Montana Spring bear

[NDbowhunter7]

anyone having much luck in western montana heading there next week worried it's going to be so hot? Do bears go hover in elevation when it warms up?

 

[MT-nuffgun]

Bring your snow shoes

 

[Brandon.miller.4]

Bring your snow shoes

Any specifics on snowline for northwest corner? Cabinets? Flathead? Etc.

 

[InkedElkSlayer]

It won’t be too hot. They will feed until mid morning or so. Then they will lay around for a while, and start feeding mid to late afternoon until dark. Green up is shooting up in elevation incredibly quickly. My oldest and I have seen several the last 2 weekends. NW MT received +/- 1in of rain this weekend after a 10-day high pressure system.

 

[NDbowhunter7]

.

 

[NDbowhunter7]

Any specifics on snowline for northwest corner? Cabinets? Flathead? Etc.

will be near cabinets

 

[Brandon.miller.4]

Let me know how it goes if you don't mind! I'm headed in that general direction the 20th

 

[NDbowhunter7]

will do!

 

[trapper.robi]

I'd be interested in a status report as well if you don't mind! I'll be heading that way on the 19th as well.

How long will you be out there?

 

[ELKhunter60]

I'm leaving for Montana Friday. Hunting that area the 13th-18th. I'll let everyone know how it goes.

 

[Mblehm]

Heading towards the cabinets on the 20th as well.

 

[Geewhiz]

My pa messaged me last night. Sanders county. Had a bear trying to tear apart the chicken coop. Wanted me to come shoot it.

They are definately out and about and hungry.

 

[Chugaglug]

been a cold late wet spring so far. Mountain green up really started last week. hound hunters working the main roads hard

 

[Chiro22]

I've been out looking in the NW and W MT...Haven't seen much yet, just spending time looking at rockslides and south facing slopes. Going out again this weekend.

 

[Turkeygetpwnd38]

I’m in NW MT, everything is green? I was here last year the same time, it’s a good 3/4 weeks ahead of where it was last year. Wish I would have come earlier. The next week is 80s forecasted every day.

 

[Jeremyc_1999]

I'm in SW Montana. Haven't seen any bears yet, but heading out in about an hour again. really was starting to get some green last week. Hopefully now it is the neon green that they like.

 

[NDbowhunter7]

Leaving tomorrow we're hunting for 9 days!

 

[Chiro22]

Went out yesterday...watched some south facing slopes at 4400-5200 feet of elevation. Didn't see anything. Saw a really nice black bear on the drive out in a ranchers pasture at about 3600 feet.

 

[ELKhunter60]

I will be the first to admit I am not an experienced bear hunter but I've hunted deer for 45 years and elk for 25 years. Decided to give bear hunting a try this year. We first tried 10 miles north of Thompson Falls starting on the 13th. Did not find any bear scat on the timber roads. Glassed a bit and decided to move to the Cabinet Mountains south of Libby. Hiked the Cabinets the 15th all day. Beautiful. Found one pile of bear scat that may have been from last fall. It looked pretty old. Ran into some guys from South Dakota while hiking. They said a lot of the roads north of Libby were still closed. They hadn't seen any bears in the Cabinets yet either. We decided to move again and go 20 miles west of Kalispell.

We ended up hiking about 4 miles in from a trailhead one day and found a place to glass. We decided we were just going to sit there and glass until we found something or it was time to go home. We glassed this guy up about 5:00 p.m. on the 16th (see picture). He was a beautiful black bear two miles away but eating green grass at about (6400 ft.) We went hiking quickly after him but he was not there when we got there. We ended up backing back out of the area and glassing that "meadow" from about a mile away for the next 24 hours with not luck other than seeing mule deer and whitetails feeding on the tender green grass. Then the smoke started rolling in.........visibility got worse but we were still about to see the meadow. After a while we gave it up and headed back to Bozeman. The smoke is currently pretty thick. I guess there are some fires going on in BC that's causing the smoke. You can see the picture I took from my son's house an hour ago. Normally you can see the Bridger Mountains from his house but not today. We did end up driving out to the the Bridger mountains a little while ago and glassed a bit looking for bear. Visibility was down to about a mile and it's hot out. We decided to bag it. We had fun. Honestly I was super excited to glass the one bear up and will definitely try it again. It was good to get out and hike the mountains, glass, try out some new gear and figure out some tweaks to our setup before September comes when we start working on my son's 15 point elk tag that he drew in Wyoming this year.

Oh yea - one more thing to add. While driving the backroads west of Kalispell we did come across a beautiful cinnamon colored black bear. No - we did not shoot him. He was at about 4000 feet altitude in a thick timber area around noon time-frame. Not sure how much that helps, but it is another data point for anyone who is interested. I am no expert, but I'm guessing it would have been better to be out hunting bears a little bit earlier this year when more snow was on the ground. The peaks and shady spots still have some snow, but there is A LOT of areas for bears to feed right now which I'm guessing can spread the bears out quite a bit. If someone has an opinion on this I'd love to hear it. Again, I'm trying to learn this bear thing and want to do it again. Thanks guys for reading.

 

[Jake Larsen]

Killed one in SW Montana on Saturday. Bears everywhere, saw 6 in a day and a half of hunting. 68-7200 feet. Snow line is moving up real fast and they’re following it still


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