Dear Family,
Rob and I had a most excellent bear hunt in the wilds of Idaho. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be; it looks easy on the youtube of hunt videos that you can watch.
Here we are on a "Blind" waiting for the Bear to come to the bait. This is an open blind with no protection and we got soaked in these blinds. I've got the Casull pistol in hand because last week, A bear came right up to a hunter in this blind, grunted and walked off leaving the lone hunter in a state of shock. We were ready but did not see a bear that day. The weather was poor with run, hail and cold weather so they were not moving.
The hunting area was abut two hours from Lewiston, ID. The directions were great; Drive to Lewiston, cross the Salmon river and keep going.
Go along and turn right at the dog bread and breakfast and there it was, dog shaped bread and breakfast with the doggie cabins in the back. We drove up this mountain to 4500 feet on a narrow, one lane road with hair pin switch bak turns, sheer drop off on the right. The closest town was a place called Cottonwood ID.
We found the camp which was packed with hunters and a bunch of family, They had no room for us in their cabins.
They had a storage hut that
Rob is standing in front of which they cleaned out and we were there for a couple of nights. It had a propane stove on the all that leaked. The good cabin is the one on the right. They brought in a bed for
Rob and Rob brought his great recliner for me.
The main cabin was a converted school house where we all ate. Speak of eating, I lost weight there. Here is the Bear Hunters diet I followed because I could not eat some of the food. Breakfast sourdough pancakes, really good, with sourdough biscuits. Lunch was a little more problematic so I had broth, a biscuit and jello. Had to be careful about dinner but the Elk Ravioli was good as were the pies. I lost two inches of waist as there were no snacks or drinks. I told
Mom that I should go again to lose weight.
When hunting on a bait, you have to be quiet and not move.
Here we are in another open blind on a sunny afternoon. On the fourth day we were in such a blind and it started to pour and I did not have any Goretex rain gear so retreated to Rob's truck.
Rob went back down the trail and sat there playing chess on his iPhone, looked up and saw a medium sized Bear on the bait. He took a picture with the iPhon and then put in a shot with the 450 Alaskan lever action. He hit it but it launched itself into the woods. There was a good trail but it was raining and getting dark and the trail disappeared. They tried to find it that night but could not. The outfitter and
Rob tried to find it the next morning but .the trail petered out and the hunter felt this was a slight wound and the Bear appeared to be alright. The week before, the hunters were only able to recover 50% of shot bear which is not great.
We stayed another day on a different blind, 150 yards away. A great Momma Bear came to the bait with two cubs. This was a beautiful blond, big rolly polly bear unbothered by the two of us and she and the cubs picked the bait dry and the hunt was over. That bear was tempting but illegal to shoot with two cubs even though the cubs were of good size.
It was interesting to be up there with hunters who were experienced bear hunters. Only two bears were taken for about seven hunters so many struck out. It is always great to be in the woods no matter what. We had a great experience. Rob was very helpful and kind all the time and we had a good time in site of the weather and dearth of bears.
Now on to Michigan, Love,
Dad
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