GRIZ!

[InTheSchool]

I am happy to report a very succesful hunt in B.C.

I flew in a week ago last Friday and met my guide/outfitter at the floatplane. We flew out to his remote camp and found someone had cleaned the place out! So we got a tarp out of the plane and cut pine bows to sleep on and roughed it.

The next morning we climbed this mountain to glass from. The color is blue berry bushes. Before I could get my binocs up Les spotted one and before I could find that bear he he found another. It turns out there were eight grizzlys feeding in the vally on the next mountain. It took a while to formulate a plan of attack. Finally the bears seperated and we had a clean path to the silver tip I wanted. While we were climbing down we could hear the bear roaring at each other! I realized that grizzly just might be more agressive than blackies.

We dropped our packs at the bottom and climbed up this mountant to get above the grizzly. The last hundred yards I was literally pulling myself up with wands feet and shear determination! When Les got on top and spotted the griz still feeding 150 yards away, the pain disappeared.

I got prone and waited for the perfect shot. This is the vantage point. The lake in the background is where we flew into and where we had to go. The first shot took out the heart but didn't drop the bear. The second got him rolling down the mountain and the third was not needed. He got stuck in a little creek in the cut. We had to skin him there as there was no possibility of moving him.

Dropping our packs seemed like a good idea at the time; but Les left his skinning knife, I left my sharpener, and the frame. We rough skinned him and left the paws and head in. Then we rolled the hide up and carried it with my belt until that broke. Naturally the hide rolled down into the creek again. So we drug and carried and wrapped up in the grizzly stole. But we got to the bottom. After retriveing the packs the fun really started. We still had three miles of blow down and tanglefoot to get through. After five hours we staggered into camp. The wind was perfect for a easy takeoff from this small lake so Les packed the plane while I broke camp. We were out of there in less than 24 hours! But it took over a week to fully recover from the physical work out of that day. I have never hunted so hard for anything. But I wouldn't have wanted it any other way!

[sticknstring]

Congratulations on a quick yet successful hunt. Looks like a beautiful place to a spend a few days in the bush. Nice bear.

[picksbigwagon]

How cool is that.........that bear looks to be the size of BUICK. what did he square out at? What caliber were you using? are you going to a full body mount or make a rug?

[InTheSchool]

He squared just over 8'. I was using a 300WSM with handloads (200 grain Nosler partitions at about 2900 fps). The hide weighed as much as a buick by the time we got back to camp! After hearing those bear roaring I really want to get a full body mount with him on all fours raising one paw and his mouth open in a roar! ( I always thought those bear in the movies roaring was hollywood. But it made the hair on the back of my neck rise when I heard it in the wild!)

[Studer]

UNBELIEVABLE!!!! Good hunt....Congrats!!

[PierBridge]

Oh my...what a beauty!

Congrats!

[paceman]

Outstanding....Congratulations!!!!!!

[DonBo]

WOW! Way to go. Pretty exciting. Thanks for sharing.

[BigWadeS]

congrats and great story.

[snapcrackpop]

Any meat?

[bigsandynorth1]

Just curious, what would a trip like that cost. Thanks

[Shoot2Kill]

Dang nice hair on that bear! I love how dark he is.

He looks like a car laying there, camera angles are fun.

[mrklean]

Now that is cool. What yardage did you get him at 150?

[CrookedLake]

I'm very envious.... if not jealous! Awesome pics. and an awesome hunt!

[Sam Sterner]

Not much to say but congrats on the awesome hunt! Dream for me to do that. One day, one day...

[harvey lee]

Awesome looking animal.

[machohorn]

I was elk hunting in Wyoming and just the sight of "Danger Grizzley Bears in this area" made me really nervous< used different wording at the time, Very nice bear there and Congrats!

[Sandmannd]

Nice bear, that thing is huge!!

[InTheSchool]

The bear are wormy in that area so no meat is required to be salvaged. I planned for the trip for four years. I found an outfitter who let me pay over time and book on 2004 prices. The basic cost was $8000. It included a grizzly, two black bear and a wolf. Licenses were an extra $1600. The trophy fees were supposed to be $750 for black bear and wolf and $2500 for Grizzly. Les didn't charge me trophy fees for the black bear. I was unsuccessful in the spring and Les let me come back for the cost of his airplane fuel ($850). Then the provence charges $1000 royality for a grizzly. I wanted a hunt that was not a guarentee but with good weather, conditioning and a little luck would be possible. I feel like I got everything I could have asked for. This is the only expierience I have had with a guided hunt and is the only way you can hunt grizzly bear. I believe mountain grizzly are the most difficult trophy left on this continent.

[mrklean]

To bad you couldnt get any of the meat, bear isnt to bad to eat

[Double D]

A fair amount of cash, but looks like it was worth every penny.

DD

[natalie]

First of all I wanna say congrats!!! Second of all, I wanna say thanks for making the deciding factor for my boyfriend... he's now wants to hunt GRIZZLY!!! EEK! We elk hunt in Montana every year and that is my biggest fear.. besides cats!

[InTheSchool]

It's amazing that 4 years ago there didn't seem to be any possibility of hunting Griz in the lower 48. But now it sounds like there will be limited hunting in Montana. That is really cool. These big guys can only survive in the really wild places. That was the appeal to me.

[Tippman]

To bad you couldnt get any of the meat, bear isnt to bad to eat

I've heard that people don't usually eat grizzly bear actually. It's one of the few animals in alaska that you aren't required to pack out. I wish I knew more details about this though.

[InTheSchool]

Here is what he looks like now. The wife and I tok a great drive out to Prince George to pick him up. The taxidermist couldn't have done a better job.