Strategy

So this morning I spent a couple hours at my most recent hot spot for bears, where I saw 6 before 8am the week before, but I saw zero for the second time in a row. So I'm thinking they've changed up their routine, because there's no tracks or anything in the area. This is common. They may do the same thing for a few days or even weeks and then change it up.

The last time I had a zero siting day, I decided to explore and try to find tracks to get an idea of where they've been. I didn't find any until I got further out. So on this day after a couple hours of nothing, I decided to head to where I saw those tracks, which included cub tracks. I have not yet seen the cub. I got to that area and found some tracks. They looked very fresh...like "right now" fresh. So I follow them slowly and quietly until they wondered off the road. They went off to the West. Normally in the mornings the bears come from the West and head East, so my thinking was, he could still be here close. So I parked my bike and within 5 minutes a bear hauled ass across the road where I just came from. My thoughts are he saw me go by, waited a bit, and then made a run for it.

Here's the pair pictured together from the previous week.

I've been seeing a pair out there frequently and this one looked like one of them. They aren't always side by side, but the second one is usually a couple minutes behind, always following the first one. I think they may be siblings. So maybe his buddy is coming as well. So I walked to the area where he crossed and looked for his tracks. Then I turned around and sure enough, there was the other one, right where I just came from. You can see in the top picture, he's between me and my bike. The bike is in the background. I wasn't really ready for these guys, so no great pictures, but this is part of the learning/strategy. I know where I'm going tomorrow. :)