Trego's Mountain Ear

Tag: Bears

• Community Wildlife

  

  I carry a gun

  I carry a gun when I go for walks.  Occasionally I see an article about carrying an everyday pistol – yet these folks might as well be in a different world.  I don’t need the pistol to protect myself – I have two small dogs that are at some level of risk when we run across coyote or cougar.  Come to think of it, the last encounter was when Kiki decided to protect me from 2 grizzlies – they ran for about 80 yards, and then one must have realized that there wasn’t much dignity in 2 grizzlies being chased by a 7-year-old Pomeranian. 

  

  

  The nice lady who handles problem bears for FWAP explained the advantages of bear spray to me.  I even kind of agree that my aging, overweight Pomeranian has an awesome ability to make a stressful grizzly encounter worse.  That said, bear spray is short range – 7 to 10 yards sticks in my mind.  My little companions can range 50 yards from me, and they have already encountered coyotes, a cougar, and an eagle that regarded them as prey.  I’ve had a wolf kill a fawn within 150 yards of the house.  They’ve all been beyond the range of bear spray, and they have all backed off at my confident approach.  Still, at 71, that confidence is enhanced by the pistol on my hip.

  Robert Ruark penned the phrase, “Use enough gun.”  I believe – but it is inconvenient to carry enough gun for a pair of grizzlies everywhere I walk . . . and there are only a few moments of my life spent in grizzly encounters.  Coyotes are more common, as are cats – and over a half-century ago, Paul Totten explained that a 22 is adequate for cougar.  Even a 45 feels small when you’re looking at the real bear, and politely asking, “Please Mr. Bear, you go your way and I’ll go mine.  Neither one of us wants trouble, OK?”  So far the conversation has been effective every time.

  So I carry a small, inadequate HK4.  It can protect my small dogs from the common predators, and, if worse comes down to worst, I think I’d feel more competent concentrating on my sights and trigger than praying. 

  

  December 15, 2020
• Community Wildlife

  

  Game Camera Fails

  At 6 am, Mike was out collecting firewood from the stack to start the days fire. Kiki, the older, chubby white Pomeranian was out with him.  Kiki positioned herself off the back steps and started trying to raise the dead with her bark. With enough firewood in hand, Mike called Kiki to the house.  Remarkably, she came when called.  Mike noted that some critter was out there but thought a follow up investigation was better left until daylight.

  Later that day, we received a call. “Looks like a grizzly walked down your driveway” the caller reported. We had received 1 ½ inches of snow during the night.  “How’d they know it was a grizzly?” I wondered. Mike replied the prints probably had claws. 

  

  Wandering down the driveway with the dogs, we found the tracks in the fresh snow.  Holy **** ! That’s a big bear. We followed the tracks up and down the driveway. The bear had lumbered by all 3 game cams.  I pulled the SD cards from the cameras to look for pictures of a big bear.  The Stealth camera did not have pictures of a bear despite the bear slowly walking by the camera. The Stealth camera’s record remained unbroken. (Game Cam 2 link) The Herter’s camera missed the bear.  It had daylight photos of cars and deer but no nighttime photos.  Time to change the batteries.  Only the Cabela’s camera had a not very good picture of the big, fat, healthy grizzly.

  

  This grizzly approached the driveway through the woods, lumbered onto the driveway and exited onto Fortine Creek Road before making its way back to the creek bottom. From the time stamp, by the time Kiki was reporting on it at volume the bear was probably on the road.  Our neighbor reported that the bear had been leaving signs in the lower pastures that bordered the creek for several weeks.   Seems we might have a couple more weeks of bears around the place. 

  Great pictures of game cameras are frequently a matter of luck.  We have a “good enough” picture to confirm the type and relative size of the bear.  Two of of the cameras completely missed the bear. Even the “best” camera had 1 poor picture but that time stamp sure caught our attention.

  Update: A day later with the fresh snow and more reports of tracks, we again went hunting.  This time we found 2 sets of tracks. One large set and a smaller set of tracks that sometimes were adjacent to the larger tracks and sometimes they overlapped the larger tracks. We followed the tracks into the woods to find a deposit from the smaller bear.  Lots of hair in that deposit;  the bears appear to be eating well. Again the bears had walked by 2 game cameras.  Not 1 picture of either bear on any camera.  There are multiple reports of bear tracks in the neighborhood. The bears appear to be making a large loose loop around the Trego school.

  -Patches

  Part 1

  Part 2

  Part 3

  October 27, 2020
• Patches’ Pieces Wildlife

  

  The Not So Perfect Game Camera

  Now days, I take more wildlife photos with my game camera than with my digital camera. At 4 am on a cold wintry morning my game camera is awake, I am not. What is the perfect game camera?  The camera that takes the photos you want or need. It is the camera that is reliable, consistent, and inexpensive. Do you want a camera for surveillance with the occasional acceptable wildlife photo to show friends?  Or do you want great photos the majority of the time for wildlife photography? Does the camera record video? If so, for how long?

  Since all roads lead to Rome, I have a game camera on my driveway. I use my camera for surveillance. I have seen feral cats, stray dogs, foxes, coyotes, skunks, racoons, turkeys, deer, mountain lions, and bears.  Also included would be bicycles, UPS trucks, and errant hunters.

  

  Since bears are on the move and are in the general area, I am checking my camera daily for the presence of bears.  Our lack of fruit has resulted in few bear sightings this fall. Trophy hunters are looking for the presence of antlers on deer. We have no regular sightings of antlers. A coyote has been hunting in the area.  A feral cat carried a squirrel past the camera. Does are ever present.

  

  While my old single lens reflex camera was serviceable for over 20 years, the life of a game camera is short.  Game cameras are expected to perform in all types of weather. Amazingly they do take pictures in temperatures from 20 below to 100 degrees above and in rain or snow. Wildlife have damaged more of my cameras than adverse weather.  A plastic camera with an electronic circuit board is no match for a careless deer.

  

  -Patches

  October 6, 2020