...patroling my beat - yesterday in the morning I stuck on his trail - the sleep is over and the hunt is on...:

Nice picture! Redefines 'wilderness'!

quote:

...patroling my beat - yesterday in the morning I stuck on his trail - the sleep is over and the hunt is on...:

Cool picture! So bears are on the menu where you are? Do you hunt with a license system or some kind of management plan?

- stu

I come from Slovenia, where the hunting areas are distributed to the Hunting associations (around 200+ of them) that pay for land based concessions. Inside of our association (60 members) we divide the hunting ground in smaller parts that 4-5 hunters should take care for. In our concession (6000 Ha) we shoot 40 red deer, 30 wild pigs, 120 roe deer, 8 chamois....per year...with bear there is not a fixed quota since the number of bears to shoot is given for every year by Ministry of forestry - last year we shot 1 regular bear and 2 PAC bears...

Yes , where are you ? Latvia has [instead of groundhog day] "bear rising day" which is March 25 .

Mouse,
Thanks for that. Always interesting to hear the way these things are done in different countries.

cheers,
- stu

Mouse93,

That's a great photo.

I had a Slovenian friend in Spain. She was married to a Taiwanese guy and they owned a resteraunt in Rota. Her brother was a gamekeeper in your country, but I am not sure where? She was a veternarian by trade but worked in the resteraunt.

Anyway glad to see your going to be doing some bear hunting. I think I am going to try to hunt bears in Alberta in 2007 and in Alaska in 2008.

Mouse 93.

Thanks, very interesting.
I gues You are hunting in the mountains. Chamois present and quite a few wild boars. Usually 6000 ha = 600 wild hogs.??
Your bag for stag and roe is good. All considered, you are a lucky guy with a fine territory. Congratulations, good luck bearhunting. Don't forget to send pictures.

thanks guys - its a bit early and this guy will probably go back to sleep (depends on weather), he is not that big at the end (aprox. 150 kg), but occasionally we have a visit from a realy big guy (250+ kg) and I will wait for that one if he shows up ...

btw - did you guys know that there are only 2 mil. Slovenians on the planet?...so D you can consider you a lucky man knowing 2 of them

2 million Slovenians ? does that include the bears ??

nope...

Great photo and good to see Bears are still in the Slovenian forests and huntable too.

thx NitroX - no worries they are here and in good numbers

Here in Estonia bears still sleep, but we are much upper north.
But the way your hunting is organized is the same we have here. We had 3 bear licenses for our county this season, also 4 for Lynx and 2 for wolf.

@mouse93

Do you have any information about the costs of a trophy bear hunt? And what weight do bears in your country reach?

Wolfgang

There were some great bears taken this spring - 300 CIC range (app. 160-200kg) - the biggest 407 CIC (280 kg). Since most of real trophy bear hunts here in Slovenia are sold out to regular guests - there is a great opportunity to go hunt in Croatia - here is their price list:

Trophy value in CIC points €
to 209,99 - 990
210 - 219,99 1.260
220 - 229,99 1.550
230 - 239,99 1.795
240 - 249,99 2.050
250 - 259,99 2.300
260 - 269,99 2.600
270 - 279,99 2.820
280 - 289,99 3.100
290 - 300,00 3.600
every additional CIC point: 60 €

...there was an last minute offer for a bear app. 320-350 CIC for 5000€ lump sum...

P.S. with most of quota fullfilled by now, we are catching 5 bears to be exported live to France

Thanks for your reply with the price list. It is for a friend that is interested in hunting bears in SLO or HR.

Regards

Wolfgang

They're sending the Slovenian bears away ! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4931838.stm

...one female bear has been cought and is allready in France, tho we will see how the folks there will accept them...

quote:

Originally posted by mouse93:
...one female bear has been cought and is allready in France, tho we will see how the folks there will accept them...

Mouse, you ever have tracked a wounded bear with your dog? Must be a strong, but dangerous job?

Hi Monastery Forester,

I actually did, tho it is a must that you have a dog that is:

1. well used to bear presence (has grown up in a bear country, othervise most of the dogs fail when encounter bear trail (same with wolf trail))
2. dog is used to work free - without sling - most of the guys that track wounded bears regulary use 2 dogs (one free and the other on the sling, so the free one do the search well infront and let you know of the presence of the bear)...

...myself would always rather search for a wounded bear than a wounded boar - IMO boars are much more cunning with nasty surprises - we had much more bad encounters with wounded boars then with wounded bears...

P.S. Sometimes it can get really nasty - last month a friend of mine was called upon a search for a bear cub that was hit by car - luckily it ended OK since the she-bear had 2 cubs and took the healthy one with her and left the scene before my friend found and shot the wounded one...on other occasions like that she-bear should be shot before the wounded cub...

www.foxnews.com has a video clip of a young Slovenian bear that caught it's head in a large plastic jar. He had the jar on his head for ten days when a forester finally was able to remove it . A very relieved bear !!!