and ended
Speaker 2: up giving me a shot and was able to harvest
Speaker 2: that bear. But just to plug back the food source
Speaker 2: that we've just really prioritized this whole podcast episode. Once
Speaker 2: they're on a food source and they're happy, I don't
Speaker 2: really think that there's much you can do to pull
Speaker 2: them away from that, especially if they've been feeding for
Speaker 2: ten eight hours and they're just plump full of berries.
Speaker 2: They're pretty happy campers and if you maybe if you
Speaker 2: caught them, you know, like if Washington State had I'm
Speaker 2: sure spring bear hunting predator calls are very very useful.
Speaker 2: But as far as my experience goes, in the fall,
Speaker 2: when you have these bears that are on a solid
Speaker 2: food source of berries or you know, of huckleberries or
Speaker 2: whatever it may be, it's gonna take some real hard
Speaker 2: work and a really curious bear to pull him out
Speaker 2: of that to go down and look for a rabbit.
Speaker 2: You know, That's my opinion.
Speaker 1: And that's where really down. Like for me as being
Speaker 1: an efficient hunter, I feel like your time is way
Speaker 1: better utilized hiking and looking into those berries sources and
Speaker 1: setting up for thirty five to forty five minutes calling
Speaker 1: in an area, because, as you said, these bears are
Speaker 1: no longer wanting to chase their food. It's sitting on
Speaker 1: a vine where they don't have to move, they don't
Speaker 1: have to chase it, they don't have to expend any energy.
Speaker 1: But with that said, we do have we have quite
Speaker 1: a few buddies you know, around home. Our fall bear
Speaker 1: hunting or any hunting around here is your typical You
Speaker 1: pull up to a landing, you walk off the edge
Speaker 1: and you glass right, but a lot of times when
Speaker 1: you're there you can hear something break and brush down
Speaker 1: below us. And I've had multiple buddies in the last
Speaker 1: couple of years just like calf distress call, and they've
Speaker 1: all killed bears, like right off the landing. So I
Speaker 1: would say, like, if you if there's no other option,
Speaker 1: or if it's available to you, or if it's a
Speaker 1: if it's a good setup, like there's no there's no
Speaker 1: harm to be done, it can still be very effective.
Speaker 1: But I just feel like if I'm in the mountains
Speaker 1: where there are berries on and the bears know that
Speaker 1: the berries are on, like I'm better off spending my
Speaker 1: time and effort like getting to their and glossing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have to fully agree with you, man, it's
Speaker 2: and just from first hand experience now, that bear absolutely
Speaker 2: wanted nothing to do with us, and we were sounding
Speaker 2: pretty juicy with that call. I may add it's pretty good,
Speaker 2: you know, but he just he wasn't having it. Man.
Speaker 2: He just didn't didn't care, didn't have a care in
Speaker 2: the world, could care less about us just ripping down there,
Speaker 2: and we sounded like a nice juicy rabbit or whatever.
Speaker 2: That thing's supposed to be, but I didn't want didn't
Speaker 2: want it, man, that's funny.
Speaker 1: So uh no, Jeff, thanks a lot for coming on here.
Speaker 1: Tell everybody how they can find out more what you
Speaker 1: got going on and adventures you're you're taking on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, appreciate you having me first and foremost. Appreciate
Speaker 2: your friendship and all you've done for us, and just
Speaker 2: what you've allowed me to text you and answer my
Speaker 2: stupid questions any given day. Uh So, I really appreciate that. Man.
Speaker 2: I appreciate this chance to come on the show. But
Speaker 2: you can find anything p and Wild at p and
Speaker 2: wil dot com. P and Wild has a YouTube channel
Speaker 2: releasing a lot of cool hunts, and we did a
Speaker 2: wholming I'll Hunt in Montana deer hunt that's on our
Speaker 2: YouTube channel now, and so you can find us on YouTube,
Speaker 2: and then of course on all your social media platforms,
Speaker 2: Facebook and Instagram, and primarily just in our website PML
Speaker 2: dot com. You can find all that information. So appreciate it, man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate having you on. Thanks for sharing all
Speaker 1: your black bear knowledge. Falling in good luck out there.
Speaker 1: I know you're probably chumping to get out there and
Speaker 1: chase one down. So good luck on a ventures.
Speaker 2: Yes, YouTube man right around the corner. Can't wait. Have
Speaker 2: a good season, guys, I appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Take care.