In November, 2000 we became interested in archery after our favorite elk guide, Joe Buckley had shared with us his adventures on bow hunting bull elk. He pointed out that we had the "sniper" tactic down pat; it was time to get "up close and personal" with elk. Our Colorado outfitter did not have an archery hunt opening available until 2002....so we started looking around for one for the fall of 2001, preferably in New Mexico.

We are life members of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation; RMEF had a banquet in Ft. Worth in February, 2001. These banquets are a lot of fun. The bidding on auction items can get very entertaining, especially if there's a cash bar nearby! A technique we use to help the RMEF raise more money at thier auction is to watch for someone bidding on an item with their wife's encouragement. If you watch carefully, you can raise the bid 2 or 3 times, with only a slight risk of taking home the item yourself! If you do accidentally end up with the item, Oh Well, the money goes for a great cause! We decided to attend the banquet, specifically to bid on an archery elk hunt in New Mexico.

At the banquet, to our disappointment, we found that there was not an archery elk hunt up for auction. However, we had the pleasure of meeting Mike and Bobbie Jo Robinson of Thunderbow Outfitters of Montana. (click here for Thunderbow) They had a sping Bear hunt up for auction. We visited with Mike and Bobbie Jo about the hunt before the bidding began. We decided that we really wanted to go on this hunt....and won the bid!

Via e-mail and phone, we talked more with the Robinsons about terrain, hunting conditions, accommodations, average length of shot, etc., and began our preparation for a May 12 departure. Part of the process was taking a bear identification course from the state of Montana on-line, required for our hunting permit. (click here for Bear ID course) Besides the fact that grizzlies are endangered, the repercussions from killing a grizzly bear are financially and legally devastating, unless the critter was actually in the process of chewing on a human when killed.

Because of the distance involved, we decided to fly rather than drive. We flew our Beech Baron, loaded to the hilt with our gear into Kalispell. It was a beautiful flight, with spectacular scenery. Bobbie Jo picked us up at the airport. After a short drive we arrived at their lodge, which they had christened the "Almosta" Lodge. We had our own comfortable cabin, and meals were home cooked and served family style.

Bear hunting in the spring in Montana is a very leisurely process. The bears don't get out of bed in the mornings until it warms up a bit, and lay up for a snooze in the midday if it gets warm. Mike told us to expect breakfast at 7:30 am, and to depart for the hunting area at 8:30 am. Wow! Sleeping late in hunting camp! We would hunt until 1 pm, have our big meal for the day mid-afternoon, and finish the day by hunting from 4 pm until dark (around 10 pm). Our spring bear hunt was to be a spot-and-stalk affair, walking the logging roads in the hunting area.

We bounced out of bed the next morning, ready to tackle the world, as soon as breakfast and test-firing our rifles had been accomplished. Mike set up a target for us in an old quarry on the way to the hunting area, at about 175 yards, the farthest distance we could get. He seemed puzzled that we wanted to check our scopes at 300 yards, which was the zero setting for our rifles. Evidently, most of the hunters he had guided were used to 100 yard or shorter shots! We drilled our sub-one-inch groups at 175 yards, verifying that the scopes hadn't been bumped during travel. Now we were ready!

That first morning of the hunt, we quietly worked away along an old logging road skirting a clear cut, then worked our way cross country and set up next to a natural pond. Along the way, we spotted a big bull elk in early velvet at about 250 yards; his antlers were only 6 inches tall, but the pedestal bases were easily 12-14 inches in circumference. As soon as we spotted him, Dale and I automatically got out our cow calls, and went to work. The bull seemed quite puzzled by the combination of 3 non-elk critters sounding like a cow elk in heat in the spring time. He thought about bugling back, then didn't.

At the pond, we got fussed at by a sandhill crane, and watched a pair of goldeneyes do a little nest-building. No bears showed up, so we slipped back through the clear cuts and walked out, heading for lunch.

On the highway headed back to the lodge for lunch, we noticed a sign for the Swan Lake Bar and Grill coming up on the left. Dale glanced at Mike, Mike grinned, and the left-turn signal went on. In the parking lot, Dale and I were shucking our sidearms when Mike told us to not bother--we were o.k. wearing our sidearms into the bar! He told us to leave the rifles in the truck, because the gun rack had been removed to make room for the juke box. We were halfway through our drinks when Mike glanced at his watch, and said we had to get moving. The bartender just poured our drinks into paper cups, and sent us on our way. Don't you just love Montana! (and guess what the crime rate is--zero!)

After an enormous mid-day meal and a snooze, we headed out for the evening hunt at 4 pm. Again working the logging roads, we still-hunted for miles through the clear cuts, but saw no bears. We found some bear sign, though, so things were looking up. After a spectacular sunset, we walked back out, done for the night.

Mike visited with the local game warden the next morning, who reported a bear had been seen in the area known as "South Lost." Mike felt the area would suit us well, as the area entailed long-distance shots of 200 to 500+ yards. We headed out with Mike's son, Ron, that morning.

South Lost is a spectacular area. A deep gorge with towering cliffs on one side, and a steep hillside, laced with streams, waterfalls, willows and mulberry bushes, reaches up the other. The road ended into a huge snowbank, at the snow line. We stopped the truck, and started glassing for bears. It just LOOKED like good bear country!

After about 30 minutes of walking around and glassing, we decided to head out and still-hunt another clear cut area. At the vehicle, we took one last look. Suddenly, Ron said, "I see a bear, and he's a big one!" Dale and I trained our binoculars on the hillside, and picked him up at the same time. We all three positively identified the bear as a black bear. We went into shooting mode.

Dale had earlier announced that I would be the shooter for the first eligible bear. Accordingly, I deployed the bipods on my rifle, and dropped into sitting position (my favorite shooting position). The bear was moving rapidly across the hill, and the yardage was 468 yards. Not being an experienced shooter with a moving target, and having difficulty acquiring the bear, I told Dale to take him, and that I would spot. I set my rifle to the side, and started ranging the bear with my rangefinder. Dale put his rifle on his coat across the hood of the Bronco, and acquired the bear. I called the updated yardage (486), and the wind (left to right, 0 to 5 at the truck, left to right 5-10 mid range, negligible at the target). Dale fired, and the bear looked like he hit a trip wire. The bear tumbled out of site.

Ron looked a little stunned, I was grinning like a kid at a watermelon picnic, and Dale kept his rifle on the hillside, in case the bear reappeared. Ron and I both reassured him, there was no WAY that bear was getting back up!

After grabbing a walkie-talkie, Ron headed up the hill. I watched Ron toil up the slope and Dale kept his rifle trained up the hill if the bear happened to reappear. A walkie-talkie announced: "I've found him! Nice bear--big cinnamon phase boar!" After some suitable (but quiet) whooping and hollering, Dale and I grabbed our daypacks and headed up the hillside to Ron and the bear.

The hillside was amazingly steep; the stream running down the middle of it, that the bear crossed while we were glassing him, had several waterfalls of 5-10 feet along the way. It took us flatlanders a lot longer to get up to the bear, but we eventually made it. What we found was a gorgeous, cinnamon-phase, 6 foot black bear, in perfect pelt, weighing about 300 lbs. After taking lots of pictures, it was time to field-dress the bear, then get him out of there.

Field-dressing was a challenge, due to the 30 degree slope we were on. We ended up with Dale holding one front leg, me holding the other, and Ron doing the honors, with the bear laying on his back with his hindfeet down hill. When he was almost finished, Ron stopped and asked us if we wanted the bear's gall bladder. In the ensuing discussion (Dale and I had no idea what to do with the thing if we had it, even though it was supposedly very valuable in Japan), our decision was suddenly made for us--something gave way inside the bear, and the entire gut pile popped loose, rolled down the hill into the stream, and then off it went! The stream turned bright red for several hundred yards, especially below the waterfalls. Ron, Dale and I almost ended up with the same fate, we were laughing so hard!

Now it was time to get the bear safely down the hillside. Bears are difficult to move--they don't have a rack to grab or tie a rope to, and their feet don't have the "grabbable" ankle a hoofed animal's has. After some discussion, we bundled the bear into a large body bag, the type used in veterinary practices for large deceased dogs. We then started rolling the bear down the hill, like a beach ball.

The beach ball thing worked until about halfway down, when the bag was hopelessly torn on the brambles and branches. We didn't want to drag the bear, as his pelt was in perfect condition. Ron tried to carry the bear, but he was way too heavy. After eyeballing the bear and then me, we decided to put my orange safety vest on him (we were about the same size through the chest and shoulders); when buttoned up, the vest would give us a handle on the bear. Dale took off his jacket and rolled it up. We passed it under the bear's hips, and carried him sling-style. Dale and I were on either side of the rear, and Ronny handled the front.

After a lot of sweating, slithering, sliding, and laughing, we finally made it back to the truck. We took another picture of our "Safety Bear", then headed back to the lodge in triumph.

Back at the lodge, the game warden came by to check-in the bear...and quciky announced "nice griz"...Ha Ha Ha!..He had us for a second though! After skinning the bear (we wanted to do a whole-body mount, and every bit of meat to go home), we ate another huge lunch. We headed out for the evening hunt about 5:00 pm. We still-hunted through clear cuts and along logging roads for 8-10 miles. We didn't see a bear, but we did run across a cow elk about to drop her calf. She had chosen a tiny, secluded meadow we came within 100 yards of. Huge with child, she was reluctant to run from us; instead, she carefully watched us as we went by.

The third full day of the hunt went much the same way. We covered miles of country, carefully working our way along. We saw bear tracks, and some bear sign, but no bears. The evening of the fourth day, my luck finally changed. We had walked back into a logging area we hadn't been through before. At last light, we reached the end of the logging road at the last clear cut. We rounded the corner, looked down the clear cut, and spotted two bears!

Dale and I instantly went into shooting mode. I deployed my bipods, and dropped into a sitting shooting position. Dale ranged the bears, while Ronny glassed them thoroughly and verified they weren't grizzlies. He revealed the black-phase bear was a sow, and the cinnamon-phase bear was a nice boar. Dale verified the range at 226 yards, which is "point and click" range for our rifles. I touched off the shot when the bear turned broadside. The Bear tumbled and somehow was able to get up and make his way to the edge of the clear-cut. With it getting so close to dark, and not wanting to take the chance of losing a obviously wounded bear, we all decided that I should go ahead and finsh the bear rather than waiting on him to expire. Once we got to the bear, both shots were right in the boiler room, but you never know that until you inspect the animal.

After field dressing the bear, it was full dark. No time to go get four wheelers and such. We elected to try carrying the bear out sling-fashion, as a large grizzly had been seen several times in the area and I didn't want my beautiful bear to get eaten by anyone but us. It was very eerie carrying that bear out in the dark--amazing how many stick-breaking and brush-crashing critters we spooked up along the way! Dale and I were convinced the grizzly was following us! (and the griz sometimes do come to the sound of rifle shots, as many times there is a tasty gut pile for them to feast on.)

Mike was able to talk his favorite processor into processing our bears the following day. We skinned the second bear before breakfast and called the game warden for check-in. We spent the day just being tourist. We ran some errands with the Robinsons, drove around Swan Lake, checked their tack for the upcoming trail season and were entertained that night by some of Mike's relatives at thier beautiful mountain-side home. We were able to pick up all of our meat the following morning.

We headed back to Texas in triumph, our airplane stuffed with bear hides, skulls and meat. What a wonderful hunt!

By the way..the State of Montana will send you a postcard telling you the age of your bear (from the tooth the game warden takes).....Dale's bear was 11, and Janice's was 8...two beautiful, mature, excellent representatives of their specie...now immortalized in our trophy room!

Taxidermy by Penny Hess

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