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Well we grow them a little bigger up here in Wyoming.  It could be the longer hair from the time of year I shot him.  Fur prices were excellent last year too.  My friend averaged about $550 per cat with one cat getting him $800.  It's too bad I spent money on this one instead of selling.   If he every gets done, he'll be a permanent fixture in my house.  Thanks all.

My friend comes to work after archery hunting elk down in the junipers.  He tells a story that everyone thinks is BS.  Basically, he's cow calling with a friend and the friend suddenly yells, "There's a cat right behind you!!!".  My friend tells me that he just turns his body (thank goodness he is a lefhanded shot) pulls his bow back and sees a cougar crouching in the juniper trees at about 9 yards.  He lets it go and drills it right between the eyes.  After the backflip it takes off running with the arrow sticking out of its head.  They gave it about 45 minutes and went looking for it.  The followed a steady blood trail into some thick stuff and it hissed at them and I guess they figured that was that.  They called the Game and Fish department and they investigated the self defense shooting.  They even tried looking for it a little bit.  After that was all over, I told my buddy that when we were on days off I'd get my dogs and we'd look for the carcass.  We went down there and I let the dogs go as we approached the area.  He wasn't lying!  Everything was still there after 5 days of no rain.  Even all the pools of blood.  As we approached the thicket where the cougar had hissed at them, my dogs started barking.  I knew they had found the carcass.  Or had they?  They started barking more and I thought to myself, "this cat is still alive!"  Not too long after that thought crossed my mind, I see a cougar running through the junipers with my dogs right on top of it.  It trees up after a short run.  I thought I might shoot it because I have a cougar tag, but my friend had purchased one.  I get his pistol out of his pack and make our way down to it.  The shot rings out and the cat jumps the tree, and it's headed right for me.  I actually yell and take a shot at it with my AR from my hip.  Luckily it didn't hit my dogs.  The cougar runs a bit and falls.  My dogs try to finish it off.  Here are some of the pictures.  The arrow was no longer in it's head but I don't think it was all there mentally anymore.  It probably was near starvation too.   I have to admit I wasn't exactly calm during the whole situation.  My dogs aren't cougar dogs.  They are coyote dogs and are pretty good trackers.  I was worried about a wounded cougar and what it might do to my babies.

Here's a picture of a cat I dosed while it was taking a nap.  If it wasn't for where he was laying down and the fresh snow, I doubt I would have spotted him.  

Rockinbar, looks like you're having quite the year.  Keep the dog pictures coming.  I'll try to get some more of my mountain curs.  You might check out the Dog Hunting threads, posting some sweet pictures there soon.  How do you get the pictures to show up in the thread where people don't have to click them?  I try to insert them after I've uploaded them, but the blue boxes only show up.

Hey all!  Good to be back after a pretty good season!  This is my first elk with my bow.  I've taken quite a few bulls with my rifle but this one might actually be the biggest.  We managed to pack out the elk in one trip... one very tiring trip.  When the meat was weighed, we each had about 100lbs of food in our packs.  That's the most I've ever gotten into our pack and I'll tell you, the strain of packing 100lbs down a steep mountain on very dry ground can't be described.  

I couldn't have done it without having my good luck charm in camp with me that day.  Notice the date stamps on the pictures.  I've got some other neat pictures from a wild season.  I'll give you a clue.  It involves a cougar.

Rockinbar, did you host some THL coyote hunts down on your place?  I seem to remember some hunting going on in NM.  Here's some more pictures from the past.  One of the pictures I'm using an electronic call, but I've since sold it and went back to hand calls.  The 10 dogs were called using a hand call.

I scored the bear at 20 4/16".  That's good enough for the "Awards" book of the B&C but "ALL-TIME" is at least 21".  This spot and stalk stuff is pretty fun up here in the mountains where you can do some glassing.  I read quite a bit about how to do it.  Essentially, the earlier the better for the boars.  The boars are the first to come out and those south facing slopes are the best because the snow leaves first and they can graze on the new grass.  I lucked out a lot since I couldn't get to the high country.  It also helped because this bear might have left the high country because of all the snow to venture where he could find that new grass.  As I tracked him, I found a big pile of scat which looked almost like horse manure.  It was really green and I could see lots of blades of grass.  Idaho has many more bears than us.  Besides this bear, I have only seen 1 bear and that was at a campground.  I've seen video in Idaho where they hunt bears like you would hunt elk.  They go up and they are seeing 7 or 8 bears on the ridges.  I feel bad for my friend because he still hasn't killed one and he's been baiting for at least 3 years.  Everyone else has killed bears on his bait, but he still has no luck.

I'm also including the google earth image of the bear hunt.  I went once last year, but discovered that if I wanted to spot and stalk bear in the mountains, I would need snowshoes.  I was tracking bear last year but never spotted him.  This  year I couldn't hunt the same area because we couldn't even get onto the forest because of all the snow.  I cruised farther south and headed to the mountains.  I drove up a road as far as I could and started my hike.  A half mile from the truck, I crossed a good bear track and followed him out.  He went up on snow free ridge and I kept a lookout on that ridge because I figured he'd be eating the grass growing there.  As I worked my way further up the drainage, I decided to head up a ridge and try some bear calling.  Midway up the hill, I heard some rocks and dirt slide down the hill up above me.  It didn't have any thuds like a deer or elk.  I watched the ridge behind me for 10 minutes and just as I was going to give up on the sound, I saw something dark cross the ridge.  I sat down for a while and then continued up the ridge and right where I heard the noise, I saw fresh bear tracks.  I followed the tracks through the mud and snow and came up the opposite ridge right where I saw the dark object.  From there I heavily glassed the opposing ridge and draw hoping to find where the bear was.  On the furthest point of the ridge, I saw a lone tree above a stand of trees.  It looked like something was under it, but I thought it could be a stump or a bed or red pine needles.  I headed across the ridge not giving up any altitude and still hunted my way, just hoping to see the bear again.  As I came up out of some quaken aspen and up a little horizon, I saw the tops of the pines I had glassed.  I figured I better check out the stump under the tree.  I stood on my tippy toes and looked.  It was a big ball of fur!!  I couldn't use my shooting sticks because I couldn't see the bear from them.  I clicked the safety off and I saw the bear look towards me.  I gave him a few seconds and he went back to doing what he was doing.  In the shade, it was tough to see the contours of his body, so I followed his head down to where it met his body and guessed that would be a good shot.  It would either be a neck shot or the front of the shoulder.  After I squeezed the trigger, the bear jumped up and started tumbling down the hill, head of tail.   He finally came to a rest as a tree stopped his descent.  I was so excited to kill a bear, but what I realized when he was rolling down the hill, he was big.  His tracks were good size and I figured it was an ok bear, but I didn't know he was this good.  The 7mm Rem mag with 160 accubond winchester supremes did him in quickly.

Is the reason I can't have bigger pictures in a post because my digital camera is a 7 megapixel?  So I have to use smaller pictures?

That's some good stuff.  Great story and I love all the pictures.

We do have some jet black bears but I think there are just as many that are from black to almost cinnamon out here.  here are some more pictures for you all.  This is my first black bear.  I will be getting him fully body mounted.  I almost have to.  I'd be lucky to ever get one bigger in my life.

Well, I'm not sure how much he weighed.  I do know that he's a 7'3" black bear with a perfect chocolate coat and nice pumkin head.

Most of my friends have moved away from SW Wyoming and now I'm left with less than hard core hunting buddies or friends that already have their hunting party, routine and spots. If there is anyone out there who is a serious archery elk hunter looking for a partner to hunt elk this september in wyoming.  I'd prefer someone closer to my age and seriousness.  The hunting ranges from hiking a few miles in on logging roads and making spike camps to camping next to the truck and making smaller day hunts.  It'd be nice to have some company on those 5 day backpacking trips.  We'd be hunting the Wyoming Range or the Sierra Madres in Wyoming.

Also, I'd love to hunt whitetails in eastern wyoming.

I want to get back in the swing of things so I thought I'd let you all know how it's been going.  This is a one day hunt.  Dogs decoyed in the morning and tracked and bayed one wounded coyote.  They also found a coyote I hit that I would have never recovered.

My spot and stalk spring black bear in Wyoming.  It's been a while since I've posted, but I recognize some names..  It's good to be back.  The people are great here.

Well it looks like I haven't logged in since may of 2005.  I remember great things about the website and I look forward to getting to know you all once again.