# Cohutta 09'



## stuckbuck (Oct 11, 2009)

This was my 9th season bear hinting in cohutta and Well.... I got skunked again   I haven't even seen the first bear while I had a gun in my hand all the while my hunting buddy has seen several over the years, finally killing his first one around four seasons ago. This year we invited a few people to go and hunt with us and they BOTH shot a bear!!  My buddy took his the pastor of his church and I took my sister in-law's boyfriend Ricky, he is 16 years old and this was both their first bear hunt! I just wanted to say congrats and share their pictures. The first two are of ricky's bear and the other two are of randy's bear(without him)


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## stuckbuck (Oct 11, 2009)

There were a few other fellows that came up as well and I have heard that one of them shot another bear(don't know the size)
and another of my cousins shot at another bear. Man every body was covered up with bears except me but thats ok theirs always the 
next hunt!!!


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## stuckbuck (Oct 11, 2009)

the first bear in the pics weight was around 120-140 lbs.
and the second bear pictured weighed around 100-115 lbs.


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## fowlmeat08 (Oct 11, 2009)

Can't believe you let ole' Slicky Ricky out hunt you!  Better luck next time.


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## j_seph (Oct 20, 2009)

How can a bear weigh around ## and ## when it has to be weighed by the DNR. Not knocking but that 1st bear looks awful small


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## dertiedawg (Oct 20, 2009)

j_seph said:


> How can a bear weigh around ## and ## when it has to be weighed by the DNR. Not knocking but that 1st bear looks awful small



It doesn't "have" to be weighed by the DNR, they only weigh it if it appears to be close to the minimum weight.


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## stuckbuck (Oct 21, 2009)

j_seph said:


> How can a bear weigh around ## and ## when it has to be weighed by the DNR. Not knocking but that 1st bear looks awful small



Well gee... Thanks for the comment!!
when you are 2 1/2 miles from the truck it's alot easier to cape one out and quarter it up as apposed to poling one out
like we did last season. And actually the second bear was the smaller of the two.  And all that is legally required at the 
check station is the head!


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## possum73 (Oct 22, 2009)

If they have never hunted cohutta the have no idea how important a knife and a backpack are.


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## ddd-shooter (Oct 22, 2009)

possum73 said:


> If they have never hunted cohutta the have no idea how important a knife and a backpack are.



Yep.


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## Coastie (Oct 22, 2009)

stuckbuck said:


> Well gee... Thanks for the comment!!
> when you are 2 1/2 miles from the truck it's alot easier to cape one out and quarter it up as apposed to poling one out
> like we did last season. And actually the second bear was the smaller of the two.  And all that is legally required at the
> check station is the head!



Actually what is required at the check station is head, hide and total of (including head and hide) 75# of bear. The regulations are written somewhat weird if a bear is taken to the region office where they say a minimum of head and hide. Regardless, you are correct about caping and quartering a bear (or deer for that matter) if it is deep in the woods. The reasonable thing to do is to reduce it to manageable portions and pack it out. Bears are about the most difficult thing in the world to estimate the weight of, ground shrinkage runs in excess of 50% in most cases but you can be fooled the other way as well. I have seen several this year that I estimated at 150 +/- a couple of pounds but when they were placed on the scale, they turned out to be significantly higher in weight.
The Cohutta has produced a tremendous number of bears this season with, I believe, 46 taken on one hunt alone. That's a lot of bears for one area to produce in an entire season let alone on one hunt.


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## Coastie (Oct 22, 2009)

dertiedawg said:


> It doesn't "have" to be weighed by the DNR, they only weigh it if it appears to be close to the minimum weight.



That is not necessarily true, all bears taken to a check station will be weighed and all taken directly to a processor will be weighed unless the processor has lost his scales (most of them charge by the pound for processing) most bear weights that are estimated, in my experience, are checked at places where it is impractical or impossible to use a scale such as the back of a truck in the middle of the night with only the DNR rep and the hunter available to hoist it high enough with the scale to get a weight.


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## j_seph (Oct 22, 2009)

Did you all bring the meat out as well?


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## adalu (Oct 22, 2009)

The pictures of the bears are great. This hunt must have been great fun for them. I guess this was beginner's luck for them. The first bear hunt and then such a luck. They must be very proud. I actually never shot a bear but some time in the future I would love to shoot one.


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## stuckbuck (Oct 26, 2009)

j_seph said:


> Did you all bring the meat out as well?



We brought shoulders and hind quarters from both bears.


And what coastie said about weighing the bears isn't true" in our situation"... the game wardens did not weigh neither of 
the two bears. The pulled them out of the bags, stretched
them out and said "yep they were over 75" . And we wraped
them back up!! And didn't even ask if we brought any other
meat out.


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## stuckbuck (Oct 26, 2009)

If yall take a look in my profile in the "me" album there is a pic of a bear that my other buddy took last season. It is a sow that weighed 184 lbs. field dressed, thats the one we poled out 2.5 miles last year just he and I. Also there is a picture of a buck and a pig that came from cohutta last year as well, all these animals came off the same ridge!!! including the bears above!


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## rockpile317 (Oct 26, 2009)

good job


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## BrianDailey (Oct 26, 2009)

I looked @ your pics.....big ups to you and your buddy for humping those beasts out of the Cohutta!!!


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## stuckbuck (Oct 27, 2009)

BrianDailey said:


> I looked @ your pics.....big ups to you and your buddy for humping those beasts out of the Cohutta!!!



Thanks... I still say last year, poling that bear out is the hardest day I have ever worked in my life!!!


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