Elk and Bears

On the hunt Philip took some awesome elk photos and video footage of both elk and bears.  These photos are of the other elk in the herd after I culled one of their number.  I only fired one shot - so they were like what is going on?  It took a while for them to understand that there was danger nearby and to herd up and run away.

We sneaked up to the herd by climbing up a mountain behind them and then climbing down to a steep cliff.  They were all feeding at the bottom of the cliff and had no idea that we were watching them from less than a 100 yards away.

The bear footage (link to Vimeo here and or type in https://vimeo.com/238007672 ) documents a sow and her cubs trying to steal the next elk that we shot.  We saw the bears in the distance and Brooks was a little worried about them coming for our elk.  Both Philip and I were not worried because sows with cubs generally try to avoid humans.  But not these bears!

At the shot they came running, and we had to run towards where our elk was to fend off the bears who were also making a bee line in that direction.  Clearly the sow has pushed off hunters from their elk in the past.  Near the elk carcass we confronted the bear.  It was a stare down and eventually with the 4 of us all together yelling and waving our arms and not giving an inch the sow and her cubs backed off and slinked away.  We all had had our pepper spray at the ready.

The video is pretty funny because the cubs are so chubby.  Patrick

Stare down with the bears - the elk carcass is close by to the right