xtreme, I agree about the bears! We have more than we know what to do with up here in NW MT, it seems every year they become a bigger problem and every year the FWP and USFWS just sweep the issue under the rug! I do think we will see Griz hunting up here before to long, I think that once the Wolf problem is taken care of the Griz will be the next hot topic, unfortunately for us, but fortunate for other, the Griz are fairly isolated in there habitat range at the moment so there will not be as many pissed off people to raise the awareness level. Im glad to see so many people who are not directly affected by the wolves are speaking up.
this past bow season my wife and I were set up on a game trail the elk were using to come back to their bedding area after watering at night. The wolves had this figured out as well but it seemed that so long as the elk stayed close to the base of the ridge and didn't venture into the timber they were fine, (I hunted this small group for 9 days straight) one morning they spotted us coming off the ridge and went into the timber, within 5 minutes the air was filled with the sounds of them blood thirsty bastards. The cows continued using this trail so we set up on the opposite side of it (in the timber) hoping that if they winded us they'd run uphill. The wind was swirling that morning and the elk never showed, we remained patient, after several hours of sitting in the rain we cooked up our Mountain Houses and started to pack up, then we heard the wolves, far off at first then stopping bout 100yards off in the timber, you could tell they had something down as they were going crazy fighting among one another, we snuck out the back door and when I returned to that area later in the season we stumbled upon 2 seperate half eaten cow elk, and never saw a live elk in the area again. It was pretty sad!
