Headed out this morning for my final archery elk hunt of the year. Was raining off and on, and not much was moving. Heard a bugle way down the canyon, from exactly where I know these elk to bed up, which sadly is on private land. Got as close as I could to them, but they were moving away and I had no shot at catching up. Took some time to do some scouting/learning for next year while I was out there, then got tired of being wet and cold.

Called a friend who has a bear tag and asked if he wanted to go try for a bear real quick. We met up and headed to check my doe carcass from yesterday. On approach, I could see that it had been moved about 15-20 feet downhill. So, we crept in quietly to check things out. No bear in sight, but you could tell at least one had been there. The tracks were a mess, but pretty apparent due to all the rain. There was one set there were pretty big, so I began to follow them. Within feet we came across a huge pile of crap, VERY fresh. I continued to do my best to follow the tracks. I'm not sure how far we went exactly, as we were creeping VERY slowly, painfully aware of what we were potentially tracking.

After a long while, losing tracks in grass a couple times and picking them back up, I was easing up on a corner made by a rock bluff when I heard something on the other side. It didn't sound like a twig being stepped on, more like a bone breaking. I eased around the corner, and there was a tremendous mound of brown fur about 30 yards in front of me! The bear picked his head up, and he was snacking on a deer leg (not from my kill). I guess that was the crunching I heard.

I backed up slowly, and motioned my compadre, who propped on the rock and let fly some lead @ 30 yards. Immediately dispatched, but the stupid bear was on a steep slope and rolled about 75 yards down the very slippery hill. Just HAD to make our hike out that much harder. He was a touch over 6' nose to tail stretched out, and had to be 300 lbs. The pics don't really capture just how THICK this bear was, he was solid front to back. HUGE block head on him, and a thick neck. Interesting to see what the teeth will come back as age wise, we are guessing 10+ maybe.

So, all in all thats 4 different species in 7 days that I have been in on (5 if you count those feathered mountaintop snacks, ha ah). Oh, and we found 2 different bullets in this bear when we shot it, both were small caliber (.380 is my guess) shot in the legs (one front, one back) which just lodged in his fat. Could find no evidence of damage to muscle or bone. I'm guessing this bear has spent some time in the neighborhoods... he was WAY to fat to have just been eating out in the forrest this year.



these claws are just terrifying... I should have gotten a pic of the teeth, easily bigger around than my thumb, and left side was worn WAY down.



The gunman


And the pack mule

Even in Kansas the GD elk taunt me!

It's 90*+ with a near 100* head index so I said F a bunch of deer hunting and found something else to do. I recently got permission to hunt a new piece of ground and it's not too promising on the deer front, but it's holding some dove and turkeys and has a nice pond on it. So I decided to load up the dogs, grab a shotgun and a couple of rods and try to multi-task.

When I got there I saw dove landing in a fallow ag field and decided to do a little dove hunting "upland style." I walked 'em up, even got a few short points from the dogs and ended up shooting 8 dove. Then I picked up the rods and started tossing a spinner bait. Caught a good number of crappie and bluegill before Puppy Charlie initiates a raccoon fight... Jeez, here we go again. By the time I can get around to the far side of the pond the noise is just awful. The sound of a dog and raccoon fighting is tough to describe. But all goes quiet as Charlie finishes the fight. He seems to not be too torn up. Okay, back to fishing and the light is fading. I start catching bass, a ton of them, all about 3/4-1#. Nothing big, but good fun on an ultralight rod. ...as I'm watching the setting sun, seeing fish start to feed on top off in the distance I hear an elk. What the...?? Oh, that's right there's a high fence place about a half mile down the road. For the last 20 minutes of light I catch little bass and listen to elk taunt me in the distance. ...whaddya know I actually got to HEAR an elk and I didn't have to waste $1000 or 2 weeks of my life to hear it.

TL;DnR: Caught a lot of little fish, shot a half limit of dove, listened to elk bugle, saw a pretty sunset. Good Night.

Awesome report. That really sucks about your muzzle loader though.

And I'm gonna have to disagree with you here:

Quote:

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The last pic was taken through a spotting scope, bull was a little to far away to go after.

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Unless that bull was already on private property, there isn't a distance that would keep me from going after him...