Welcome back to another episode of Cutting the Distance podcast. I'm Dirk Durham and tonight I've got Josh Boyd in the house. Welcome to the show, Josh.
Thanks Dirk, it's good to be chatting with you again.
Yeah, you guys might remember Josh from episode seventy five. That's where I referred to Josh as the Elk Master. We've kind of dove pretty deep in on his bio and his persona of being an elk hunting mountain man type of machine. But tonight I want to have Josh on here just to say, you know, he's not a one trick pony, Josh. You know he likes to hunt bears too, and you know he lives in the beautiful state of Montana. And I just thought i'd kind of Picki's brain a little bit about it. You know, it's
spring is in the air. Spring is kind of sprung about everywhere in the West. I think, what's it. What's it doing up where you're at?
Oh, it's definitely sprung. Things are getting really green. I was just noticing today I was out at work and the hillside, the lower hillsides are greening up. A lot of flowers are popping a lot of green grass. The snow linees moving up quite a bit, and yeah, spring is here. As a matter of fact, yesterday, yesterday at work, was the my final day of snow surveys. So that always for me marks the beginning of spring bear season.
When I knock out the end of the end of April snow surveys, it's like, all right, it's time to start thinking about bears. Yeah, yeah, it's nice. We got a lot of rain. Things are greening up today. It's going to be like popping really really hardcore here in the next couple of weeks.
Yeah. Do you think you're ahead of schedule this year springtime or you like normal, you think, oh.
Yeah, we're way ahead. I'd say we're at least three weeks ahead of our normal melt out. From what I've seen, the snow pack numbers are showing that the snow line is, you know, showing that at the elevation that you know you look at up on the mountain side, I'm seeing snow. I can look out my window and see the snow line on the mountains over there, and that's where I'm
seeing it right now. Is typically like probably the second week of May would be more normal to where it to what it is right now, you know, So we're we're definitely a couple of weeks advanced snow melt, right.
Yeah. I've been talking to people other places of the Northwest and they had kind of the same same thought that we're a little bit ahead of schedule. In fact, Phelps and I were out in Kansas turkey hunting here last week, and even back there, things are are more progressed than normal. It's just seemed like we've been there. Typically we go out there turkey hunting like May, middle of May to late May, and you know, the green up and everything is about what it is right now.
In fact, we were finding turkey nests with eggs in them already, and then then the toms weren't all hend up, you know, there was there was like hens that would come out into fields, single hens and come out and feed a little bit and then go go back and get on their nests and stuff. Whereas a lot of times there's this early they're just hand up, you know, more than you really want them to be. So it seems like, you know, maybe maybe things are a little
bit ahead this year. So what's that mean for bear hunting.
Well, I mean, people get pretty excited about green grass and bears for good reasons, and I'm one of those people. But there comes to be a point. There's a point where it's like, too much green grass could be a little detrimental to try to trying to find bears, because if everything is really green, it can be pretty much everywhere, right. But I would say, I don't know, I still focus when I'm when I'm looking for bears, I'm still focusing on the fresh shoots that are kind of emerging as
the snow lion recedes up the mountain. Those bears, I've noticed they like to eat the freshest, most palatable forbs and flowers and grass as they can find, and that seems to be that fresh emergent growth. I mean it's it's low in fiber, high in nutrients, and they just
mow it down whenever they can find it. So there's a point to where the snow line hits the top of the mountain, and then it seems like there they'll kind of they'll kind of find these little micro habitats where it's the greenest of the green and the lushiest of the lush and then pretty soon they'll just disperse out into their summer. There's summer patterns. But you know when the snow melts early, that snow line goes up higher.
Those bears tend to be more a little more scattered, So it can be a little bit to your disadvantage in an early spring. Oh yeah, but an early spring allows you to get out and hunt earlier because you're kind of out of the dens and they're they're on that fresh grass a little earlier than normal, so it gives you more time to go find bears and hunt bears. But there's a point where they start to It seems to me like in this area they start to disperse potentially earlier than they normally would.
Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah absolutely. Are you a typically like an opening day guy or do you kind of let things kind of get get to the like the green grass levels and the four levels and the places that you like to go, like all your little nooks and crannies. Do you like to kind of just wait until things get good there, or like no matter what, like opening Bill, it's like, well, I'm gonna hunt them wherever you know it looks good, whether there's lots of snow or not much snow.
Yeah, I think I kind of I wait until the conditions are good in the areas I like to go hunt. Okay, but that can be like on a year like this, you know, some of those spots were probably good by April twentieth, whereas an a normal snow pack year, they might not be that great until like May tenth. Right, So I, being local, can I have the luxury of just hanging back and observing conditions. And of course part of my job is to go out and probe the
snow and see how much is there. And it allows me to kind of check on conditions when I'm out in the field and get an idea of like when prime time might be. But I typically on a normal snow here, I'll wait until I don't get too excited and tell about the first part of me.
Okay, what is the opener in Montana? It's April fifteenth, fifteenth, Okay, that's sam as Idaho. Yeah, and then what is it close?
Well, it used to vary. This is a little bit longer answer. I could just say June fifteenth and that would be one hundred percent correct now, But when I first started hunting, bears in the area that I live. It used to close May fifteenth, oh, which was really early. It was on a normal year, it didn't really get good until that last week of the season and you start seeing more bears, more habitat was available, you could get out and get up to the glassing areas and
just had better opportunities. And I don't know, it must have been eight or nine, maybe it could have been ten years ago. They bumped the season out to May thirty first here, which was great. I mean it's perfect. By that time. A lot of the avalanche shoots are melted out, and you can hunt some higher country. You can just hunt more diverse terrain. You can get up on these big ridge lines that I like to hunt
on and find bears up on that stuff. But this year I just read in their eggs we were extended to June fifteenth. It's never been June fifteenth there, oh wow. But I mean almost all the way across the state. There's some units in Montana that are on a quota, and so like certain number bears get killed or certain number of females get killed, they shut the unit down.
But most of western Montana's on that April fifteenth, the June fifteenth schedule, which is I think pretty similar to most Idaho as well.
Yeah, yeah, I know when I was a kid, they used to shut you know, there were certain units that would close down pretty early. They would shut down the end of May, and then some of the backcountry stuff would be later in June, just because some of that stuff you couldn't hardly get into it, like the roads wouldn't be melted out in time to access a lot of that that back country you know, you know Idaho there in the Bitter Roots, the part of the Bitter Roots where I grew up, it holds a lot of snow.
We've got a lot of a lot of big hemlock groves and a lot of north face stuff, and a lot of the roads are on the on the tops rather than the bottoms. Are some bottom roads. But man, if you want to try to get anywhere you'll be going, just find like, man, this is great. You'll come around a corner in a hemlock grove and there'll be a huge drift across the road that's you know, a quarter mile long and ten feet deep.
Yeah that I mean that area is it is a wet part of the world, and it gets a lot of snow. I mean I was looking at some of the snowtail sites in that area just the other day. There's ninety some inches of snow at some of those snowtail stations and uh, and it's they're having a pretty weak year, right so on a normal air and they're looking at over one hundred inches of depth at some of those upper elevations. So yeah, that that area is
super wet. We're pretty wet up here as well. And I find the same thing as access is gets in I guess, uh, you get impeded by dark corners that hold snow and you just can't get up the mountain.
Right Yeah. And that that's another you know, you know, separate topic elk hunting. You know, if you want to get to the back country and set hams or or just kind of hiked around the places you'd like to run around and find elk in the fall, a lot of times you can't get to those places and until July, you know, and some of these parts of the better So it's yeah, it's it's it's disheartening because then at your window of enjoying those those places is so small.
You know, I love being in the mountains and looking for elk and for bears and just I just love being up there and to get to my favorite places. I sometimes can't get there until, you know, after the fourth of July. It's like I burned up the whole month of June and couldn't be up there. But you know, that's that's the way it is. That's the way it is. So tell me, what what is it about bear hunting that you like? I mean, I can kind of make some assumptions, but what is it about spring bear hunting
that just you know? And you can get as philosophical or or as romantic of it as you want.
But you saw me scratch, didn't you.
But you know, I know what I like about it, but I must I'm sure you probably like some of the same things.
But yeah, it's uh, well, one, it's you know, springtime is great. I like getting out and having an opportunity to stretch the legs and go look for animals and go hunting, which is awesome. Anytime I could go, it's great. But like spring bear hunting is just I find it amazing because the the forests and the mountains are so different, Like the songbirds are back and they're they're mating and
you hear them all evening long. You'll have these really long, drawn out sun sunsets where it just slowly the light slowly fades and it's really calm, and you're usually in like big forests and the birds are singing and it's just echoing. You can hear owls and thrushes and it's I don't know, it's just kind of a really cool, sort of magical time of the year to be out.
You can hear the water rushing down out of these high basins and it's just it's just a sensual kind of overload that you don't get in the fall and the warm days, the warm evenings, the long days. Yeah, and it's kind of a leisurely activity too. It's like you don't have to get up at the crack of dawn or before dawn and hike, you know, a couple hours in the dark to get to your spot. You can if you want. I wouldn't recommend it. It's never
really bought me a whole lot. So it's like a lot of times I'll get up and have leisurely coffee and hang out and glass from camp and kind of get a day plan together and hike in and glass for the evening. I don't know, it's just a it's a different pace of a hunt. And bears are just cool animals. They're fun to watch. I love seeing sows with their cubs, and they're they're fun to hunt you. I love the stalk. I love to bow hunt them.
I mean, rifle hunting them is pretty cool. I've shot a few with a rifle, but man, they're super fun to stalk with a bow and get in close and they're I mean, I think more if people try it more often, they would realize that it's it's a pretty obtainable goal, is to sneak within bow range of a bear.
Yeah. Yeah, that. I feel like your heart probably has to be beating out of your chest with anticipation when you get what it's almost going to happen, Like I can just I can picture it now, like, oh man, I think I might get this one. And you're like you're closing in the last little approach and I can't imagine. I bet your heart's just not ready to beat out of your chest. I mean, I think mine would be just with anticipation.
Yeah, especially if it's a big one. And you really want it bad. I mean it's like, yeah, like anything else, that level rises and you get that surge of adrenaline and you have to focus and not screw up because those big bears are they're pretty cagey. They can hear really well, and they can see better than a lot
of people give them credit for. Especially with me. You're within like you know, one hundred yards and closer I'll pick you out and they'll hear the tiniest little twig snap and I don't know what it is, but they're even those big ones are pretty wired. And so if you I had one like lift. He was feeding on this big grassy hillside and I was probably like fifty yards away and he he uh, he stopped. He lifted his head, and I thought he was going to turn
and like look my direction. So I like hunkered down to get in a ball, and my knees snapped. You know how cartilage will pop in your knee sometimes they just and just a light snap, and man, he whipped his head over there and just stared at me for minutes, and then he just got nervous and just he never ran, but he just walked away at a kind of a faster walk than normal. He wasn't feeding anymore away from me. He was just walking away from me, and I couldn't
believe he heard my knees snap. So that, to me, that's that he was a big bear. Oh he was a giant.
Oh man, But that's fascinating.
Yeah, it's really neat though. I love to sneak in on them. It's it's fun, and it's it really polishes your stocking skills because you have to you know, you have to throw it back, bring it back to the basics. It's like you have to locate them, for one, and then you have to figure out what the wind potentially or guess what the wind could be doing on the mountain that it's he's on, and then you have to pick landmarks and make a plan and then sneak in.
So I think it's a great learning opportunity for people to learn how to stock game with a bow.
Yeah, man, you've got you got me hooked there. I was planning on going to do a rifle hunting the spring, and now I'm like, man, I want to do it with the bow. You just painted a pretty good picture and I want to kind of go back to that part. About the ice sight. I know people they're like, oh, yeah, bears can't see ship, you know, the their vision's not good. But you know, if maybe if your rifle range, you know, across a drawer or a canyon, maybe they're not going
to know you as much. But it sounds like, you know, you've got enough reps in up close to bears where they they still notice things pretty easily.
Yeah, they do. Yeah, And I think you could get away with more movement, like at a distance then you say you would a mule there it's over, you know, three hundred yards across the drainage or or maybe even further. Mule deer will pick you out and elk. But bears, you can get away with more more movement at that distance. But when you're up close, they'll they'll definitely scrutinize you. And I think a lot of people there's a big
push to wear solid bow hunting. I think wearing camouflage when you're spring bear hunting is key because you're at close distances, they're in the open. You're kind of sneaking across the open too, and you just need to have that outline broken up a little bit. And I think wearing camouflage pays dividends if I mean, if it helps you out one time, it's worth it in my.
Opinion, right right. You know, there's a lot of people that will say, oh, camouflage, you know, for elk, and you know, camouflage is for people you know you can hunt elk in solids, and which you can. But I'll tell you what, I've had some amazing close counters for
a lot of different years, mostly in camouflage. Now, I've had some solid pants on before and camo top and got picked off, and I don't know if it was something else, maybe you know, from the elk standpoint, it was like it I was silhouetted or maybe you know, maybe I stood out, you know, more than normal. But I'm a firm believer in camouflage.
Definitely, Yeah, I am too. It's for elk at the distances that they get called into in this country, in North Idaho, in that brush country. I mean we're talking like ten twelve sometimes closer yards right that they come in and then they're stopped and their their eyeballs are just scanning around looking right. And I think the more you can blend in the better off you'll be.
I just think, yeah, I agree, And I think elk when they come in, they're not necessarily looking for a human. They're looking for another their adversary, right you called him in. They're looking for another bull elk. And if you're wearing like a big solid pattern, what else is solid? I'm like, the side of a bull elk is pretty solid. You know, it's a light color. So I would if I were to wear solid, i'd wear something a little more subdued,
like a green or something a little darker. Maybe yeah, not a real like even like a flat dark earth type color, you know, as a top. Maybe I wouldn't do that, right, So probably I'll be the same with bears, right.
Yeah, with bears, they're they're looking for other bears. I mean they're there are you know, they're looking for another bear that's coming into their area, and right if it's it could be a female that the boar is getting excited about, or it could be a medium sized boar that's scared of a bigger boar coming in. So they're looking for dark brown or black colored features or creatures.
So I think, if if you can do anything where something to not look like a darker blob when you're stock both at least bow hunting, you're sure you're better off. In Montana, you have to wear Hunters orange regardless of what you're hunting with.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
I'm not a huge fan of that, but that's why I kind of like hunting Idaho from a just you know, just a simplicity standpoint. You can go hunt anything you want without orange, right and right. But Montana you have to wear the orange whatever four hundred square inches above the waist right, So you have to kind of contend with that a little bit. But as long as you break up your outline and your form, I think you will get You'll get away with a fair bit with a bear.
Okay, well, I don't want to sound like a tinfoil hat guy haringwn orange, but you know, you always think about, like, man, should I wear an orange, because ever since I was a kid, you know, safety orange. You know, in Idaho, like you said, it's not required, but sometimes I feel like, yeah, definitely orange is good because people will kind of see where you're at and maybe they won't shoot your direction
if there's some animals in between you. But sometimes I feel like you got people like, oh there's somebody in orange over there, I'm gonna look through my scope at that guy and see if I recognize them or something like that. So almost maybe now it's a target.
But I think things do happen, right, Yeah, I think both both of those do and have happened. I am. I think the orange law is ridiculous. I'll go on the record and say that I hate it. I think it's absolutely pointless. If you want to wear it, there's nothing stopping you from wearing it. But I feel like I don't need to wear it. I never I'm not going to say anything else on that. I could go off on that.
I love candor. Yeah, so you you majority of the time you're bow hunting them more than rifle, but probably depends on the ear, the location.
Maybe yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I'll have friends up and we'll you know, pack rifles, or I'll pack a bow, no pack a rifle, or vice versa. The last couple of trips that I had people up on there were some like some photography trips, so I just I packed a rifle, or I could be testing some gear too. I last year I was testing a rifle for rock Slide, so I packed a rifle. I wanted to use it and get as much time in the field with it. So
I rifle hunted for bears. So I'm not against shooting a bear with a rifle chuck a handful now, yeah, with a with a smoke stick. But I really liked the bow on them. They're fun and it's it's one of those things where it's like, if I don't kill one, it's not a huge deal. My freezer's full of alk.
Meat, right right, you're you're it's all about the the the process, all about the the experience.
Yeah, absolutely that. Yeah, and I I don't I go out in the field every year with the intention of killing a bear, but I don't. I just I probably at I and I could probably kill one every year if I wanted. There's just some times I just don't feel like doing it, so I just walk away. You know. It's like it's fun to sneak in ye not not kill that bear and back out and just you know, have the experience of stalking it too, So I don't.
Yeah, yeah, you know. And that's people who are against hunting. They don't understand these kind of things, this kind of way. They label us all lump us, all this blood blood cold blooded killers, you know, bloodthirsty killers, and they almost like put us all in the same category as poacher or something. You know, people are just bad people doing bad things, right, But when you hear somebody talk about it like like you you know, it's it's you know,
you're you'd like to kill one, but it doesn't. You don't have to, And it's just the experience of being out there and chasing them around a little bit and getting close and observing, and you may or may you may make the decision not to just because man, I don't really feel like it doesn't it doesn't really if I take this bear's life right now, it's not gonna make me a happy day, right right? My cup is full?
Yeah? Yeah, well yeah last year was a good example of that. I you know Steve Drake, yeah, photography. Yeah, So he came up and we were we were doing a hunt in Idaho and we were seeing some bears and I ended up we saw this. It was a nice chocolate bear on this hillside, and we ended up working a way around and getting above him. His middle of the day and the wind was coming up, and
we just had my rifle. Like I mentioned earlier, and I just kind of stalked down the hill a little bit and got within one hundred yards or something, and like, that's a that's a decent bear. I don't know, I might, I might shoot him. He's really cool looking. Let's s gal a little closer. So we go down the hill a little bit further and I'm like, let's gal a little closer. And the whole time Steven's is like, oh this is He's just back behind me with his lens
of shooting. He's in stalking it. Yeah. I got with in thirty five yards of him, and you know, I had my shooting sticks up and I had looking at him through my scope and I'm like, I just use a knight. If I would have had my bow, I probably would have tried to sneak a little closer and then I would have shot him with my bow. But I just it just didn't feel right shoot him with my gun at thirty five yards, yeah, because it was it took us probably you know, an hour to you know,
bridge that gap. Yeah, and spent some time at it, and I don't know, we let him walk. He got some awesome images of the bear. Kind of eventually I snapped a little bear grass stock and he kind of looked up and got nervous and he walked away, but then he circled above us kind of kind of came in from the side to kind of see what was
going on. Oh yeah, Steven got some great, great photos of him, but he got some great pictures of me with kind of the back of my head and shoulder kind of blurred out, and then the bears just right there kind of head up looking around or head down feeding. It's pretty cool.
That is cool.
Yeah. So yeah, that's stuff like that that I just love to do.
That. That's awesome. That's that's worth the price of admission right there is just to get that close. And yeah, I love it.
We're going to do it again this year with our bows.
Oh yeah, yeah cool. Yeah, I can't wait to see the pictures.
Yeah, we'll see how it turns out.
So are you a boot leather or you a glass guy? Are you kind of a combo? Are you like you know? Are you hiking a lot? Are you glassing a lot? Are you like hiking a lot to get to us your favorite glass and points? Are you glassing from the truck and then making a big plan and diving off into huge canyons to get over to them. What it's your Yeah, that's.
A good question. I'm both man. I like to hunt big country, big open glass ofble country, and so I like the cruise and glass, you know, ideal terrain and habitat for bear rocky like early in the spring. I like looking at like, you know, big rocky out out crops with grassy edges and stuff, and a lot of that occurs in these big canyons. So I'll, you know, I'll hike into places and park my butt on the opposite side and glass where I can see a lot of it right and plant a stock that way. Avalanche
shoots are kind of the same way. I kind of hunt them that I hunt them a similar fashion. But I also like to hunt, and I've killed most of my bigger bears hunting old not too old, but grassy logging roads. Okay, So cruising logging roads, miles and miles and miles of walking and or riding a mountain bike, sure, looking for sign, looking for tracks, looking for piles of poop, and hunt and just still hunting down those roads, just creeping down down those roads right at dark, you know,
like within the last hour half a daylight. So yeah, I do both. I put a lot of boot leather on the ground, and I also, you know, use my eyeballs a lot too. But I don't know, there's not a lot of places I glass from the truck. It seems like those places get glassed a lot. Okay, they're pretty, they're few and far between here, and they're they're fairly well known. A lot of non residents will see those places and just key in on them. And a lot
of those places aren't really like quality habitat either. I end up seeing a lot of thousand cubs and some of that stuff that's very observable from main roads. And I don't know why. Maybe it's just not maybe those boards are too shy or something, or they just know they're not safe there, or they just prefer not to be there. I don't know, but yeah, anyway, so yeah,
I try. I'd wheel glass from the road occasionally, but most of my better spots I hike in a wayste before I have to, you know, sit down and start picking apart the hillsides right on.
Do you how often do you biby bivy hunt for bears? Do you do that? Going for two or three days or is it more of a just kind of day trip in it thing?
Well, yeah, I'll do both. I will. I like to like set aside some time, take some time off of work and do some longer backpack trips and yeah, it'll all you know, I'll go out for like maybe four or five days, four or five nights. I mean those days are long. So that's a that's a fair bit of hunting. Yeah, it seems like I can cover and glass a lot of country and in the four or five, four or five evenings of hunting. Sure, it's a fun.
It's a fun adventure. I love to do it. I don't think it's necessary, right, but I I do like it. And that's what Steven and I were doing last year. There was this big long ridge line we were camped on. We just kept moving our camp a little further, a little further, a little further, and there's no real water sources up there, but there's big snow drifts. Who could get water, Like no creeks, but we could get water off the melted snow and stuff. Okay, yeah it was
it was super fun. But yeah, I like that. I like to do some backpack trips if possible. The weather's usually pretty nice and the bugs really aren't too terribly bad until maybe, you know, early June, and even then they're not horrible.
So it's been up. It's like later June. I've been in some back country and man, the little black flies are terrible, Like you can't really open your mouth. And maybe it was that particular area and specifically, but man, it was tough or sometimes uh, same with mosquitoes. Mosquitoes, you know, closer to the fourth of July. Then there's some places where I mean you couldn't hardly open your mouth without breathing some and it was it was horrible.
I would rather fight grizzly bears than mosquitos, I.
Think, Yeah, there's just no right from them. Yes, there's some places I go hiked in some of the local mountains here in July and August. Oh, it is miserable. But yeah, the one, the one insect that you just can't get away from when you're spring bear hunting is you, you know, are the ticks.
Yeah. Remember back when turkey hunting, when I was a kid in Florida, my Florida cousins used this stuff called muscall and it was and it came in a little tiny bottle, little plastic bottle, and it says one deep, and uh, I think they might have used that in Vietnam.
You know.
It was that that level of grade of goodness. And if you got any on your hands and then got it on your lips at all, your lips would go numb. Yeah, so it must have been the good stuff. But you can't buy one hundred percent deep anything anymore. I think it's so bad for you. I think they're like, yeah, we gotta pull that off the shelf.
You know. We went on a canoe trip in uh, British Columbia in July, late July a couple of years back, and there's a series of lakes where we're going through this big circuit and we're talking Mosquito Bille and in the little store there, they had some of that one hundred percent deep and I think it was the MUCKs muskall. I think it was like in an orange bottle.
Yeah, yeah, works worked well. Keep away from your mouth and.
Nose, it'll melt plastic.
Yeah, first thing I do, get it on my lips. Okay, dang it, I can't feel my lips now. Ah, that's nasty. Uh, so, can you guys bait bears or run bears with dogs? In Montana?
Baiting has never been allowed, and hound hunting has been allowed in certain areas just for the past two seasons.
Now, right.
For for the longest time, it's never been allowed, and now there's a few areas where it is allowed. There was something passed by the Commission. I think it was two years ago. It seems like I think some stuff down there in the bitter Root country is open for hound hunting, and then god, maybe more south central I
don't really, I don't know. I haven't looked that close into the way the hounds are allowed, but they tried to keep it out of most of the grizzly bear habitat, which is most of western Montana right right, So, but I think the bitter Roots, I know for a fact, the bitter Roots being clear and some of that stuff down by Superior. I think there's a little bit of area down there they're allowed to use dogs. But baiting has never been on the on the on the menu
around in Montana, and not even in Northern Idaho. I don't think it's allowed.
Certain areas in Northern Idaho. So I think I think in that grizzly bear habitat, it's definitely not allowed.
Okay, yeah, so like the Panhandle, so.
There's I think there's a line in the Panhandle where you can but there's definitely a line where you can't grizzly bear habitat. And yeah, there's been a couple of times people have shot grizzlies over Bait and Idaho on
the border country there. You know, in the past, it seems like accidentally, you know, it was like it was like maybe with an outfitter, like the outfit or the guide would drop the the hunter off at the stand and then be like all right, I'll pick you up a dark type of thing, and grizzly came in and like oh shoot there's a bear. Bam. Well yeah that's a grizzly bear.
Oh yeah, not good. There's some paperwork in their future.
Yes, yes, some testimonies and PaperWorks and photo sessions and all sorts of stuff.
I do not envy that well. Even here with spot and stock hunting, it seems like there's always a bear grizzly or two gets killed by just mistaken identity. Yeah, just locally here last last spring there was one killed collar bear, and I've got some information regarding that I'll maybe tell you off the air. Yeah, I can't talk about it.
Publicly right now, right right. Well, I know we've hunted in Wyoming before, and there's a couple of times it's like, that's a big You'll see a big bear on hillside. You're like, and the color, the color will look like a grizzly bear. You're like, oh, there's a freaking grizzly
So you sit down and analyze and study. Okay, look at his hump and like sometimes the way they stand on a hill, like a black bear will get a hump on their back, absolutely, just by the way they're standing in their stance, and you've got to watch them for a while. It's like, man, does he have a dish on his face? You know, you're looking for all the telltale signs in it, you know, four or five
hundred yards. It's it's kind of hard sometimes, especially if you don't have a spotter, you know, if you're just looking through maybe your rangefinder or some like eight powered binoculars that are not real good. But eventually, you know, if you watch them long enough, it's like, oh, yeah, that's not a grizzly or whoah, that is a grizzly You the tell tales.
Are there, but yes, yeah, and I've you know, I was talking about this a couple of weekends ago about just you know, just sizing black bears and and identifying you know, a good bear. The difference between a big male black bear and their shape or they're very similar to to a grizzly bear body profile as far as like they do have a hump, a smaller hump, but they will have a humped shoulder and their their rear end, their rump is really rounded. And they come in all shades,
and so do grizzly bears too. They come they can be pretty dark faced too. I've watched several black bears at you know, close range, within a couple hundred yards. There was one I was I had to look at him for a long time before I could tell it was a black bear. Wow, big great, big chocolate male, just huge hump on his shoulder, and I he was just in and out of all this kind of this region lodgepole, and I just could not get a really definitive look. And then finally even at an ear tag,
that's what I saw an ear tag. Oh, but it ended up being a black bear and I shot him. Perfect bear. That bear was fourteen. Oh yeah, they had they had captured him in a grizzly bear foot snare and they'd collared him and he was nine and then I killed him a few years later. So it's pretty cool to the local grizzly biologist. Is he was all
excited to get the ear tag. Hold on, let me run in my office and look up his number, and I'll let you know exactly where he caught him and how old he was because they pull already pulled the tooth out him. He had a tattoo on his lip.
Oh he was.
He was like a gangster, you know. He looked pretty tough. Yeah, I'll tat it up, and had packing some some ear jewelry. But yeah, it was a cool bear, a really neat bear, big chocolate. But yeah, he looked a lot like a like he had some aspects of a grizzly bear. Yeah, but he had a very distinct black bear face, no grounded let's dig you know that. That's what really gave it away.
Okay, how far away from from the kill site was he tagged.
With the Oh uh not far. I would say within maybe two air miles. Max.
Oh really Woweh, that's that's crazy crazy. Yeah. You hear stories about you know, collared bears or or ear tag bears. You know they tag in one place and they'll turn up in a complete different mountain ranger whatever. You say. Yeah, wow, that thing had some wheels on him.
Mm hmm. Yeah. I've had some friends kill Yeah, buddy of mine killed a bear that was tagged like twenty seven miles away. But that we don't know if that thing got moved by itself or in a covert trap, right right.
There's always that too. Yeah, So is there a particular food that bears like that you're trying to find in like because you didn't mention some forbs and flowers or is it just kind of the general the stuff that's kind of growing up right after the snow leaves there.
I think there are definitely forbs and grasses that they key in on. So, I what I've noticed around here, they really love orchard grass. Okay, so it's especially when it's short. You know, orchard grass will eventually get tall, sprout out, and you know it's not very palatable at that point. There's a lot of fiber and not very many nutrients. But you know within that, you know, six inches tall and just comes up in these little clumps.
But it has like a kind of a bright green bladed you know, piece of grass or ahead of grass that comes up. They love that stuff. Okay, not to be confused with fescue, because they'll grow, they'll grow right next to one another, and they look kind of similar at a distance. So you're glassing across the hillside and you'll see like, oh, it's green is Ireland over there? And you go over there and it's all this rescue
with a little bit of orchard grass mixed in. If you watch bears over on that hillside eating, at some point, you'll see their keying in on the actual orchard grass that rescue. They just don't eat.
They don't like it.
Deer and elk love it. But you know what I'm talking about, Scott, it's more wiry blades, but it still grows in those small little clumps yep, and it's a little darker green I think.
Mmm.
So yeah, if you can find orchard grass, definitely bears will be munching on it. If you're like walking logging roads or hunting and cold clearcut skid trails, log deck landing areas. Sometimes you'll find those have been seeded with clover, and black bears love that clover. The Forest Service doesn't use clover much anymore. They're they're going to more of a native seed mix. But some private timber company industrial timber ground sometimes they'll use clover just to see their
roads and skined trails for erosion control. So you might find that out there. If you can find clover, that's like crack. The bears they just love it. Yeah. Flowers, they I've seen them eating the fresh flower heads off of the aarrowleaf, balsam root. They'll just walk all of seen isers. I have video of this great big board just walking from plant to plant, just you just eat the yellow heads. Oh man, just moving along. And I think that you know, those things are so high and
nutrients that they just it's preferred. Oh, glacier lilies, they'll eat the heads off the glacier lilies. A little yellow like shooting star looking plants that come up right after the snow kind of leaves. You have a big snow drift on a hillside, you'll see those things popping up right right behind it. Yeah, I see them eat this
plant called biscuit root. It's this really weird, wispy, tiny little yellow flowers that kind of come up and like these little fluorescents almost like like a picture of firework blowing up, and each little trailer would be like a little tiny flower. I've seen him eat that that stuff. So yeah, I mean, and I think it's kind of
you know, localized. You know, certain areas grow certain forage, and so I recommend people just if they do sea bears, you know, raising on a hillside, just really pay attention to what they're eating. Or if you're out hiking around walking through bear habitat and you see bear sign tracks, and you just pay attention what's been bitten, what's been eaten, Like you'll see that orchard grass and nibbled down to like just down to the basel area.
M that's cool. The area I grew up hunting a lot. It's a little lower elevation in more canyon country, like lower canyons, and there was a lot of like wild onions and stuff like that. Oh yeah in that area, and they liked those things. I mean, you could go walk over there and just pick one out you know, wiggle it a little bit and you could pick out this little weird onion looking thing off the hillside. So
they like that and a lot of other things. And then later in this you know, like early early summer that that June time, May June, there were these old orchards everywhere from back in the homestead of days. You know, everybody had a little orchard at their at their home instead, you know, and they had cherries or apples or what at plums, all those kind of things. And over the years, you know, since then, bears have got into those orchards and and eaten all the different fruits and then magically
planted the seeds all over the landscape. So you see, you know, cherry trees and apple trees and pear trees and plum trees all over this canyon country. Like, hey, there's apples or there's there's cherries. And the right time of year, man, those those bears just wreck havoc on those trees.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we we kind of have that here as well, but they're I don't know, some of our little orchards are like in people's backyards, sure, and I definitely see them coming down in the fall and hitting that stuff, especially if our huckleberries have failed, you know,
in summer. M hm. So yeah, like it seems like our huckleberries start coming on, like it's usually right around the first part of July in certain areas, and then where those huckleberries are coming on, the bears are on them from from then un till they're off the plant, you know. Sometimes that's into late September.
Yeah, yeah, I've seen Yeah, I've seen bears in its late September a lot. When I'm bow hunting, you'll see black bears eating huckleberries. I seen this monster one. I drove right by him. We were driving from one spot to another. Looked over the hill and there's this giant black bear sitting on his butt and he's like sitting there, scooping the brush into his mouth, eating the berries off. And I'm like, that's the biggest bear I've ever seen.
And things looked huge. So we kept driving and kind of snuck back like I didn't have a gun, you know, and it was really really open country and like, I'm never gonna get close enough to this thing. And I got to about one hundred yards from him, and like you said, he heard, he heard a twig snap, and he looked up and then it was just gone. I don't know why the vehicle driving by I didn't bother him.
It was a pretty traveled road. A lot of people drove on that road, and he was kind of in the shadows a little bit of some of some trees, and I think he just thought it's just some huckleberry pickers or you know, tourists driving around. So as soon as things got quiet and he heard me snap that twig, it's like game over.
Yeah, that was something he didn't want to hear next to him.
Yeah, yeah, So what kind of if you recommend a rifle caliber for hunting bears? Would you say? You know, I know, I know, the greatest rifle hunting rifle of all time is a six to five tread More. Is that too much? Is that too much? I mean it's all over the internet. It depends on which camp you listen to. There's the one that's the greatest and the ones that says it's the worst. But what what should a guy look for in a good bear hunting rifle? What kind of what would you recommend?
Man? That's a good question. I mean a six five creed More will work on bears, no problem, you know, just you know, have the right constructed bullet, put it in the right spot. Everything's hunky dory. I know people use stuff that's even smaller. There's a growing trend in certain circles to use smaller and smaller calibers, right, I like personally, I like big bullets. I mean, I own rifles from six five PRC to a three seventy five Ruger, right, and I love them all. Three thirty eight win Meg
is amazing. I have a three hundred Ultra mag that I absolutely love. I have a twenty eight Nozler. It just shumps lights out, thirty six, two seventy. Some of the old classics work great, But I would just say make sure you have a well constructed bullet that can break bones, because you might need to know bust through a shoulder. Bears have weird angles. They don't look they're not like, they're kind of more roundy than a flat
sided deer or an elk. Right that people, And so it's hard to like pick a spot on a bear and know exactly what you're aiming at. So you might hit off, you might not hit exactly where you think you need to hit, and it might be in the front shoulder. You might have to penetrate through a fair bit of hair and maybe a little bit of fat and some jiggly meat to penetrate the vitals. But bears
aren't overly big. It's not like shooting a moose. So yeah, I would say, just any cartridge that will work on that you would be willing to take on a mule deer hunt will work for a black bear.
Sure. Yeah, that's good advice. I think. Now as far as shot placement, you know some people they may not know where even where to shoot a bear, you know, right behind the front shoulder, they say, But bear vitals are a little different than a deer elk.
Yes, yes they are. They they're yeah, they're tricky. If you're used to shooting into the armpit or the pocket o a deer or elk, you're probably going to be too low and too far forward on an air so you want to back that up and go a little higher. So I've heard people say shoot for the middle of
the middle. I would say, just shoot forward of the middle. Yes, so maybe not quite right in the middle of his body, you know, front to back, but maybe just a little forward of that middle line and then you know halfway up from from chest to back. If you're right in the middle there, you're good. So yeah, yeah, the vitals sit back a little bit more than people think, or they're shoulders move forward more right over there, you know, up in front of their their chest cavity.
Further towards like the the brisket bone or whatever they're the thorascic or opening. Maybe.
Yes, yeah, that's a good question because that's that is tricky. Their anatomy is different than if didn't white tailed deer, mule, deer, elk, you know, stuff that people are used to shooting and butchering and breaking apart.
So yeah, so let's say you got your bear down. What are you doing with all the meat and the meat are you are you taking the fat? Are you taking the bones? Are you taking the meat? What are you doing with it? So the hide?
Yes, so there's certain you know, states have certain requirements so that you got to check in. So in Montana it varies by the region, but you know, you need to report your kill and some places, some areas you have to bring the hide in, the hide and skull in to get checked. Some places you don't it's a self check in. But regardless, I take the head the hide, and I take all the meat, and if it has fat, I will take the fat. So you know that the hides I typically I don't have. I do have a
bear rug. I take that back. I the first bear I ever killed. I got a bear rug ridiculously expensive, and it's up in my attic that I never look at what. To me, it was like why did I do that?
But they take a lot of real estate really.
Oh and this bear was massive. It was my first bear ever and it was my biggest bear still to the Oh, that's huge. So yeah, you have to have a big wall to put that thing on it. But but the other the other hides that I take, I'll usually just get them tanned and hang them, hang them up in a display or something. It's kind of neat to have, just like some bear hides hanging if you're into that thing or that sort of thing. But the meat, we eat it almost I'm almost all of it. I mean,
it's it's great stuff. I don't like cut bear steaks out of it, but right, well, sometimes we'll I'll cut some roasts and then I'll slow cook them and shred them and eat it more like a pulled pork or slow cook it on a shred on a trigger, and so it's you know, like you're doing a like a pork shoulder or something. Yeah, we'll cube it up, throw it in and make chili out of it, or a stew or like a pot pie, which is really good.
That sounds.
Yeah, it is good, and a lot of it. I'll just grind, just have a spice mix that I use and grind it into breakfast sausage and it makes and I'll add some bacon ends to that as well. Yeah, it is really good. I bet it's my daughter's favorite breakfast meat by far. She likes bacon, but she loves spare of sausage.
Yeah, the same same recipe with my Mountain Lion grind stuff is made breakfast sausage with the spices in the and the bacon INDs, and my hands down the best best thing I've ever had, you know, as far as sausage goes. It was amazing.
Yeah, it's really good. And then the fat, like if it's a fat bear, fall bears are typically better for this, but spring bears can be as well. I'll render the fat which is very simple process. You know. I thought it would take more effort, more work than what it actually actually does. But basically, just chop cube it up, put it in a crockpot on low or several crock pots, and then just strain the liquids out and and and put them in a jar. And it kind of comes
out like this clear, kind of golden liquid. But then it solidifies into this nice white, creamy like shortening mhm.
And we just store it in these mason jars and our freezer and just pull that stuff out whenever we need anything that requires shortening, or you want to short fry something like eggs or seer if you have a nice elkcrow so you you know, you slow cooked on the on the grill and you want to like reverse syr it, I'll see it and bear fat, oh wow, or rub a little on your baked potato before you bake them. It just gets those the the skin's nice and crispy. But my wife makes uh like biscuits with it.
It though, like pastries. Pie crust makes an amazing pie crust. It's phenomenal. I was very skeptical of it at first. She made a pie crust and I'm a convert.
Uh yeah, My my uncle he always used to swear by that he used it for everything. You know, he's any and he said the same exact thing. He's like, if you want really good pie crest, you make it with bear bear grease. But he would like he put it on his boots, he would put it in and he was for stuff to bake with. He would cook with it, like he used that stuff. Yeah. Yeah, so
and that's kind of a lost art sometimes. But I think I think, you know, you know, like Clay Newcom, you know, he's got a really big large audience in his podcast and he talks about all the cool stuff you can do with bear grease, well bear Grease podcast. But but I think there's people are starting to understand, you know, you know, bears are very edible, and they're
very desirable to hunt, to hunt to eat. They're just not I feel like at some point bears might have got a bad rap, you know, stupid bears not fit to eat. Like I've heard people say that, like I would never eat a greasy old bear. I'm like, really, the bear meat I've had amazing.
Well, I think it comes down to what they've been eating. Oh, so I think if it's been if it's been eating salmon out of the Alaskan salmon stream for three months, I bet it's gonna taste like fish.
Yeah, probably not gonna be good.
Yeah, I could probably not gonna want to eat that. But if it's been eating huckleberries for three months, I'll tell you what. When I cut up a fall bear, it smells like fruit. I mean the meat literally smells like fruit. It is amazing.
Yeah. Wow, Well, huckleberries are very overpowering scent and flavor profile as well. Like if you have huckleberries and if even if you like double ziplock bag them in the freezer, you you crack your freezer open. A few weeks later, it's like, dang, I smell huckleberries in the freezer, Like they're like potent.
Yeah they are.
So that's no surprise that a bear, a bear's meat and fat with smell.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's it's it smells really good and it tastes good too. I haven't I've never had a bad one. I did kill a bear. So they used to. Montana used to like offer these trick andella test kits and you would like cut off you cut out a chunk of the tongue and put it and they had like a little ziplock with some salt, and you throw it in the bag and seal it up and send it off to the lab and you get
your test results back. Well, I found out that most bears, most bears in Montana have it just the degree that what they have it, like the the density of the cysts in them. This one particular bear, it was a pretty old male. I had sent the test off and I got a phone call. It was like a Sunday afternoon, I remember as a spring, warm spring day. I happened to be in the house getting a drink of water or something, and the phone rings and it's the guy
from the lab in Billings. He's like, Hey, I'm just calling you about your bear. He's like, yeah, what do you what's going on? He's like, yeah, have you have you done anything in that thing yet? Like, Nope, haven't. I'm just kind of it's in my freezer. I've been waiting to get the results. He's like, Oh, don't don't eat that bear. That thing has one hundred and twenty eight larva per milligram of it in its tissue. Oh wow, a milligram of tissue is tiny. And he was counting.
He counted up to one hundred and twenty eight per per milligram. He's like, go ahead and throw that bear away. You've got our permission to not utilize the meat.
Wow.
That could good to know.
Yeah, that is good to know.
So there is that that aspect of it could be off putting to some people.
Right, so that's why you got to cook it well done? Right?
Yeah? Right, you just cook it. Yeah, one hundred and sixty degrees that's what they recommend.
Yeah.
I did see a chart one time. Depending upon it was the temperature and time, So if it was a lower temperature, it had to be a longer time. I don't know how valid that is. I don't even know where it came from. It could be just some guy on Pinterest made it up. I don't know, but I yeah, one sixty I think I've heard that is you know, to be safe. Okay, but if you're making breakfast sausage, you're going to cook it well done. And if you're
making a pot pie. So everything that I make with bear meat, I make sure it's a dish that can be cooked well done. Yeah, and not you know, be ruined.
Yep. I. We like to take take it and just kind of cut up in a little chunks, you know, they're about an inch and a half two inches in you know, almost like kind of nuggets, and then put him in a in an insta pot, right, put a bunch of seasoning on that, put in the insta pot, and so that'll cook it really fast. It'll like shorten the time instead of like sitting there for a few hours in a crock pot. Then it shortens that time and it breaks it, the meat down, it cooks, it
kills everything in it. But then we make like a strogan off out of it, so you can put it over either noodles or rice, and it's it's amazing. My son in law, who's was raised non hunting in a non hunting family, never had wild meat before until he became part of our family, and he's had deer, elk and everything. But when he had that bear strogan off, he's like, oh my god, this is like the best thing I've ever eaten in my life.
Is so nice. That's awesome.
Should try that your recipes there here later on after you kill your big spring bear or not. Yeah, I mean not. You may decide not to shoot a big screen spring bear.
Just that's true. Yeah, I might. I think I think it's time. Actually, it is time. I'm out of Bear breakfast sausage. Oh so yeah, yeah, it's time time. Yeah. Another thing I really want to try and i've I've never done it is can some of it? Oh yeah, I've heard. I've heard people canning it, like Cody Rich I think, is talking about cannon bear and uh, I'm kind of curious. Sounds good.
Yeah, yeah, elk meat. I'll can elk meat like I'll take the neck meat, you know, which is always kind of tough and get weird, and especially on a big bowl. Then I found though that the smaller the pieces you cut it, the better it's going to turn out. So like that one and a half one and a half two inch you know, nuggets or whatever is optimal. If you put bigger you know, about the size of smaller than a golf ball, let's say, if it's any bigger than a golf ball, then it doesn't break it down
as good, especially on that really tough cuts. But man, you stuff, you stuff a mason jar completely full, like as much meat as you can but leave enough room at the top. And I just simply I take like a spoonful of Montreal steak seasoning, dump in there, screw the lid on, and then you then you can it and when you take it out, it's like the best beef pot roast you've ever had in your life. It's amazing. So I can I can imagine like bear would be the same thing, and probably probably but better.
Yeah, bears a pretty rich meat. Yeah, yeah, I could see how it would be really good canned.
Mm hmm. Yeah, I'll try the shot. Yeah. Well, uh, we've hit over an hour here talking about bear hunting. I think probably get two or three hours really easy. But do you have any closing thoughts on on bear hunting to leave our listeners with?
Hm? Yeah, I guess I would just say bear hunting is real hunting. I mean, there's a lot of people that poo poo it, and yeah, just just go try it. It's fun for a variety of reasons. I think it's super rewarding. So if people are thinking about it, Kimen and Han, they're on the fence, just try it out sometime and yeah, and just see see how it fits you. And it might not fit you, but you might just become smitten with it and just want to do it.
Every spring when the flowers start blooming and the green hillside start arriving, birds start singing. God, it's a great time to be out in the mountains. So yeah, I just say give it a shot if you're if you're a little bit curious about it.
Yeah, man, I agree with that one hundred percent. I don't know how many times I've been out in the spring, whether it's bear hunting, turkey hunting, whatever, horn hunting, morrell mushroom hunting. You just like you'll be there'll be a very moment in time where you're like sitting on a warm hillside and the temperature is just perfect and you hear the birds chirping and everything. It's like, man, what a time to be alive. This is awesome. And usually
those are the trips. May I may or may not even see a bear, turkey, mushroom or whatever I'm after, but it's just so fun to be on the springtime. It's my second favorite season. September is my favorite season, of course, but the springtime is a close, very close second.
I'm with you one hundred percent. Yeah, September and then like May. Just the smells too. Man, the green leaves coming on, It's amazing. I love it.
Yeah, the flower give the.
Elk bugled and we had a season in May that would probably might be my favorite.
Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. Well, thanks so much for coming on again. Josh, anybody want to look you up on Instagram? What's your handle on there?
It is Josh Underscore BOYD Underscore mt as in Montana, okay, and pretty easy to find. I think if you just did a little search for Josh Boyd, it should pop up.
And Josh uses Instagram like Instagram was made to be used right like when we back when we first started using Instagram, pretty pictures, I could cool little quote or something and like those kind of things. It's not all these razzle dazzle reels that you see now.
Yeah, I try.
I do appreciate you know, your content on there, because it's it's still it's still really good.
I try to steer clear of reels as much as possible. I just I'm not into it. But that's not the reason I joined Instagram. But yeah, or you, I guess people can find me on Rockslide too. You can hit me up there on that website rockslide dot com are Okay Slide, and I'm a staff writer over there. I do reviews and stuff. You can find me over there and use your names just Josh Boyd there as well. So yeah, easy to easy to track down in those two spots. And that's about it.
Sure, And uh, if you guys like reading, you know, articles and stuff, definitely give Josh's articles a read. I said it before another podcast, but Josh has a great, very good writing voice, and it makes for a good a good read. I always enjoyed your articles back when you used to write for Extreme Milk magazine for US.
Yeah, thanks man, I appreciate that.
I always looked forward to your next articles, like, oh, what's it going to be this time? It is so good? So anyway, I won't I won't keep you anymore tonight, and I appreciate your time. So we'll see everybody the next time.
All right, sounds good? Thanks JR.
M H. And then