Griz in Colo.?

[EYJONAS!]

Looks like a cinnamon sow to me.

 

[Deleted member 28227]

Looks like a cinnamon sow to me.

All 85lbs of her lol

 

[EYJONAS!]

All 85lbs of her lol

Shit that's a solid montana blackie......... kinda like a 125 mule deer 4 pointer. Click. BOOM

 

[Little Canyon Creek]

"The mind is fickle when you want to believe something, I saw a bear that I'm still kinda sure was a grizz in the bridgers (wasn't)."

Cool picture of that sow!

Wllm1313, I think you are right in that we see what we want to see. My last year in Montana we watched a black bear feed out in the open for 20 min at under 500 yards. It looked like a really nice bear, stomach lower to the ground, not a small head, feeding out in the open unafraid in grizzly country, stuff like that. I climb that cliff of a slope and get within a 100 yards. Come out from behind the trees, things happen fast, she is by the trees and I shoot. After the shot I go over to look for signs of a hit when I hear this bawling up in a tree. Up there was that years cub. I have never felt so awful while hunting as I did in that moment. I go and get my dad so we could search for blood, all the while thinking about getting the cub out of the tree and packing it the four miles to the trailhead so we could get it to FWP. My dad didn't see a bear come out the other side of the timber, so we knew she hadn't left and died somewhere else. We get up there again and search some more, and didn't find any blood, but light was fading. We stayed out all night so we could get a early start in the morning. We didn't find any blood and the cub was gone in the morning. We eventually came to the conclusion that I missed, the sow hid in the trees and then grabbed the cub in the middle of the night when she thought it was safe. That was the best miss in my life.

Sometimes I think about what the hell went wrong when we were trying to be really careful about targeting boars. Sometimes I wondered if the sow just had a WNBA-sized body. Now I think that it was probably a bigger sow, but the really steep angle with the broadside view may have really messed with our size judgment. I did get Rocky Mountain Spotted Tick fever after a tick found me that night. Probably a little bit of karmic justice there.

I hadn't gone bear hunting since then (2013), more because of grad school taking up all of my time, but also a little bit of worry about this happening again. I had some more time this year though, between finishing my degree and starting my postdoc, so I decided to get back on the horse and picked up a leftover bear tag for SW Colorado. I spent a lot of time quizzing myself on pictures of the internet, but I also decided to go into it with a "think it is a sow and prove to yourself it is a boar" kind of mindset. I found the bears, but I didn't seal the deal. Seven miles in by myself with 80 F+ temps and no good trees to hang stuff in had me skittish about taking care of the meat. But the bear judging went a lot easier I think this time around. I was able to pick out the boars and sows more easily than I had before.

 

[sbhooper]

This has kind of varied off the grizz thing, but that is called a "forum". I hiked into a wilderness area one time, that was north of where I lived in New Mexico. Of course, there were no griz, but I hiked for two hours to get to the top of this area. Near the top, I walked up on a beautiful brown bear that I thought was as good as I could get. I leveled my 7 mag across a rock and pulled the trigger. The bear came steaming by me-CLOSE! I had cut a groove across the top of the shoulders of the bear. After that bear passed, a cub crawled out of a tree a short way away from me. I was sick, but glad that I had only inflicted a flesh wound on this bear. If I had needed to call my game warden buddy, he would have had to cite me for killing a sow with cub. (To this day, I have not killed a bear. LOL)

Things are not always as they seem and you hope for the best. Lots of sightings may, or may not be grizzlies, but do not discount the possibility that those savages are there, until proven otherwise. A friend of mine had a griz in his back yard in Rawlins, Wyoming, and the Game and Fish did not even bother to notify residents that he was there. The bear was trapped and relocated.

There may, or may not be a population of bears in an area, but that does not mean that there are not some bears there. Talk to some people in Ten Sleep, Wyoming and tell them that there are no griz there. They have trapped them as far east as Lovel, Wyoming, so they can be and probably ARE there. They have been sighted well down the Greybull River system, also. The only thing separating the Big Horns, from major griz populations, is a desert. It would probably be shocking, if you actually knew how many griz were killed by ranchers on that "desert".

If you are talking breeding populations, that is one thing, but bears, as well as other animals can, and do travel long distances. One must keep an open mind on this stuff, instead of just writing it off as bs.

 

[Little Canyon Creek]

sbhooper, glad you were able to escape your situation as well.

Actually, my dad's family is from the Ten Sleep area, having homesteaded in the early days. I forget which, but either my great-grandfather or great, great-grandfather had to testify at the Spring Creek raid trial (he wasn't a part of it, thank god). I have run around the hills fishing and hunting on the old homestead since I was a little kid. I can say that, without a doubt, there are no grizzlies in that country currently. Some of my family would probably crucify me for saying this, but I wish there was some. I keep rooting for them to make it across the valley. Maybe it will happen during my lifetime.

There is actually an old picture of some family members in the 30s up on the mountain. It was a summer camping trip and my grandma was there. Actually, another forum member's family is also in the picture. On the trip one of the guys found a black bear and got it with our families old Winchester 95 in 30-40 Krag. If I remember right, the rifle looked as beat up and neglected then as it does now. There isn't a very large bear population there today, as it isn't great bear habitat. But they seem to be on the upswing. I saw some tracks in 2018 the day I got my deer, our family friend saw one, and our neighbors got one recently. I would really love to someday recreate that bear hunt with that old, beat up 30-40.

 

[Little Canyon Creek]

One of my favorite parts of Roosevelt's Hunting Trips of a Ranchman was when he talked about hunting grizzlies in the Bighorns. If I remember correctly, he talks about coming over the top, looking down a canyon, and seeing a creek run into the Bighorn basin. The creek isn't named, probably because it didn't have a European name yet. So I always wonder if he was looking down Shell canyon, Ten Sleep canyon or one of the other ones. Maybe it was the canyon that our creek goes through? A guy can dream.

Seeing the grizzlies come back to the Bighorns would bring some challenges, but it would definitely be cool.

 

[kansasdad]

sbhooper, glad you were able to escape your situation as well.

Actually, my dad's family is from the Ten Sleep area, having homesteaded in the early days............

There is actually an old picture of some family members in the 30s up on the mountain. It was a summer camping trip and my grandma was there. Actually, another forum member's family is also in the picture. On the trip one of the guys found a black bear and got it with our families old Winchester 95 in 30-40 Krag.

I sure would love to see that picture!!

One day while fishing just below your Grandpa's place, I had a strange feeling of being watched, so I stepped out of the stream and went into the hay meadow. I sat there for over ten minutes before that sense of being watched passed. It was probably nothing, but if it was anything, I always imagined that a lion was watching me, without ever a thought about it being a bear, as I have seen lions higher up around there, but not ever a bear, or even heard stories of bears on that end of the Bighorns.

 

[Western Traveler1]

Seeing the grizzlies come back to the Bighorns would bring some challenges, but it would definitely be cool.

Personally I enjoyed hunting the Big Horns without the constant need to watch for grizzlies for a change. Plenty of places in Mt and WY already to experience hunting grizzly country if desired.

 

[Little Canyon Creek]

Kansasdad, my dad just sent me the picture. My grandma is in the one to the right that is fully in the picture. I will Pm you with the other names my dad gave me. He said this was from either 1936 or 1937 on a summer pack trip they took. My dad sent this picture to my grandma and a picture of me with one of my bears and said we were the only family members to have their pictures with a dead bear. Apparently she got a kick out of that. I had forgotten about the blaze on the chest. What a pretty bear.

Other than this one picture, I hadn't heard anything about bears in the area growing up. But one time we were talking to the local warden 6-7 years ago and he told us there was a decent population of bears. Nothing huge, either population or size wise, but they were there. I looked it up and some people do get bears there, but some years the quota goes unfilled. There are probably way better places to hunt in Wyoming if your goal is to maximize success rate on big bears, but spending time with friends and family in a quieter time of the year is appealing.

 

[Little Canyon Creek]

Personally I enjoyed hunting the Big Horns without the constant need to watch for grizzlies for a change. Plenty of places in Mt and WY already to experience hunting grizzly country if desired.

That is fair, but it is a personal preference. I could turn it around and say I would prefer there was grizzlies in the Big Horns so there would be less demand for the elk tags I want. There is a lot of areas in the west that have lots of elk and don't have grizzlies, so it isn't like people are hurting for choices for areas to hunt.

But I don't know if the kinda minor sporting preferences of non-resident hunters should matter a ton when considering the conservation of native species. If grizzly bears came to that side of the basin, eventually hunters would adapt to the new normal. Actual biological considerations and potential landowner conflicts should matter more in my opinion. You would have to get some sort of buy in from the local landowners, which I think would be tough. I remember reading about Game and Fish meeting where a lot of residents of Cody were up in arms about removing brook trout from a local creek and putting the native yellowstone cutthroat back in. That is a pretty insignificant change in the grand scheme of things. The difference between no grizzlies and grizzlies is a much bigger change.

 

[Western Traveler1]

That is fair, but it is a personal preference. I could turn it around and say I would prefer there was grizzlies in the Big Horns so there would be less demand for the elk tags I want. There is a lot of areas in the west that have lots of elk and don't have grizzlies, so it isn't like people are hurting for choices for areas to hunt.

But I don't know if the kinda minor sporting preferences of non-resident hunters should matter a ton when considering the conservation of native species. If grizzly bears came to that side of the basin, eventually hunters would adapt to the new normal. Actual biological considerations and potential landowner conflicts should matter more in my opinion. You would have to get some sort of buy in from the local landowners, which I think would be tough. I remember reading about Game and Fish meeting where a lot of residents of Cody were up in arms about removing brook trout from a local creek and putting the native yellowstone cutthroat back in. That is a pretty insignificant change in the grand scheme of things. The difference between no grizzlies and grizzlies is a much bigger change.

All fair points and I do believe hunters would adapt, however if reintroduced I would hope population controls would have finally been put in place. (I thought the ranchers in the basin have already stated their position, Isn’t it the current buffer zone)? As to the brook trout that is fun fishery. The Big Horns are pretty special...

 

[chuck500Jeff]

Honestly, I would love to see G-bears reintroduced into Colorado... so I'm kinda with Yvon on this one.

Me too! I used to live, guide and hunt in the Bob Marshall in the 1970s. It puts a bit of an edge on things (no pun intended).

 

[ILbowhntr]

Fiction... For now. They're cute and cuddly - same as those wolves.

Care of the very scientific based organization, The Center for Biological Diversity;

and of course, their campaign (funded in part by Patagonia)

Interesting. I was told by someone last year where I hunted in CO that there was a boar grizzly roaming around in the area but that he mostly hung out on the edge of RMNP. The story included a personal sighting of the near during a horse ride several miles back away from any roads. I have no way to validate this, but it did make me a bit more aware of my surroundings as I was hunting solo last year. It is certainly something I’ll be following as long as I’m hunting out west…which will hopefully be for many more years.