Jason Frey's Montana Real Estate: Hiking Montana

The general big game hunting season opened last Saturday with hunters across the state scouring the hills for trophy bull elk and white-tailed deer. But just as hunters are gearing up for the season, grizzly bears are preparing for winter hibernation.

It’s an unfortunate reality that occasionally hunters and grizzlies cross paths.

“Hunting season is a dynamic time of year when grizzly bears are putting on weight and hunters are in the field producing a food source with carcasses and gut piles,” said Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks bear management specialist Kevin Frey. “The bears want that food source.”

Frey said every year there are encounters between grizzlies and hunters that lead to potential human injury and bear mortality. FWP is encouraging hunters to be bear aware this hunting season by taking simple steps to minimize the chance of a grizzly bear encounter.

One of the most basic steps hunters can take to reduce the chance of an encounter is to field dress and remove game from the field as quickly as possible. That means having the proper equipment with you when you head out to hunt.

“It is the delay between shooting an elk and getting it back to your truck that can be dangerous,” Frey said on Tuesday. “If there is a delay of two or three days to get that done, there is a very good chance a grizzly is going to find it.”

Frey said a grizzly can smell a dead game animal from several miles away. During the hunting season, gut piles and carcasses are the preferred food source of Yellowstone-area bruins. The bears will even turn off other prime food sources such as whitebark pine nuts to search for gut piles during the season.

If you must leave game in the field, be certain not to surprise a bear that may have discovered it in your absence. Scout the area thoroughly before approaching your kill.

“Try to leave your animal in a place you can observe when you come back to it,” said FWP spokeswoman Mel Frost.

During the late summer and early fall grizzlies enter a period of voracious consumption known to bear biologists as hyperphagia. Hyperphagia is a physiological change that triggers increased metabolic rates intended to help bears put on weight before their winter slumber.

Frey said most grizzlies are coming off hyperphagia by the onset of hunting season, but that some grizzlies will continue to feed voluminously if they feel they need to put on more fat or if food availability remains.

As such, it’s important for hunters to be aware of food sources such as berries and roots that could appeal to bears, as well as the gut piles and carcasses hunters leave behind.

FWP research has indicted that grizzlies in search of gut piles respond to the sound of gunshots, Frey said. Using radio telemetry, FWP has tracked grizzlies travelling great distances to feed on game animals during hunting season.

“Bears are very smart and have a great memory,” Frey said. “They will return to given areas year after year if they know a food source is there. If it is fall and the elk are bugling and the campfire smoke is going and the trucks are there, those bears know what is going on just like we do.”

FWP estimates the minimum number of grizzlies in the Yellowstone area to be just over 600. Frey said the bear population has been rising steadily at a rate of four to seven percent per year since the late 1990s. Grizzlies now roam just south of Bozeman in the Gallatin Range.

Frey also said hunter-grizzly encounters have not risen significantly despite the bruins’ widening range, growing population and recent high-profile maulings.

“There is probably a slow rise in the number of bears and the number of hunters in their increasing range, but those tragic events in Cooke City and Wyoming are very unusual situations,” Frey said.

Frey said the expanding presence of grizzlies means being aware of bear sign is more critical than ever to ensure hunter safety. Evidence such as tracks, scat, torn logs, marks on trees and diggings can clue hunters to the presence of bears.

“Be aware of the environment you are hunting in,” Frey said, “from the creek bottom to the top of the forest.”

With recent snowfall and colder temperatures on the horizon, Frey said he expects grizzlies to begin denning for the winter. Grizzlies typically den at high elevations in timber on north-facing slopes. Frey said most bears will have denned for the winter by mid-November, but the possibility exists for grizzlies to remain active through December.

Through the first few days of the general hunting season there was a just single report of a hunter-grizzly bear encounter on the southern end of the Madison Range. The encounter between a grizzly and an elk hunter did not result in an injury. There have been other reports of bears observed feeding on carcasses and gut piles, but no other reported encounters.

Frey said part of the necessity for increased grizzly awareness can be attributed to the success of the grizzly bear recovery in the Rocky Mountains.

Montana’s grizzly bears were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1975. The bear was listed due to a lack of biological information on the grizzly’s population status and habitat requirements.

While the grizzly remains threatened, Frey said the public’s help has been instrumental in the species’ rebound.

“It is not just the agencies,” Frey said, “it is the people that recreate and hunt in bear habitat that have made it a success. The public has been enormously important.”

FWP’s “Golden Rules” of hunting in bear country

• Always carry bear spray, have it close at hand, and know how to use it.

• Hunt with a partner. If you have to go it alone, let someone know your detailed plans.

• While hunting, pay attention for signs of bears. Look for fresh scat and tracks, concentrations of natural foods and scavenging birds.

• Most encounters are prompted by inadvertently surprising a bear. Hunters should mentally rehearse a worst-case scenario and think through various reactions.

• After making a kill, get the carcass out of the area as quickly as possible.

• When field dressing a carcass, keep your can of bear spray within easy reach.

• If you must leave the carcass for later retrieval, place it where you can easily observe it from a distance when you return.

• Do not attempt to frighten away or haze a bear that is near or feeding on a carcass.

• Follow all U.S. Forest Service food and carcass storage regulations.

Following a few "common sense" rules will help keep you coming back to Montana year after year.

I had the opportunity this past weekend to take a morning and enjoy it with my family, which is something we do not get to do as often as I would like. My wife and I currently have two children, our son is almost 4, our daughter is 18 months, and we are expecting #3 in December. We are not crazy but, if the family continues to expand at this rate we may be soon. Spare time is at a premium and enjoying it all together is rarer still. So when the opportunity arose for a family hike we were all excited. As I have said previously, the most difficult part of recreating in the Bozeman area is choosing what to do and where to do it. The possibilities are as near endless as it gets. My wife and I are stealing an idea from my cousin Seth and his wife Brooke, we are taking 52 hikes in the Bozeman area and writing each of them on a playing card. When it comes time to choose a path, we simply choose a card and head out, it makes the selection process much easier and when we have done the first 52 we can add, cull, supplement our favorites and re-shuffle.

History Rock is a short, 2.4 mile loop that begins a short distance below Hyalite Reservoir in the Gallatin National Forest. The name of the hike is derived from a large limestone rock poised along the trail that has had a number of names scribed into it over the years. According to our hiking book there are names on the rock that date back into the 1800's from hunters and settlers in the area. The hike starts from a well maintained parking area and crosses a large meadow before heading up into the lodgepole pine forest. The trail shadows a small creek for most of the way and the sound of water can be heard from multiple locations along the trail.

We started out just after 9:30am so the wildlife activity was not as high as I would have liked but we had a great time pointing out different animal tracks in the moist trail. My son is enamored with all types of wildlife and asked a never-ending string of questions about each track. Why did the horse have shoes on? Why are elk toes pointed? Are coyotes really like dogs? Can I step in that? He also saw a "really big bird" when running ahead of us and, sure enough, when we caught up with him there was a large owl stirring about 20 feet up in the pines.

Our youngest grew tired of being ported along in the luxury of our kid-carrying backpack and insisted on walking for a portion of the trail. This forced us all to slow down a little, we all took a little deeper sniff of the roses, feeling the warmth of the late summer sun cutting through the cool of the trees. We came across one other hiker along the trail, a older gentleman who looked to be in his late 60's or early 70's. We stopped and exchanged pleasantries, he commented on the beauty of the morning and commended us for getting the whole clan out and about. I told him we could not bear to waste the morning, and had to get out on the trail. He looked wistful as he talked of his children and grandchildren's adventures on the very trail that we were following and encouraged us to keep at while we could. "Times go fast", he said, "and before you know it, you'll be out here alone."

We continued on, upon reaching our destination, we took a few minutes to crawl on the rocks, gather moss and pine cones so when we clean out the car in a month or two there is something more to remind us of the morning, snap some photos, then began our return to the trailhead. After getting back we loaded up and headed about a mile farther up the canyon to the reservoir for a picnic lunch and quick splash on the boat ramp.

The hike took about 2 hours round trip, adults without kids or with older children would probably be able to complete the loop in closer to one hour. It was time well spent and we look forward to drawing another card soon.