← Live Wild with Remi Warren
Live Wild with Remi Warren
Ep. 232 | Big Bear Breakdown
00:56:17
Remi Warren shares expert insights on how to judge bears in the field, focusing on identifying gender, size, and age to make ethical and effective harvest decisions. Learn practical tips from a seasoned guide to improve your bear hunting skills.
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Foreign. I'm Remy Warren and I've lived my life in the wild as a professional guide and hunter. I've spent thousands of days perfecting my craft. I want to give that knowledge to you. In this podcast we relive some of my past adventures as I give you practical hunting tips to make you more successful. Whether you're just getting started or a lifelong hunter, this podcast will bring you along on the hunt and teach you how to live wild. This podcast is brought to you by Mountain Tough and Yeti. If you really want to utilize a lot of this information from the podcast in the field, one of the best ways to do that is to be physically ready for the hunt. And that's really why I've partnered with Mountain Tough. So if you aren't familiar with it, Mountain Tough is an online training app designed for hunters with a ton of added benefit. In addition to the fitness programs built for that backcountry hunting, you also get access to nutrition and recovery guides for on and off the mountain mental toughness training and this really great in app community that connects you with other mountain toughers and coaches. This app is packed with value to help you stay ready to get started in the journey, go to mountaintough.com that's MTN T O U G H.com if you're looking for a great gift, Yeti has you covered with their Rambler drinkware. It's a leak proof, stackable, ton of different colors and everything for drinking water, coffee, wine or beer. They even have shot glasses and flasks. They're great stocking stuffers and an awesome gift to give this season. Welcome back to Live Wild Podcast everyone, as we head into spring. For a lot of us out west, bears are on our mind. And I know turkey season's going off in a lot of the country, but for those of us that are Western big game hunters, bear season seems to take precedence. Now, whether you're chasing bears in the spring or the fall doesn't really matter. There's one thing that rings true. They're probably the hardest big game animal out there to to judge, and the one that most hunters or many hunters would say have the most ground shrinkage when you walk up on it. I don't know how many times I've heard stories of hunters or even been with people that have shot a giant bear air quotes there and then walked up on what we like to call a one armed bear. Between me and my friends, that's a bear that you can just pick up with one arm. And while we like to joke about it with our friends that have misjudged. There's another side to it that's far more serious because we want to pick out the right bear to harvest, especially in a lot of areas. So outside of the legality, legally sows with cubs, those are always off limits. But as hunters, from a conservation standpoint, we try to harvest only male bears. Of those male bears, we really strive to take the largest and oldest bores. So today we're going to look at how to identify the gender of bears from afar, how to tell big bears from little bears, and how to field judge the bears that you're looking at. But before we do that, I just want to share a few fun stories and experiences where the bear on the mountain drastically changed up close. Over the years. As a professional guide, as somebody that loves to get out in the spring and chase bears, I've guided many, many bear hunts. I've also, you know, hunted with friends, gone out on my own bear hunts. And hands down, bears are the hardest thing to judge. There's a lot of reasons behind that. Probably one of them being that for most hunters, the first time, like bears can be so elusive in a lot of. If you're going out for the first time, the first time that you see a bear, they just look big. And the other thing about bears is there's just something about chasing predators that I think gets a little bit more excitement in the air if it's your first encounter too, with the bear. And trust me, making mistakes on field judging bears doesn't just happen to people that are new at it. Seasoned, seasoned bear hunters, guys that have done it multiple times have made mistakes. I have even made mistakes on, on what, you know, I thought I was looking at on the mountain. Not obviously, not like a mistake of sow with cubs or something like that, but making mistakes of shooting a bear that I thought was a certain size and getting up to and going, ooh, a little bit of ground shrinkage here. I do remember one particular hunt there was just, I wasn't even on. I was on the recovery. I had a friend that, that shot a bear and it was evening, you know, he'd been, he'd taken a. I can't remember, like he maybe harvested a bear before, I can't remember. But definitely he really, he really wanted to get a bear, wanted to get a good bear. He was out by himself solo hunting, saw a bear across the canyon in the evening time, shoots the bear and he's like, calls up. He like went into some Thicker brush. And he just wanted some help finding it, recovering it because he's just like, you know, might as well have some people to help me pack this bear out and go in and find the bear. Just. It got dark, he's going back in the morning anyways. Calls me up like, dude, I just shot a monster freaking bear, dude. Like the biggest, the biggest boar on the mountain across the canyon. Told the whole story. You know, he's by himself, so he didn't. He could hear the hit. He saw the bear run into the brush, figured, you know, he hit it good, but didn't know because he was by himself. And he says he's pretty excited this, that and the other thing. So we go over there the next day. You know, it took us a little while to kind of pinpoint where the bear was at because he was just going off memory. Didn't have anything on video or anything like that. I always like when I'm by myself, seems like more of a pain. But to set up some kind of way to record so you can see that impact in that other, you know, especially on like a cross canyon shot or something like that. But you know, so keys over there trying to, we're trying to direct traffic and guide in because these canyons like there's a river or creek in the middle that's just probably raging in the springtime. So to get across, get up over the other side and figure out exactly where you are and all this alder and shoot and all this stuff can be difficult. So we get over there and he guides us in and whatever and find, find blood where he hit. Like, okay, we're on a trail here. So we spread out and we go down into the patch. And sure enough, the bear is right in that first patch. He made a great shot. And from what he described and what he thought he was shooting at, he thought he was shooting it. I mean the way that he described it, it was a 500 pound bear, right? And the bear that we walked up on was. I don't even know. We'll just call it, I don't know, you could, you could lift this bear up with one arm. We call it a one. I think this is where the one arm bear came from. I don't know if other people call them one arm bears. We call them one arm bears because you could literally pick this bear up with one arm. And you know, he just went from like in his head, what he was walking up on was this monster boar. And what it was a boar. It was just like a Miniature little bear. And honestly that happens a lot. Like it's, it's a very common story, a very common theme. And in some ways, like there's nothing, you know, you're like, oh, it's not that terrible of a thing. Like he filled the bear tag. He was stoked that he got a bear. Clearly it wasn't the bear that he thought he was, was walking up on. You know, I like to, I like to give guys grace for it. But also it's fun to just give your buddies a little bit of shit, you know, like we just. Oh yeah, that one arm bear, especially when it's just in their head. It was, it was so big. But it happens, it happens especially with bears for a lot of reasons. Like often in the springtime they're in these big open shoots. There's nothing really to gauge them against certain bears. And we'll get into it in the tips and tactics portion, but there's a lot of bear like certain bears, very large bears and very small bears actually at distance look the same except for their size and scale. Like a lot of the features and other things like look the same. So you know, that was, that was one instance. I, I mean I've seen it happen a lot of times and I've even like guiding personally been on bears where you go, yeah, that's a big bear and it ends up being like a Schmedium bear, you know. Oh yeah, a little bit of ground shrinkage there. And I've also had bears where you're like, okay, that, that's a good opportunity, kind of like a medium sized bear. And you get up to it and you go, jeez, this is a big bear. Or that looked like a good bear. And it just happens to be like a monster skull on this bear, right? So there's all kinds of that stuff. And not to, not to throw a buddy under the bus because I'll, I'm, I'm willing to share my own mistakes as well. I had one bear that I was hunting one day, spring bears, a long time ago. I mean probably 20 years ago, maybe more. I don't know. It was a long time ago. And I'm up in this canyon, I'm glassing across and I see this bear feeding and I'm like, dude, this is, that's a great boar, like sweet, like low belly, swayed back. It looked like big head, big bear, you know, had just, just old mature bear. It's everything screamed old mature bear shocked the bear. It was an old mature bear. Like it was a Good. It was a pretty good size. It was like an average sized bear. You know like a mountain bear is probably, I don't know what they average like honestly probably most mountain bears like five and a half, six feet is a good, good mountain bear, right? Coastal bears in that, that's different but you know, just like an average to better than average sized bear. Teeth worn down. Just an old bear skinned it out. Like literally skinned it out. You know, obviously I watched for a while make sure there was no cubs or anything like that. And it, you know started, actually started like the weather started to come in and so I was just making kind of haste skinning it out and everything. And when I went to check the bear in they were like, yeah, you know, some something like though these are like a really old bear. It's like a. I don't even know what they were guessing like 20 some odd year. Like just an old bear. They're like, I don't know if this bear would have lasted another year. I was like, cool, that's the perfect bear to take out, right? I swear to you. Like I remember grabbing like I case skinned it so I wasn't really paying a lot of attention. I could have swore that I remember grabbing like bear nuts and like this was a boar. And as I looked at it closer I'm like, dude, this is act. This is a sow. I'd never shot a sow before. And like this, this bear had all the traits of a. Like I guess I'd never encountered a really old mature sow. Probably never seen one like that in the wild. And it had all the exact same features as a, as a boar. And I'm telling you like, I swear like in my mind I grabbed its nuts but apparently it wasn't nuts. And I've had another friend that has done the same thing. I mean you can imagine. So I don't know, there was a swollen part of its body that like was just like it was, it's okay. I mean getting too deep into the woods here. But I was like pretty dang sure. Like how can you not tell? I was like, man on this bear. This thing was a, this was like a boar is boring boar of a boar bear as it gets. And it was a, it was an old sow. And since then, you know, like you don't know what you don't know, right? And it didn't really matter as an old bear is a great bear to take. Probably been barren for like the biologist was like, yeah, a bear like this hasn't had cubs for probably a while based on her body condition and was like, this is just a, like the reason it was suede back low bellies because this thing was just ancient. But yeah, I mean that, that was, that was a bear that I took and I thought for sure that was a boar. So we all, we can make mistakes like that. You know, there's obviously mistakes you don't want to make. You, you do not. And thankfully, you know, I'm very patient when it comes to looking at bears. I, you know, I, I've looked, I've been fortunate to look over a lot of bears since then especially. And even before then, like, I didn't grew up hunting bears and still make a mistake of thinking that was a bore. And it ended up being a sow. And until that point, I just didn't even know that. Old boars and old sows have like very, very similar appearances. And there are some ways that we'll go into, to kind of tell the difference. But yeah, and, and also too, I do want to say like in, in some areas and other things, you know, the, the biggest thing is making sure it's not a sow with cubs. Clearly, you know, I, I've never had any accidents or, you know, even with like around guiding, I've never really run into people that have made that mistake. But I could see how it could get made if you get impatient and just see a bear and, and lose it, like, oh, bear. Because there's a lot of things that are identifiers, but also there's no, I guess there's no proof like patience in some ways. So sometimes you just got to look at a bear for a long time till you're 100% certain. So we'll go into that. But field judging bears, very, very difficult task because of there's no real identifying features on them like you get with elk antlers, mule deer, other species like that. You're going off of kind of a furry tractor blob that has a few identifying characteristics that distinguish it between male and female, large and small, because within a certain scale they start to look the same. And it's easy to misidentify the size especially and or potentially the gender of the bear. It's like those stories of people in Florida or Midwest or whatever being like, I swear to God, I saw a black panther and it's like a tabby cat in a, in a freshly cut stubble field. I've seen cats in fields like that and they, they look huge. Right. You just have nothing to gauge it. Against so it size magnifies where you think it's further but it's actually closer. And then the size, it's a little bit of a mind trick. So we're going to go into ways that you can identify male and female bears, boars and sows. And then we're going to go into ways that you can identify big and small bears at a glance at distance and then how to watch bears and understand what you're looking at. I think that I'm going to start this off by saying that any species that's hard to identify males and females or there's not a lot of difference between the two mountain goats would be included in this. Bears, mountain lions, I think that those are the primary ones, I guess like wolves, any species like that where it's hard to identify males versus females. I really do believe that better identification comes from time spent around those animals, time in the field and just the ability to look over a lot of animals. When you're first looking at, let's say you've never seen a mountain goat. You go out and you see a mountain goat up on the mountain, there's like you. Yeah, a lot of those characteristics are kind of hard to distinguish between the other. But then as like especially if it's a group where you've got like, let's say there's no kids in it, but it's two nannies, three whatever, no kids, which doesn't really happen that often, whatever. But you look at it and you go like yeah, there's a mountain goat. Oh yeah, it looks like a billy because it big and fluffy and looks cool. And then like a big billy walks out like a mature billy and you go oh, those ones are nothing like that one over there. So you have something to compare it to. Bears can definitely be the same way. When you're looking at maybe an im, a one bear or an image of a bear or whatever you okay, that, that looks like this. But when you can compare it to something that's the exact opp. Like opposite a big old mature boar versus younger S, you go clearly a different. Clearly I can now tell the difference. Or when you spent time around them you can really start to. To pick up the nuances that it first is just too much information flooding your brain. And that happens with all things in hunting when you're new to it. It's like all the sensory, the excitement, the. I finally found one. Okay. I finally found one. That's so exciting because they can be very difficult to find sometimes spot and stock like some people spend years looking for bears. It's like, boom, finally found one. It's got to be the one, right? You've got like this excitement level. I get excited talking about bears, seeing one's even more exciting. So you've got this excitement level and it kind of clouds your ability to understand maybe what you're looking at. And if you've never seen them in the first place, it compounds the problem. So I'm going to kind of take this podcast as here's what to look at if you don't know what you're looking at. And even if you do know what you're looking at, here's some things to kind of make you better at it. But I'm also going to say that time and experience makes you a better judge of all these things. So you have to also, when you're out bear hunting, hunt within a scale, your scale of experience I can identify now having, you know, even from that one, that sow that I shot, however many years ago to today, you know, I've probably got 20 more additional years of bear hunting experience. And within that, I've gained more knowledge, more whatever. So my ability to recognize a boar versus sow, whatever, a big bear versus small bear, happens a lot faster than it did when I was starting out. And it might happen a lot faster than somebody else that's brand new to it or maybe a few years in, or maybe has been doing it for X amount of time, but haven't seen that many bears. So when you're in the field, you have to remember, okay, here's my experience. And then also I'm going to have to judge this bear based within my personal experience. So it might mean you need to make. Take more time to look at this particular bear. I always say, like when I, when I've been guiding, when I'm bear hunting to myself, if you aren't 100% sure, assume that it's a sow, okay? Because you can't make a mistake if you don't, if you don't pull the trigger. And I tell that to my hunt. Like the clients that I'm guiding. When I was guiding a lot of bear hunts, be like, look, we're set up. Maybe I'm over here glossing a bear. A bear comes out. If you aren't 100% sure, don't shoot. And we, I would go through, and we would, you know, through the course of the week, show them, okay, what do you think that is? You think that's a boar? You think that's a sow, whatever, you know, and let them kind of to gauge it. But I always, like, always default to assuming that it's a sow and then proving that it's a bear. Like the innocent until proven guilty theory, I think works really well with bears, is like, okay, it is a, it is a sow until proven that it's a bore. And that's a good, that's a good strategy to not make a bad mistake. Now, I will also say, like, I am 100% on board with predator management and predator control. So when I'm talking about, like, in certain areas where you need, you want better bear populations, like the populations, whatever. The taking of sows really hurts the population. In other areas, there might be areas where it's like, hey, we need to do some predator management. And I've done that. I've gone into predator management areas, bear hunting, where they're like the state or whatever the wildlife agencies going, there are too many bears here. We need to cut these numbers down because they're severely hurting ungulent populations. Moose, elk, deer, whatever it is. And in that case, you know, what you're looking for might be different. You might be targeting kind of more any bear. Maybe not just old boars or, or mature boars. You might be targeting, you know, cubless sows, mature sows, younger boars, whatever. Right. So there's, there's all aspects of management in there, but in most areas as hunters, we're like, we want to take an older, mature bear generally looking for boars. And especially it's like, if you like bear hunting and you want better bear populations, target bores, it, it. And in many ways it helps the bear population because those big bores do a lot of bear killing as well. Like, they're, they're probably the ones that are controlling the population the most. They'll go in, they'll kill the, the cubs so they can then later breed that sow, which, which happens all the time. So I am saying this too, to say, like, in different areas, there's different management objectives. You know, in, in some instances, yeah, you might actually be looking for a different kind of bear. I also think, like on a typical bear hunt, you know, sometimes you aren't always looking for. There's certain areas, like a big bear in Montana, in like the mountains, the Rocky Mountain west, we'll call it wherever. Montana, Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, whatever. A big bear there is not the same as a big bear on the coast of Alaska or even in the interior of Alaska. Like, there's different food sources, they're different sizes, they're pretty much different bears. East coast bears, Midwest bear. Like, there's, there's bears that have access to different food sources. Like a top end bear that you might get in the mountains might be half the size of a top end bear that you'd get on the coast or in like an area with a ton of feed. Or like areas like California. I mean, in the lower 48, I'll like, I'll say California has some giant bears. I think it gets a lot less attention because there's no spring bear hunting. But dude, it's got great bear hunting and the, the noggins on those bears. If you want like a Boone and Crockett bear, there's a great place. Alaska is a great place. And then like those, I mean, there's probably places that I don't really know about, like north central part of the country, eastern part of the country, southern part of the country. There's some big bears in there. There's. There's a lot of places with big bears. You know, actually, the Rocky Mountain west probably isn't one of the places with the biggest bears just because food sources, limited genetics and other things, like, a lot of that plays a factor. So we'll go back into identifying the bears because one of the. So one of the easiest ways to tell if it's a bore a sow is if a bear walks out and there's little fuzzball cubs with it, it's a sow. Okay? That's kind of like the proving point of like, is it a boar? Is it a sow? But those cubs often aren't right with that bear. If you've never bear hunted before. I've watched a bear come out and go, yeah, that bear's a sow. I'm not interested in it. And you watch it and you're like, man, we watched it for a while. You know, no cubs. And someone's like, that's just more hungry to harvest. A bear goes, oh, there's a bear with no cubs. And then later on, out comes one cub, two cub, three cubs that were just up in a tree while that sow is feeding. That happens. That happens. And that's one of the reasons why I personally target boars, is so you don't make an accidental mistake where you go, oh, I shot this bear that had no cubs. And it turns out it was a sow. And turns out, oh, it did have cubs. I just didn't see it. So my personal philosophy is, I'm Hunting boars, that, that's what I'm targeting. And, and it's primarily for that reason of I don't want to accidentally make some kind of mistake where I took a sow with cubs. And I think that that is a very, I think that everybody should have ascribe to that philosophy because it's the best for the, it's best for the bear population, it's best for bear management. And it' the objective of, you know, following the letter of the law and not taking a sow with cubs. Because if you take a sow and you didn't know she had cubs, it's still taking a sow with cubs. So understanding the difference between a boar and a sow is probably the first critical thing that you need to know when it comes to bear hunting. Now when I was talking about understanding the difference between the two and time in the field makes a difference, you'll hear a lot of guys say like maybe that have hunted bears for a long way. Like you can tell by their swagger, right? Like a boar does walk different than a sow. A mature boar walks different than a young boar. They kind of strut around like they have different musculature. They, they move around like they own the mountain. If you haven't seen bears interact, every bear looks like he's owning the mountain. I, I will say that like for sure, big mature boars kind of give a lot less care to what's going on around. Young bears are always on the lookout. They're like a little bit timid, especially if you're in a situation where there's like bait or something out. They come in earlier because they know that they don't really run the joint. They're less bold in a way. Like they kind of are always looking around, moving and feeding fast. Bears, even in the springtime that come out, they kind of like come out, they feed, they move around real quick. They're close to the timber edges because they got that safety and cover of trees and they aren't necessarily thinking about human predators. I think they're just more worried about that big bear that probably wants to kill them. And as you get later into the fall or spring cycle, closer to summer, you start to get into like bear rut. So you'll see like one bear following like a big bear following another smaller or good sized bear. The one in the back's the boar. It's, it's rutting, it's following a sow. I've even seen like multiple bores following one. Sow trail. But like the demeanor of the bears is a little bit different. I will say I feel like though that you can't just go off of like, oh, it acted, it had some masculine energy. It was a boar that just doesn't work. A couple of the features that I go by for sure one of the best, like telltale signs of boar versus saue. And what you got to think in this is you got to add up multiple, like check off multiple things when you're looking at the bear. And sometimes as you get used to this, you can do these things very fast as you're new to it. You just got to study them. And sometimes studying them means that you missed an opportunity at them. It's okay, it's. It's okay to like miss an opportunity at a bear because you're out there hunting and you're out there learning. The, the thing that I think of the best if for boars and sows is like sows got the big back end, boars have that bigger front end. And that's very true with a lot of male species, other male species that are, that are harder to distinguish. Mountain goats and even mountain lions. The back end on like a sow often like if you took a pear and turned it on its side, that's kind of the body shape of a sow. She, she stores her fat in the back end. She's got less like up front probably. I don't know if it's just like the more musculature of the boars, her kind of neck and head, I guess it looks like. I kind of think of them as more like like the facial structure of a, of a sow. If you were to draw like a triangle between the nose and the ears, it's a lot more narrow. It's almost more like the profile of a. Like their heads are more of a profile of like a dog per se, where it's like longer snout, tighter, you know, tighter triangle between the like ears, eyes, nose. As you get those like bigger mature bores, that triangle widens like their head widens out more. I will say like there, there's also this thought of saying like, you know, big boys have that bigger front end. So you see that hump and that sway back and that dropped belly. Mature sows also have that humphrey that drop back and that sway belly. I feel like if you were to draw a lateral line, bore's would probably be more level. Like the, the hump would be more level with the back end. Whereas I feel like on a, on a board. Whereas, like, a sow would be more like hump and then bigger, like maybe even higher back end. But one thing you're, you're looking for is like, does it look like it's carrying a lot more weight forward? Does it look like it's carrying a lot more weight back? That's a good way to start to distinguish a boar from a sow. Another really good way is looking at their legs. One thing you'll notice with like sows is they've got dainty wrists. Boars are, they're constantly digging, they're fighting, they're. They're going after more things, I feel like, with their front end. Whereas, like, sows are more selectively feeding, gaining weight, trying to take care of the young. Now they do fight a lot to try to protect those young, but it feels like boars are just, they're, they're more aggressive in what they do, what they hunt, what they eat, and because of it. And then also that, like breeding, fighting, they're bigger on the front end. So you'll see like a boar's leg, especially the front, like, look at the front legs. When you see them walking, it looks like their front leg kind of ends into the paw. It's not like a real small wrist. Whereas a sow really tapers down. Like boars have big fat forearms and sows really skinny down in the forearm. So the front end isn't as muscular, it's not as big. The back end's often bigger and it kind of like creates a, a smaller, like it goes big back into smaller, to like a smaller head. Whereas a boar looks like he's carrying that up front. He's got the bigger head, he's got the bigger shoulders and overall bigger presence and more, I guess, evenly distributed between the front and the back. And then looking at the wrists and the leg portion, big fat leg. Especially like down at the, from the knee down to the ankle. It's like it goes into a big leg, into a big paw, as opposed to a sow that looks like a skinny, like it creates an ankle and then goes into a smaller paw, Smaller, smaller claws. And that's a, that kind of scenario or setup there is how I start to identify boars from sows. Now also, you can look at the behavior, watch them like the way that those big boars react as you start to notice, like, okay, here's a boar. And then the way that it, the way that it presents itself, the way that it walks, the way that it moves. Once you start to look over a Few identify them. You go, okay, you, you can start. It's, It's, I hate to say it's like a feel for it, but you can start to get a feel for the way that they move, the way that they, the way that they kind of pull themselves with their front end. It's almost like, I don't know, like, I think of other species that they do this bull tar, like male tar and mountain goats, and it's like they stomp with that front end. They really use that heavy front end to kind of meander around. They're. They're pulling them. It's almost like they pull themselves with their front end as opposed to push themselves with their back end. And that probably contributes to why they've got that bigger front end, too. And it's in that gait and in that walk and in that disposition that you can start to identify the two. That comes with time in the field. But it is something to notice when you're out there being like, oh, these are some of the other things in the checklist. Then, obviously, watching the bears for a long time, make sure there's no, no cubs around. If you've identified a bear that is a boar, you know, you go, okay, I'm 95% sure it's a boar I watched. Okay, no, no cubs, whatever. Now you've identified one, you're like, I'm not sure. It might be a boar. It could be a sow. Continue to watch, continue to watch, continue to watch, because there's ones that you maybe have questions about. You're going to start to continually watch them and see if there's any sign that this, this might be a sow until you're positive it's a boar. So there is this other, like people always say the ears on a baron, and I've heard that where, like the way that the ears are set on the head, sometimes the, the boars, like, as their heads grow out wide, their ears look a little more set to the side. You still get that with old sows. Like, that one that tricked me had all the characteristics of a boar. Honestly. Now, in hindsight, that one was. That one didn't have as big of a back end because it was so dang old that it just, it was very proportional. And in that case, you know, maybe looking at the head and where it's like, chin is, you know, I could go, yeah, like, its neck was a little bit different. And sometimes you get fooled, right? Like, I've been fooled. And I look back at that and go, man, I don't know if I. You're like here, I mean, you're trying to explain their. And it's like sometimes they look very similar. I think with the knowledge that I have now, I would have like identified that as a sow. But in the moment, with the knowledge that I had up until that point, the two were the same to me. And so that's, that's something to keep in mind. And I think that it's just good to, you know, and I watched that bear for a long time. Like I knew for certain there was no cubs there. But also, you know, I think like in hindsight, you know, maybe I, maybe I could have later distinguished or you know, like I think I would have been able to distinguish based on like the head and head structure and features. One thing I, I talk about with the head is like you get that that profile of the head. A good, like a good sized boar will always like it's it. Their heads definitely have that wider disposition now that, that the boars like will get like this top muscle where it goes like the muscle grows on either side and it's almost like a ridge in the middle there or like a valley in the middle. I've seen sows with that as well, but it is more of a boar characteristic. And then like the overall head size compared to the body, like if it's a big body with this small head generally that, that's going to point at a sow. If it's like a, a head that looks very proportional to that body, heavy front end, heavy like proportional head, it's probably very indicative that it's a boar. So now let's look at the thing that happens more than anything. The misjudging of the size of the bear. And this happens. I mean I've had bears that I've definitely misjudged. You know, you look at it and you go, you know it's a boar, but you're like, yeah, that looks like a big bear or a big medium, right? Maybe we aren't here for the, maybe this is for this area that's a good bear. And you get to it and you go, that is a below average bear. And it's like, whoa, what happened here? Oftentimes it's a scale issue. So what I mean by that is you have to understand what you're looking at. How, what is on that hill? Is it a bear hill? Is there anything that we can judge its body size off of? I'm primarily speaking to like spot and stock. Now when it comes to like baiting bears, you can, you can use things in the foreground like a barrel or a tree or a stump that you kind of know the size of to really help identify the size of the bear that you're looking at. I've had bears on trail camera that come in real close to the camera and you're like, dude, this thing is an absolute tank. And then you see it again next to a log further back and you go, okay. It was just a trick of the camera. Like it was, it was a lot closer and made it look a lot larger. Is still a bore. It was like you know, mid age, medium bore. But when you got it compared to, you know, the log behind it, not as big. And then you get a picture of like an absolute tank in the same area and you go, oh, that's the difference. At first glance, close to the camera. Yeah, it looks like one thing. After further inspection and really getting that scale in there, it looks like something completely different. So the scale is important when you're glassing across on a hillside. What I like to do is I like to compare the bear to the grass and, or flowers and other things on the hill. There's been times where a bear comes out and you go, that looks like it's got all the features. It's like a big blob, like low, like belly low to the ground. Which people say, oh yeah, that's indicative of a bigger boar or bigger animal. Bigger bear. It is and it isn't. So one of the things, like if a bear comes out real dog legged, looking like a, a, like a black lab, that's a smaller bear. It's. That one's kind of easy to tell. It's more the two ends of the spectrum in spot and stock hunting that get confusing. Big bears and very little bears have some of the same characteristics. Characteristics. You get these little bears that everything is proportional and compact. So like their heads are very proportional to their bodies. Their legs are like, they look like these little fluff balls, like their, their bellies to the ground. They often don't have like a big hump on their back. Not like a grizzly bear hump, but like that natural sway in the back. They often don't have that sway. So it's more flat back, low belly like. But it's just this little compact fuzzball that at distance or if you aren't really paying attention to the scale that's there has all the features of big rig. Like it's not dogleg, it's, it's Honestly, those bears like, those bears look like they have big fat forearms. All the things that I listed in identifying a board those bears have. And it's just like a miniature version. It's like that, it's like a big bear shrunken down into hardly anything. A little football, little pillowcase. And, and you tell the difference between those bears based on the scale of the things that are around it. So that's always something that I looked at. Last year I was, I was out glassing, first night, it's like, oh, here comes a bear. Had all those characteristics. And one of the guys that was with me, you know, we're looking at it and he's like, do we go get that bear? And I'm like, if you want to fill a bear tag, that's a bore, you could do as you please, right? That is a very little bear. And you're probably going to be very disappointed in yourself after shooting that bear because that, that bear like, look at the, look at the grass there. The grass is taller than that bear. Look at the grass where we're at. The grass here is, this is probably taller than that dry hillside that bears on. And this grass isn't even, you know, even of like foot and a half high. Look at those flat, like, look at those white flowers that it's feeding on. Compared to the size of its head, it is a proportionally big looking bear. On this bear hillside, it looks like a beef cow. Honestly, like from. You could see it with your naked eye, it's a bear hill. And it just stands out like it's this giant big bear. But also look at the way that it run. It like runs and runs like it's a little like, like little animal playing. It's looking, it's moving fast, it's kind of always on alert. A big bear is out there stomping, pulling with the front end, acting like it's the biggest thing in the world. Probably, you know, like looking up and has that like commanding presence. There's a little bit more distance between its rear end and its front end. And it would be, you know, the grass would come up to the top of its, like barely up its leg as opposed to halfway up its body. So getting that scale is very important when judging edging bears because at first glance, and this happens in the timber at close range or what, or at 100, you know, a mile across the canyon on this open hillside, that scale makes a difference because it can make things look bigger or smaller than you think. Another thing is one thing that I'LL do is, like, if I am still hunting and I see a bear in the timber and I catch a glimpse of it, first thing I do, pull out my range finder range where that bear's at. If I go to that side, that's. If I go like, that bear looks big and it's 100 yards away, I can then gauge that, like, okay, that bear looks big. Because I was kind of thinking that it was 300 yards away, but. Oh. Or if I'm going like, okay, that bear looks big. And I range it and I think that it's like 150 yards away and arrange it. It's 300 yards away. Well, that's telling me that that's a big bear, because it looked a lot closer than it was because of the size of it. I've had that happen on, like, one of the biggest Montana bears that I ever took. I knew I had a client. I've told this story before, but I had a client that missed the bear, and then she had to go home. And I was done guiding, and I'm like, I'm gonna go see if I can find that big boy. And I got in there. Now I can't even remember. I think it was either. There was definitely a sow. There might have been a sow, a small boar and a big boar. That sounds right to me. But the first time we saw it, it was just the big boar. And, you know, you see it and it' like, off in the distance. Off in the distance, and you go in the timber, you go, God, that looks close. And range it and you go, oh, it's not as close as I thought. And then they went up and over this. This little rise. And what ended up happening was the bigger boar, like, moved back to go check that sow. I think, like, the sow came back down, and sometimes it can get a little bit, you know, like, oh, I just saw a bear, you know, knowing, like, okay, when this out, like, when that bear popped back, that's not the bear that I was looking at. This other bear was substantially bigger. And that other bear popped back over. It saw me, and stood up on its hind legs. You're like, okay, yeah, that looks like that bear looks like he's, like, over 6ft tall based on how far he is. That's definitely the bear that I'm going for and. And shot that bear. And it was one of the biggest bears that. That I've taken, like a spring bear in the lower 48. I think that bear, like, man, I got. I'D have to remember. It was, it was a heavy amount of meat. Like way more than I was expecting. And still with bears, like, that was the biggest bear I've ever killed. Big skull, like heavy. I think it was. I don't want to misrepresent it. I'd have to. Like when I record things like as I was fresh, it's a lot easier to remember because I, I knew but I, I think I, I weighed the boat. Like half of it was boned out, some of it was bone in. And there's like 200 and some odd pounds of meat. So like almost 300 pounds of meat. Not all of it boned in. That would have been like a fall bear, 500 pound bear. Like that's a legit big bear. Like I weighed, you know, the ha. The cake hide and all that stuff. And it was, it was like a legit big bear. And even that big bear, you walk up on it and it's not as big as they look when they're standing out there. Like the bear is the biggest before you shoot them. Even big bears, like I shot, I shot one giant coastal black bear. Like a legit. I guess it'd be like a legit seven foot squared plus bear. Hugh, like huge bear, as good as they come. And even that bear didn't look as big as it did when it was walking around. And that's just, that's just bears like they all shrink because they look so commanding, so big out in the field. Especially in the springtime when there's not. Or even in the fall when. And in the fall they're bigger because they're just way fatter. But they just, there's not a lot to gauge them around in. Not as much growth and cover. Oftentimes like they're just standing out. It's like, whoa, that's a giant bear. Even the big bears, they look giant, look smaller when you get up to them. But there is that difference between the real small bears and the big bears. So those young little fluff balls, dog legs, weak ankles, small head, like skinny, scrawny body. That's indicative that it's like a smaller bear. The activity of a smaller bear is way more scared, way more on the lookout. Like it looking here and there often. Like if a bear runs up a tree, it's probably a small bear. I say probably because like I was guiding one guy in the fall, we spotted this bear and I was like, that's a giant. That's an absolute hammer of a bear. We need to go. I I. We need to go in there and try to get it. And this was archery season, so he's like gonna do it with his bow. And it was feeding on a dead elk. I don't know if it killed the elk or. I have no clue. It was a cow. It was a cow elk. So it's feeding on this, like, rotting cow elk. And we snuck down there and we, we got in and we couldn't find it. We'd just seen it. We'd been watching it. Like it would go eat and then move off to sleep. Go eat, move off to sleep. So we wanted. We didn't know where it would go and it would go off. So we watched it walk back in. And so we started our stock and we dropped down in the canyon, tried to make time, and we're like glassing, glassing. And it's not anywhere there. Like, well, where the heck did this thing go? So we sneak up to the carcass and it was sleeping right behind us in a bush. And that bear, like bolted, but is so full of meat that it just had. Had no, like, it didn't want to run. It was just too sick. Like, you could see it had been eating so much gorging and then throwing up. And then you could see it was even eating its own throw up. Like, it was disgusting. But that bear ran and started climbing a tree and the, the hunter shot it with his bow. And it was like it was a very large black bear. Boar, like big boar. So not always the case, but that was a very unique circumstance situation. But little bears, you are, are like on edge. They're utilizing that cover. They kind of feed fast. Like, they move fast. They kind of like run to a spot. Kind of like think about like cow elk and calf elk. When they like play. It's like they run and then they stop. And then they run and they stop. You don't see big bears doing that. Like mature bears. Like, I'll get there when I get there. I'm not going to go expend all this energy to run to this little flower patch. I'm just going to walk to it because I'm not really afraid of anything out there. And that's the disposition of a big mature bear versus a little bear. So watching that erratic pattern, how they feed and how they move. If you got one that you're like, okay, it's got drop belly. It's like looks proportional. It looks like it has a big front end. Like it's a boar. Is it a big boar or a small Boar, utilize the scale. Is it. How does it compare to the things around it, to the rocks around it? What do you think the size of that rock is or the brush or the. Or the flowers or the trees? You know, kind of start to gauge that. How does it look, nose to tail? And how is it acting? Is it like, very timid and running and kind of sporadic, or is it just like a very commanding presence? Really big bears look really big, but also small bears, to a lot of people, look really big. That's. So it's like, it's nice to say, like, if it's a giant bear, it looks like a giant bear. Yes. But if it's a giant bear with a commanding presence, a big front end, a kind of head that matches, and a swagger of like, like, I just don't care. And comparatively to the things around it, it is larger. That's a big bear. That's what you're looking for. Go ahead, take him. And that's the way that I kind of look in identifying thousand bores, big ones and small ones. I hope you guys enjoyed that podcast. I know, for me, I'm excited. I'm getting out. I'm going to get out this weekend. I'm going to go chase some bears. I'm really excited to put some time in the field, and it's such a fun time of year to just be out. You see so many cool things. Spring is always fun like this. This year in a lot of places is a very mild winter. You can go back. I'm gonna create some playlists here and just have different playlists for different species, and I'll continually add to those playlists. Over the years, not everybody's listened to every podcast, so you might start to see, okay, there's a lot of tips and tactics that are timeless, that are classic, and then there's other ones that are good to just bring up that a hunt might remind me or people are asking questions. And so I try to. I try to get to those as well. So as always, feel free to reach out, like social media, Instagram, wherever, Leave comments. You can even, like in Spotify, leave comments on those. I see those. Those pop up. Give me notifications of, like, oh, yeah, this, or I have this question. Those things. I always really appreciate that because it helps often direct traffic and where. Where. What kind of the things I want to talk about, whether it's hunt applications, whether it's scouting, whether it's spring bear hunting, whether it's fall elk or archery prep, those kind of things. I Like to know what you guys want to learn about and then I can kind of formulate the podcast for that. Because at the end of the day, this podcast is for you guys listening. I really appreciate your support. Feel free as always, drop a comment. You know, subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. If you don't. I did just this last week, started a Instagram and Facebook page for the LiveWild podcast. I haven't done that before, but also so you know, I am starting to film, like at least record my end of the podcast and then clipping that into little clips. Not the whole thing, just, just certain fun pieces throwing some other clip like video clips over the top of it. So you might like. If you, if you're interested in seeing some of that or you listen to this podcast, please follow us there. I appreciate it. You know, a lot of these clips are on my YouTube shorts as well. Just at Remy Warren, Remy Warren YouTube channel. They're on the shorts there as well. But I just wanted to have other places to put it and then also keep some of the stuff, you know, timely to the podcast. If you guys have like successes or what. Tag, tag me. Tag the podcast. I'd love to reshare those things in our stories and other stuff. So if you got a story, whatever, feel free to tag those if I see them. What when I, I, when if I'm like there and see him, I'd love to share and reshare that stuff. I appreciate that. So thank you guys so much. Another thing that I wanted to mention, an awesome supporter of this podcast, Vortex Optics. I actually recently got to test a piece of equipment that I have never tried before and it's been fun to see. So they recently came out with their Vail 400 which is a, it's actually a thermal imaging device. Now you're like, thermal imaging not legal for a lot of hunting. That is correct. And I'm not in any way advocating it for, you know, illegal use or anything like that. What I am saying is I, I have never even really got to run one. So I, I took it out and just, just testing, not hunting, just whatever. And I'm like, man, I don't know, I think that I, I kind of wish that they were legal for certain things because like nighttime navigation, you could actually see your way out of like if you're in cliffy situation, man, it would be incredible for that. I am a very big proponent of predator hunting and predator management though. And in a lot of applications, thermals are legal for predator management and Animal damage control, things like hogs and other stuff. So if you live somewhere where that's legal, man, by all means, this is a tool that helps aid in that. And I am all for that. Like, I, I, I'm going to use this for like, coyote hunting in where I can, where it's legal to use for coyote hunting. Even just like when you're calling, like, maybe not even at night calling, but just early in the morning and identifying where coyotes where. Like, it was crazy. I was using it and I was like, oh, there's a jackrabbit way over there. Primarily in that, like, early morning, twilight, evening hours. Like, like it was super cool. I, I guess I have like, friends have had thermals that I've checked out, but not like in the field. I've seen them like at sporting shows and other stuff. And, and honestly, I'm like, I don't know, like this, you know, it doesn't really work for what I hunt, but for predators, I'm like, this, this could be a game changer of like, for me this year. I really feel like mule deer populations are hurting wherever you land on it. I know for a fact in a lot of places in Nevada, the, the own, the, a few of the places that a lot of it comes to habitat. Absolutely. Fires and habitat and like, you know, competition and all these things, like winter range, all that's super vital to mule deer habitat. Habitat's key number one thing, in my opinion. I think outside of that, though, predator management in the areas that we have had extensive predator management in Nevada are the only areas in the state where mule deer populations have started to rebound. And when I was a kid growing up, like, everybody hunted coyotes, Everybody. And I just feel like it's not as big of a thing anymore. And for me, I'm like, man, I'm gonna even me personally, like, I'm as much to blame as anyone. Like, I used to do quite a bit of predator hunting and have done a lot less. Like, trapping isn't as popular as when I was growing up and we had massive deer populations and a lot of people trapped. A lot of people hunted predators. It was very rare to see coyotes, is very rare to see a lot of predators. And now, like, honestly, I'll go out and I'll see a ton of coyotes and I go, what's going on here? And now those areas, I'm actually like, okay, I'm going to go out and spend some time in the off season predator hunting, doing some predator management. Because the state and government trappers or whatever. Can't do everything everywhere. And there's definitely not even the funding for it. So to be a part of predator management. And I'm all for. When I'm talking about spring bear hunting, like you guys have heard me in the past, my favorite tactic for hunting spring bears is I wait till late. I wait and I go target bears that are targeting deer and elk. I like those big. The. I like to find those big bores that are slurping up fawns and calves, because those are in areas that I hunt. Like, I'm scouting, I'm learning the area, and I'm. I'm doing a service. If I take one bear out, I might have saved 10 to 20 elk or deer. And that's, that's, that's the truth of it, because I've seen, like, I've been in those areas and watched bears pick up multiple deer and elk over the course of a few days hunting, you go, okay, how many are they hammering? When I'm, you know, obviously, like, a lot. And that's all part of it. I think there's a balance. They need to be managed. They mean managed properly. There's a place for predators on the landscape. I just think that in some places, like, they've just gone out of control. So that's my rant going down this long thing of predator management and encouraging people to get out. And it's a fun time of year to, like, get out and do some predator management. When I'm spring bear hunting, I'm also, like, doing a lot of coyote hunting, calling for coyotes, that kind of stuff. So if it's illegal where you're at and you can utilize thermal optic, it's a cool. It's a cool device to have. Now, obviously not for, like, in a lot of places, not legal for bear hunting and other things. So. So, you know, just use it like to the letter of the law, what you're allowed to use it for. But there's certain places where it's legal to go out and use it for predators, for hogs, other stuff like that. And it's a cool device. I mean, I, I tested it out and I was like, this thing's awesome. I like the fact that it's. It's like the size of a range finder. So having that was. Was like. I. I've seen other ones. Like, I don't have a lot of experience with these things, but it seemed cool. Like, I thought it was pretty sweet. The other thing I liked about it is you could, like, record and take photos in it. So even if you're just like wildlife viewing or whatever, I always, I was like, man, I probably have like stuff creeping around my like mountain lions and stuff creeping around of like your house or whatever that you probably have no clue about. Like, I should just take it out in the summer a little bit, do a little bit of like security check, see what's around. Probably mountain lions and coyotes and all kinds of stuff that you didn't even know about. Trying to get, you know, whatever neighbor's chickens and other things, bears and all kinds of stuff. But I don't know, it was a fun thing to play with and definitely a cool thing that test out. So if you're interested in that, you utilize those. I think that they, from my experience with limited experience, I like what they made. I like the size of it, the ergonomics, the features. And it was really cool. It works really well. So that's something to think about. I'm just gonna say for my awkward goodbye. What a dude. I just can't bear to shut this podcast down. I'll catch you guys later.