Montana Spring Bear: Part II Get Out of the Truck
- Luke Bartel
- Jun 3
- 11 min read
“Well does this look like a good spot?
“I think so…”
That is how the conversation went when we pulled over and on a small clearing off a dirt forest road in the mountains of West Montana surrounded by tall green pines. When you finally get there it’s a mix of thoughts and emotions, it suddenly becomes very real as it’s time to get out of the truck. Excitement turns to nervousness, confidence turns to skeptism and it becomes real. The planning, the daydreaming suddenly is reality.
“Looks different than I thought it would on OnX.”
“I wonder if we will run into a grizzly or mountain lion. I think I am faster than Andrew.”
“What are we doing here? Maybe we should have used a week of PTO for a vacation on the beach.”
The first day in a DIY hunt in the mountains in the West is unfamiliar, makes you feel very small and makes you question your planning and preparation very quickly. There is no guide or sign that says the bear will be here or where you should go. But the key is getting out of truck and to start hiking. We gather our packs, load our guns and take a "death picture" (a military tradition Brother Doug shared with me about squads getting a group picture at the beginning of a mission).
We started a mile away from a vantage point that I had marked on On-X two months earlier from the comfort of my desk, we find a trail that should get us ¾ of the way before we have to bushwack through the rest. The climb is steep and the trail is unkept with a series of downed trees across the path. It’s a mild day in the 50s but the climbing and altitude get the heart racing quickly and I break into a sweat. We keep climbing and eventually run into some patches of snow and the patches eventually turn into drifts 6” deep. About 10 more minutes slogging through snow we pause, look ahead and its completely white to the ridge of the mountain with snow and check OnX , there is no reception but the maps is still tracking us we are at about 6,200 feet and check the pin we are marching towards 6,400 feet. “I think we are too high” we both agree. We want to be below the snowline where there will be “Green-ups” where black bears are likely to be grazing on flowers and grass. We pull off the trail, pop open our first Mountain House meals of the trip (Beef Stroganoff) and begin the hike back to the truck. Well good practice run, we pack our gear up and head 45 minutes west to another range that has a lower elevation range from 5,000-5,800.
The second spot we headed to was in the Sapphire Mountain range in the Deerlodge National Forest. I love driving in Montana, you see free ranging cattle, running rivers with people fly fishing, mountains in the backdrop, healthy doses of wildlife and on the dirt roads everyone waves back, seemingly mutually saluting whatever adventure you are off to.
As we climbing the forest road we began to see the yellow flowers (glacier lilies and daisies) that is heavily cited as the ideal sign that you are in black bear friendly elevation. We pulled over and gathered our packs, loaded our guns and started hiking. The second time out of the truck is much easier, the nerves have settled a bit and you begin to admire scenery a little more and you’re questioning whether you should have gone to Cabo slightly less. We hiked in, tried taking a short-cut through a small wildfire burn (not a short-cut) and got to a point a vantage point where we could glass (scan through binoculars) both sides. I began to settle in and the heart rate returned to a regular cadence.
Bear?!
The second day we found a glassing spot off a lumber road and setup shop for the day. A couple hours go by before we spotted several mule deer 500 yards away and watch them bed down and disappear right in plain sight, it always amazes me how deer and other animals can just dissipate into their surroundings when you are looking right at them. After 12 hours of glassing and continued questioning of our strategy, around 8:30 about 45 minutes before last light Andrew says “There’s a bear…”, “Where???” I questioned back.
Then we played an agonizing game try to describe where the bear is…not that tree the Y-shaped tree, you see that red tree, no, you see the top of the ridge, yeah, go left, still not seeing it, ok you see where it opens up a little bit go 30 yards left of that. Finally “Oh shit that’s a bear!” It was 650 yards away on the other side of the valley ahead of us, when we spotted it and slowly working his way across the top of the ridge. It was Andrew’s day to be shooter 1, so he grabbed his gear and worked down to get closer while I stayed up to keep eyes on the bear. He was a large textbook black bear boar (male bear). I watched anxiously as he walked the ridge, while Andrew maneuvered his way closer down our side of valley.
The only one who was seemingly not anxious was the bear, he was incredibly nonchalant. He stopped frequently for a snack of grass or flowers and then found a tree where he stood up to scratch his back against with vigor. Andrew had worked his way about 200 yards below me and looked back occasionally for hand signals that we had not discussed, I tried to make some what helpful motions with my hands but probably confused him more than helped. He ended up setting up on an opening and was at 350 yards from Andrew, a far shot but not unfeasible. The way the bear had consistently been walking the ridge Andrew decided to try and cut the distance further to 200 yards. But the bear never came into the opening and I saw him cut up over the top of the ridge.
While the encounter did not help fill the freezer, it gave us a lot to talk about and digest.
A) There are bears in Montana
B) It was fascinating to watch a large bear, they are much more animated than other animals
C) We should have discussed our strategy for moving into position (having a spotter doesn’t really help if you can’t see them and you are pretty limited in hand signals)
D) Guess we would stay in this spot another day
We woke up early at 5am hoping the bear was in den nearby where we saw him and could catch him in the morning. We were met with 28-degree weather and
snow. By 9am it was too snowy to see beyond 500 yards and with cold wet gear we returned to regroup at camp. We started a fire to dry out our gear, took a quick nap and ate lunch. By 1pm the weather had subsided and we returned to our vantage point. Andrew spotted a lone moose a mile away (pretty cool) and then at 6:30 I spotted a yellow lump 1,500 yards in front of us that I had not seen before. I watched it expecting it to turn out to be a stump but it moved and then I could see it clearly a Blonde Black Bear! Montana has different color phased black bears but the lack of a hump on the back and narrow shape of the face is the key to identifying a black vs. grizzly bear.
The blonde bear meandered lazily on the open face of the mountain, playing on logs and searching for snacks. At 1,500 yards as the crow flies it would have
been a mile and a half hike to get into position. We assumed he would be long gone by the time we got there and is candidly intimidating to go that far after an animal, you begin contemplating the return hike potentially with a 100 lbs on your back. And we were still holding out hope that the big black bear from the night before would return. For a multitude of reasons we talked ourselves out of it, but the black bear didn’t show and that blonde bear stayed in the same spot for over 2 and a half hours. Hindsight kicked in quickly on the walk back to the camp and we realized we should have made a move on him.
Exploring and Learning
We decided to try a new location the next day and headed north. We found a
beautiful spot with wide range of view and a trail we could use to get in range if the opportunity presented. Nothing we began wondering if it was “beary” enough and as we were gathering wood for the campfire realized that there was about a dozen piles of bear droppings in our camp and an old elk skeleton. Hmm…
When went to bed around 11, not ten minutes later we heard “HUFF, HUFF” less than 100 yards outside of the tent. “Did you hear that?” “Yes…” The huffing continued sporadically over five minutes and then it was gone. Likely a bear, using the forest road winded from climbing the slope trying to catch his breath. I was too tired to let it concern me and fell asleep five minutes later.
We decided to cover more ground and go further north about 30 minutes south of Missoula. Driving through lower elevation saw more greens up then we had previously which we took as a positive sign. We drove around most of the day before settling on a finger with lesser timber density that allowed us to glass several spots. Just after 8:30 I spotted a dot 1,200 yards away that questioned another look, another bear!
This time it was my turn to try and explain where he was. “Follow that ridge,
no the other one, see that red tree and opening.” “No, where are you looking?” “No the next ridge…see that opening bottom right.”
It was a brown colored bear, is it a grizzly? I don’t know. We had 45 minutes to cover the distance before time ran out. Let’s go, we quickly aligned becoming more aggressive after the blonde bear lesson. There was an abandoned lumber trail that winded around the ridges that allowed us to stay hidden but move relatively quickly. We got to 500 yards and popped over to look and couldn’t find him. So we kept moving closer, it was growing increasingly dark sunset at 8:45 and Montana’s legal shooting hours are 30 minutes after sunset. We got to a bend about 300 yards underneath the spot where we saw the bear, it was a steep angle. And then we saw a brown head pop up, it was 9:10 with 7 minutes before close it was dark. We did not get a clean look at the bear to confirm if it was a black bear or grizzly and watched as time expired. We hiked back to camp in the dark, encouraged with our approach and the experience. We played it right, just did not have enough confidence it was a legal bear to take a shot.
Tranquility
With two days left we aligned to return to our spot where we had seen the big black bear and blonde bear. With the philosophy of don’t leave bears to find bears.
The weather had flipped from 30 degrees and snow to 75 degrees and sunny.
We slept in and started our days a little later and did some exploring before settling in to glass the afternoons. We had the pleasure of re-learning that wildfire burns are not short-cuts but painful obstacle courses of fallen trees mixed with new pines. You can either try climbing over the fallen trees or tight-rope walk them to try and move a little quicker. The ½ mile patch turned into a 60 minute humbling trudge (I was proud to only fall over three times). Overall the last two days were incredibly peaceful; the “bear-anoia” had faded, the discomfort of unfamiliarness had lessened and I could just sit watch and relax. As a cherry on top on the last evening pack of a 6 elk appeared on a face a mile away, the first ones we saw all week. We watched as they bedded down in the shade; giving us a reminder of what we had to look forward to in fall.
As we drove away the following morning, I was thankful for the opportunity and escape and reflected on my progress. This was not even a thought five years ago, I probably would have scoffed at the thought or not think it was something I was capable of. But the challenge of being in the woods and exploring the mountains is something I have grown to crave and where I find myself most present.
Three Questions, Three Observations
Three Questions
Was there a more effective use of the earlier hours? After glassing for 7 days the only time we saw bears was within the last 3 hours of daylight. I wonder if there were areas we should have been walking or checking out differently during those times. Or if you just gotta sit back and enjoy.
Low Hunting Pressure, we did not run into anyone else clearly bear hunting and heard two shots throughout the week. Spring bear is not as popular as Elk or Deer hunting but was surprised we did not run into any others. It made me question A) were we early in the season B) were we in high density bear areas C) is spring bear hunting not as common as I expected. For an OTC Tag I would have expected running into a couple more bear hunters but also there is hundreds of thousands of acres of public land to choose from.
How likely is a bear to reappear in the same spot? We had spotted two bears on day 2 and 3 of the and glassed that spot 3 more nights but never saw either of them again. I was anticipating to see the Blonde Bear again because of his passive nature seemed to be his home turf, the Big Black Bear seemed more like he was cruising.
Three Observations
Leave the Midwest Nice/passiveness behind. Hunting Wisconsin whitetail your most effective strategy is to stay put and wait for them to come to you, getting up to close the distance will generally leave you watching the tails bounce off through the woods. In the West you gotta go get them. By the end of the week a mile and half stalk didn't seem so crazy. Its easy to talk yourself into waiting for something closer but opportunities are rare on public land and everyday you’ll find yourself extending your range further and further. Another tip, take a picture of the spot or animal before going after it, your perspective changes quickly as you move so it is good to be able to reference landmarks and details from the picture to help you reorientate.
Long distance shooting, I had determined my effective range to be 300 yards before the trip. But found myself very quickly wishing I had practiced and gotten comfortable at further distances. Seemingly a lot of the shot opportunities are going to be across valleys and depending has on mind if they are just passing through, you may not have a chance to stalk to get into a shorter range.
Manage your expectations and have secondary objectives. This was my fourth Western Hunt, all have been in different areas and for different species (Elk, Caribou, Moose and Black Bear). While some lessons are shared more, it takes time and experience to learn the nuances of each species and area. I reflect on bowhunting whitetail in Wisconsin, it wasn’t until my 3rd season I got my first deer with a bow. I put my odds at 20-30% going into this hunt and positioned it as an opportunity to get more comfortable in the mountains and spend a week without cell service.
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