into a bear just give me the bear spray
this week you'll be tagging along on a journey into the grizzly infested
backcountry of western Wyoming for a hunt that truly embodies the Eastmans'
legacy settle in for an episode packed with all the trials and tribulations of
a DIY backcountry hunt a crazy mix of highs and lows steep painstaking hikes
through some of the most picturesque landscape imaginable
September 15th found us setting up base camp in an old familiar location just
three short years ago I drew the exact same tag and was fortunate enough to
kill a tremendous public land bull here on Wyoming this is one of the few states
of maybe three or four they have grizzly bears on public land it's kind of funny
because I live up there with grizzly bears and a lot of people are so scared
of when they go hunt in these different areas they use horses and they don't get
off their horse and they go back to camp where there's a trailer they think a
grizzly bear is waiting to ambush them and it's the craziest thing well God
gets a permit he puts in for this area and it has Grizzlies and it's a DIY it's
public land you've had that a couple times have you well have you had that
this you've you're taken or four times I think you've taken four look good Bulls
like anything you get to know an area especially with elk once you know the
area you learn it you know where they like it certain times a year it's it
becomes more and more automatic during the three phases because you are three
hunting different places in your rifle hunting real that's what happened to
this hunt wasn't it
so we're going into one of my honey holes that I know they really like to
rut in there's a huge wallow up here
he's out when they rut their temperature goes through the roof they get really
high temperatures around now to cool themselves off muddy themselves up it
also kind of puts her scent in there and so when you see a wallow like this that
has a lot of small ones different spots GZ the same bull he's just kind of
marking his territory these are all six to eight feet across just wear one bulls
just kind of rolled around a little bit he hasn't really muddied it up and caked
himself up so by October first these walls will be blown out to 2034 you
around in diameter as the fog began to roll in a distant bugle broke the
silence
sounded like a younger bull but having no other options we decided to move in
and set up
well that was pretty exciting probably 20 25 yards I don't know
I heard three small bulls beautiful and I thought I heard a bigger bowl so me
will have to come in here tomorrow and see if we can find a big bull Wyoming
my elk bow hunt has been slow and we're drawing near the end of our time to hunt
after covering miles of country hiking glassing and calling we finally struck
up a bugling bull on the fourth day of the hunt
see him? here he comes
unfortunately as often is the case in the steep varying topography of the
Rocky Mountains swirling wind currents blew our cover this is the last day of
the hunt with bugling activity at a standstill we decided to back out to a
good vantage point and break out the spotting scope in hopes of locating a
bull to hunt during the rifle season in a few weeks as luck would have it it
wasn't long until we turned up a big bowl feeding through a virtually
inaccessible isolated pocket on the mountainside a few miles in the distance
here's what we're doing rifle season hike up to that knob in the middle just
camp there as you can see you know both sides wait for it
it just I just didn't have the time to spend on it because I had to go on to
other hunt so I beau hunted for five days
didn't work out by the time I made it back up here it was well into the rifle
season in October it's all all changed then and when we were both hunting in
nurse I saw one of the biggest grizzly bear track I've ever seen in the dirt
like soft powdery dirts was like perfect it was as close to eight inches across
the pad as I've ever seen it was huge then we came back and rifle season and I
saw the bear we saw his track in September he's been in here all fall and
I measured his patent it's almost eight inches across his front track so you
wouldn't run to meet him coming down the trail when you're headed up I'll tell
you that right now after that we hiked into a spot and boy
those guys the guys I was with they weren't from around here they're little
cagey once we got it there in the guys you know they don't get real they get a
little panicky but when it starts to get dark that's when stuff gets a little
panicky that's a big grizzly just what you want
to see when you're out come right luckily this huge grizzly was headed in
the opposite direction of our bull let's do it got a bull up here that died out
of spotted yesterday came back in this morning found him again this morning
it's 4 o'clock thinks about an hour to get there but it should be perfect
timing to wait for him to come out and if he comes out on the hillside he's
gonna be toasted so Burgin I can well we made out the worst part that big steep
face now kinda on the ridge line got up here one thing I always want to do for I
close the distance I stock and make sure I'm you know good and rested
a little bit and cooled down not too sweaty not huffing and puffing just in
case some happens but I also want to check the wind and the wind's good it's
just coming drifted straight down not long after we crested the ridge we ran
headfirst into a group of satellite bulls we bump these bulls off the other
side and split up the group things are looking good to get this big ball on the
ground this evening
going up toward the cow you see him pop out right now
I'm gonna come out
coming up to the cow
that's making a pack out a little easier as a vendor toaster didn't he although
the shot was only a little over 300 yards the hike over to the bull was
probably twice that straight down one side and straight up the other there he
is nice Wyoming public land do-it-yourself
bull look at that we'll come back in the morning and pack him out but we're going
to leave him whole we're gonna gut him up right here and come back first thing
in the morning pack him out hopefully there's not a barrel couldn't be happier
got him got it out and taken care of and now it's time to walk back to the truck
in the headlamps loaded full of meat no we left it there to come get it next
morning but you got to walk out to the truck with blood up to your elbows in
the dark after you'd seen an eight-foot grizzly little earlier in the day and
let me tell you boys weren't too far behind
well uh bull's just right up here looks like the birds found 'em, but there's
not a bear on it although Bender was a little nervous you
can tell but you can tell bears on it if the birds are in the air they won't come
in with bears there well here he is the bull from last night we finally got him
drugged out from underneath the tree just a really nice public land do it
yourself Wyoming bull doesn't get much better than this we shot him from that
saddle up there about 350 yards we didn't see any bears in the area or on
him thank goodness so everything's good to go got nice and cool last night and
he's ready to be broken down and taken to the meat locker so it's a really nice
bull it was a tremendous tremendous experience and and didn't come easy as
you saw from the footage it was straight up straight down in this country but
that's what you have to do back here a lot of times you just got to get off the
beaten path and go where other guys won't go I mean you can't get horses or
four-wheelers in here and that's why these elk are in here so just a just a
real trophy and them couldn't be happier so we're going to get him broke down and
packed out of here got the crew from the office here to help me we had a great
time back here and now it's time to get the work started so until next time
remember fair chase is the only way to hunt and take trophy big game we'll see
you next week right here on Eastmans' Hunting TV