As I am totally snake bit when it comes to hunting (or even seeing brown bears) I seem to spend a bit of time pondering on how to get the big varmints visual. The other day some guy suggested that bears might come into a big racket made by ravens ... obviously looking for carrion. (I sure would want someone covering my back on that kind of calling !!!) All you great bear hunters out there ... Might that work ????

Of course there's a good chance it will work. Include some eagle and magpie calls too. You may call in the birds first, but that may help too. Apparantly you like a little excitment.

Several years ago, a friend and I decided it was a good idea to thin the black or brown bear moose calf killer population. My friend was an expert at game calling, and used a lot of differet calls. In this case, of course the call was a moose calf in distress. It was early spring, and snow was still in the alders, but we had seen bear tracks already. It was about the time the boars were out, but mostly sows and cubs were still near the winter den. We had also seen some newborne moose calves.

Anyway, it seemed like a good idea while sitting in town having coffee, but it was one of the spookiest things I've ever done while hunting. I had a 35 whelen, and it seemed like not enough gun. Every movment was cause to take notice, and every little sound meant something. It was too spooky. The only way I would recommend it is to use an elevated stand, and an electronic call, placed at least 100 ft from the stand, up wind.

Another problem is that you may have to shoot whatever comes in in self defense, so the option of picking the right hide, or trophy may be chosen for you by the luck of the draw. These critters will be coming in salavating, and changing their mind that what they thought they could eat isn't there after all, may take more convincing than you have the patience for.

If you have the nerve, of course it could be fun. Keep us posted.

You may be interested to know that last year I started a business called brown bear roulette. We take pre-paid clients out the road, and have them dress up in a leather suit covered in bacon grease and salmon slime, then show them a bear trail in the grass. We provide the stool, so they can sit on the trail overnight, with a spear or rifle, their choice. We return in the morning to fetch the hunter and the dead bear, or the pieces, whichever. We do letters to next of kin as well, if needed, provided we are included in the client's will.

You can be our first client.

KB

I,m NOT a great bear hunter . Just a lowly Alaskan Timber Beast..
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..But I have a good bit of experience in Southeast with ravens and bears . .
In different places bears will prolly react to different calls .
Bears will sometimes come in to sound . In deer country a fawn distress call will work pretty well . We have lots of eagles and very often ravens and eagles will make alot of noise argueing over a gut pile . A hungry bear will be attracted by that . both brown and black . .

I've spent a lot of time in between moose & bear season at Cinder River using a caller in hopes of killing a few wolves. I called in lots of bears but they never were more than just curious and not a problem. The raven calls sure called in raven's more than anything, the thing about calling in big country the bears and wolves sometimes show hours later as evidenced by howls and tracks in the night. wolve's seem to be far warier than anything often coming within 5 to 600yds and not much closer except under cover of darkness.

I,ve found here in the Interior when calling predators with a snowshoe hare distress call that ravens are usually the first thing that comes in to the call . Then lots of other birds including owls ...
but with a fawn distress call I,ve called in lots of brown bears in Southeast .

Hmmmmmm ... it sounds like a fawn distress call might be the way to go .. and as an earlier poster suggested ... I have already thought of new rain gear made of bacon .... (Forgot some of my Helly Hansen (or whatever it is called) raingear last September in Alaska. ) Thanks for the very interesting commments !

quote:

Originally posted by scruffy:
Hmmmmmm ... it sounds like a fawn distress call might be the way to go .. and as an earlier poster suggested ... I have already thought of new rain gear made of bacon .... (Forgot some of my Helly Hansen (or whatever it is called) raingear last September in Alaska. ) Thanks for the very interesting commments !

No need for that. Just invite Lady Gaga along and let her lead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsLmRFOZFMQ

Grizz

That's great G.A.

That's an example of how I came up with the idea of brown bear roulette.

I consider it a form of gene pool service. Anyone foolish enough to take me up on it will be doing the gene pool a favor. IMO, and most certainly, Lady Gaga is a prime candidate.

KB

I saw Lady Gaga on 60 Minutes tonight. 24 years old and is supposed to earn $100,000,000 this year .... What were you saying about 'gene pool ' ?

It's amazing what people will do for money, and the more money involved, the crazier it can get. IMO, it's not so much about her, as it is about where the money is coming from. That says a lot about the craziness out there, because I can't relate to giving one nickle that she could see any benefit from. Whatever she is about, means less than nothing to me.

KB

Back on subject . I knew a guy ( logged with him in Ketchikan and on Kuiu) . One day during deer season in the early 1980s he walked up a mountain to some higher muskegs . Found a point of scrub timber , sat down and blew a fawn bleat deer call . Within 15 or 20 seconds he had 5 or 6 wolves within 10 yards . . He about swallerd his snoose and peed his pants . He was hunting with a Win 94/22 mag. I asked him how many he killed ? he said none , he was too scared to shoot . There is something seriously malevolent about a pack of wolves . This guy was one rawboned squarehead from Minnisota who would by far rather fight than almost anything else . I mean just tougher than twisted couger shit . but he was a scared to shoot some wolves in the head at 30 feet or less .. 150 lb wolf is a pretty big dog . I wish I would have been there .
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.He didn,t use the word malevolent . He just said it scared the @#$%&*; s|√Π out of him .
.He stood up and yelled at them and they took off . He high tailed it down the mountain .
... What a waste . Now that would have been a good place for a 30/30.

Taking a .22 Magnum on a deer hunt in Alaska ... you say that guy got into lots of fights ... with resultant head blows ???? Who'd have thought ??? Love the story, gumboot 458 ! When I go back on my brown bear hunt in the fall .. maybe the guide can blow the fawn call and I can hold one of those whirly mojo furry things .. gotta cover all of the bases. Wonder how much a flak jacket is ?

There,s a whole mind set of people up here who think they will only see and and encounter what they want and plan to see and shoot .He had shot deer with that rifle . He could hit well with it..

quote:

Originally posted by gumboot458:
There,s a whole mind set of people up here who think and only see and encounter what they want.

That's not just in Alaska, but everywhere, and on any topic.

KB

In my younger days, I mostly hunted solo, so gutting and boning out deer was by myself. I learned to make a point of not gutting or boning my deer out in the open. Them birds aren't stoopid. Ravens have a specific call that's say - "it's feeding frenzy time" I never did like it when they were onto my kill.

A swarm of ravens and eagles can devour a gut pile in short order. My kid and I dropped a buck on the way up a ridge. I gutted it and moved the deer away from the guts and covered it with tree boughs. This under a pretty good forest canopy. No birds around at the time. We came back in an hour and could only find blood on the ground - no trace whatsoever of the guts.

I'm still waiting for my first real wuff encounter (Romeo doesn't count)

Romeo was a real wolf, but he didn't entirely act like one, in ways harmful to himself. He was doomed.

Having a forest canopy is a good thing, but not always there. I hunted in the Muskeg openings, around the edges, calling them to come out big boy for the prize, but instead I gave them a surprise.

So I tried to gut in the open, away from the edges, to try to not provide a zone for a sneek attack. I wanted to see a bear coming, rather than sudden like.

I've seen gut piles cleaned up in minutes by ravens and eagles, and bears know this, so if they think a gut pile is available, through the calls of eagles and ravens or magpies, they will sometimes hurry to the scene.

A few years ago, some nimrod shot a young sow because of the color (blonde), and left the skinned out carcas right on the beach by the road. Within three or four days, the ravens and mostly eagles had cleaned the bones. Those eagles sat around for days, on low branches, and sometimes hopping around right on the ground, bloated too much to fly. If chased, they puked in order to be able to lift off the ground.

Sometimes another bear will claim a carcas, and eat it. If a guy is unlucky enough to walk up on a scene like that, his chances of a charge are very high.

KB

on the subject of calling ......where could one get a recording of a "moose calf" in distress?

You would probably have to have one "custom" made. You could do it yourself, by catching a moose calf, and shaking it up a bit, while recording the sounds it made.

Perhaps a better way is find a guy like the friend I had, who made the sounds with his voice. At the time, there was such a thing as a moose calling contest, which he had won. The winners for the last three or four years, sat as judges of the contest for subsequent years, rotating off the oldest sitting judge each year for the fresh winner from the previous year.

I suspect that the moose calling contest is still active. A few phone calls (Rotary Club perhaps) could find a guy willing to make you a tape of his rendition of a calf in distress. That's what I would do, if I wanted such a tape. Heck, with some imagination, you could probably do it yourself.

Playing the thing, in the right place, at the right time, from a safe distance, could be amuzing. I think I would look for a player with a remote starting device.

KB

come to think of it.....grizz know the sound of a cow moose calling away...I killed one big bear by using this calling tech. when hunting bulls. I think a grizz would not know if it is mating season or not for moose. that big ole boar came out of nowheres and then I hit it with my .300 win mag and 180 X....spring is not to far off...cool. how closely does a deer fawn sound to a moose calf? Victor Crichton has a tape done in a few years back if I can locate one on his moose studies.

You are right, some of the biggest ones are the moose killingist beasts, and have been since the last ice age, and the extinction of the short nose bear. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctodus

Also see the Dire Wolf: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dire_wolf

Black bears too are a real threat to calves, but a mature brown bear can take a cow readily.

Some brown bears are specialists, especially in the interior, or seasonal specialists in places where there are salmon streams too, like Cordova. These are real preditors. Cool isn't the exact word that comes to mind, but no doubt that a guy would be doing the moose a favor by targeting those specialist bears. Now that's DG hunting, and if the brown bear can be a specialist, so can we.

KB

quote:

Originally posted by Kabluewy:

quote:

Originally posted by gumboot458:
There,s a whole mind set of people up here who think and only see and encounter what they want.

That's not just in Alaska, but everywhere, and on any topic.

KB

.
.
Hey , you mis quoted what I said .
I said " they think they WILL only see what they want " . .
If your going to quote me , then quote me . Don,t change what I say ...!!!!!!!!

quote:

Originally posted by gumboot458:
There,s a whole mind set of people up here who think they will only see and and encounter what they want and plan to see and shoot .He had shot deer with that rifle . He could hit well with it..

.
.
this is what I said .

quote:

Originally posted by grizz007:
on the subject of calling ......where could one get a recording of a "moose calf" in distress?

.
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I don,t remember the brand . but a guy I know here had a pretty high end eletronic caller that had an amazing array of sounds on it ... it wasn,t a Fox Pro ... He said it cost around 800$ . It wasn,t on an MP3 format . It had a whole bunch of Alaskan animal calls on it . Including moose calf distress . .I,ll try to find out what brand andvwhere he got it .g

quote:

Originally posted by gumboot458:

quote:

Originally posted by Kabluewy:

quote:

Originally posted by gumboot458:
There,s a whole mind set of people up here who think and only see and encounter what they want.

That's not just in Alaska, but everywhere, and on any topic.

KB

.
.
Hey , you mis quoted what I said .
I said " they think they WILL only see what they want " . .
If your going to quote me , then quote me . Don,t change what I say ...!!!!!!!!

I saw what I wanted to see, encountered what I wanted, etc. I perfected the technique, right here in AR, learning from others.

Regards,
KB

quote:

I,ll try to find out what brand andvwhere he got it .g

very good, thanks.

The caller in?? is,Wildlife Technologies Caller.

They have great sounds and a huge inventory but,

It is huge,very finicky,remote doesn't reach far enough,I haven't destroyed mine yet but there is some fragile parts on it.

Back to the original question--I've been around quite a few wolf kills with ravens on them and the birds are pretty quiet while on the kill. If a bear went to a raven squawking every time he heard one he'd get very little food as they mostly squawk away from kills.

Maybe ravens learned over hundreds of years to be quiet at kills so wolves and bears wouldn't show up and chase them off?

Yes ,Wildlife Technoligies .. .
.I think that if theee arr coyotes in the area also that coyote pup yips and maybe a female coyote call with fawn bleats or moose calf distress and some ravens mixed is would be a good call setup .

an intriguing library they offer....quite the website. many thanks!