Clipper
Senior Member
I just returned from my annual trip to the Cohutta WMA to hunt with an old hunting buddy for bear and hog. He hunts for hogs, I hunt for both. The weather was cooler this year than most making this a very pleasant hunt. A campfire actually felt good at night.
I got there Monday afternoon, set up camp and went scouting. The first area I scouted had a broken white oak limb in the road with nothing but hulls on the branches. That was the only tree I could find any acorns under, so I kept going. Walked out a trail, cut down a likely looking valley with plenty of white oak trees and found nothing. When I got down to the road on the ridge where the branch was, I found acorns and big piles of bear scat in a 150 yard long narrow stretch of white oaks adjacent to a gated gravel road. The elevation was 1400 and the oaks were on the north side of the ridge. I then went to another spot I knew had whites at about 1570 feet and found nothing.
Tuesday morning I scouted a different area at 1400 feet and found nothing. I scouted both sides of the road and different sides of the ridges. I did find a few mountain oaks dropping on one ridge. The wind was shifty Tuesday afternoon and I didn’t want to mess up the good area I found the previous afternoon so I sat on the first oak I found by the road and saw nothing.
Wednesday morning I got a late start due to misplacing a vital piece of equipment (short term memory has vanished with age) and a bear was already there. I saw him from the road but he saw me too and ambled off. He didn’t run so I hoped he wasn’t spooked too bad. I scouted the area a little more and found several piles of scat of varying ages. Wednesday afternoon I set up on the same spot with my back to the road and listened to white oak acorns raining around me due to the high wind. I was very confident I would see a bear. About 5:30 I heard a crow call and looked to my right to see a black blob through the 3’ high maple saplings that covered that area. It moved and was feeding in my general direction. The wind was steady in my favor and I watched it feed for about an hour and a half. It got in bow range once but was behind brush. It finally fed off as the sun was setting. My buddy watched a sow and cub for a while that same day in the area he was hunting. Thursday morning was a wash and we headed home. All-in-all a very rewarding hunt. We are both in our late seventies and each year we say we will do it again next year if we are still able. I am grateful I was able this year.
I got there Monday afternoon, set up camp and went scouting. The first area I scouted had a broken white oak limb in the road with nothing but hulls on the branches. That was the only tree I could find any acorns under, so I kept going. Walked out a trail, cut down a likely looking valley with plenty of white oak trees and found nothing. When I got down to the road on the ridge where the branch was, I found acorns and big piles of bear scat in a 150 yard long narrow stretch of white oaks adjacent to a gated gravel road. The elevation was 1400 and the oaks were on the north side of the ridge. I then went to another spot I knew had whites at about 1570 feet and found nothing.
Tuesday morning I scouted a different area at 1400 feet and found nothing. I scouted both sides of the road and different sides of the ridges. I did find a few mountain oaks dropping on one ridge. The wind was shifty Tuesday afternoon and I didn’t want to mess up the good area I found the previous afternoon so I sat on the first oak I found by the road and saw nothing.
Wednesday morning I got a late start due to misplacing a vital piece of equipment (short term memory has vanished with age) and a bear was already there. I saw him from the road but he saw me too and ambled off. He didn’t run so I hoped he wasn’t spooked too bad. I scouted the area a little more and found several piles of scat of varying ages. Wednesday afternoon I set up on the same spot with my back to the road and listened to white oak acorns raining around me due to the high wind. I was very confident I would see a bear. About 5:30 I heard a crow call and looked to my right to see a black blob through the 3’ high maple saplings that covered that area. It moved and was feeding in my general direction. The wind was steady in my favor and I watched it feed for about an hour and a half. It got in bow range once but was behind brush. It finally fed off as the sun was setting. My buddy watched a sow and cub for a while that same day in the area he was hunting. Thursday morning was a wash and we headed home. All-in-all a very rewarding hunt. We are both in our late seventies and each year we say we will do it again next year if we are still able. I am grateful I was able this year.
