No replies to this topic

[Kevin G]

Well nutz.Jon and I had no joy on the closing weekend for the B zones.No one else did either for that matter.We drove up to the Trinities off of 299 out of Redding. Grizzly camp is located about 25 miles in off of 299.MAN . . . has that place changed since I hunted it three years ago! The brush is THICK!We got there on Friday afternoon and didn?t see Deer or Bear ONE on the way in. Normally we see many Does and a few Black Bears. Nada. We went for a short hunt on Friday afternoon . . . bust?n brush up this ravine outside of camp. No joy and it was a BUGGER to cross country hike. Man . . . thank God there weren?t any Ticks! It was very tough going . . . I am sure we drove any Deer that were there to the next ridge or three . . . Saturday O'Dark-thirty came around and I headed up to the double saddle I had spoken of and Jon headed around the backside of the ridge that overlooked (WAY overlooked) camp.Though you can't see it . . . the top of the ridge is about 1,000 above my Jeep. You can KINDA get a taste of the undergrowth from this photo. The higher you go . . . the thicker it gets.Jon spent over 40 minutes going about 100 yards on one section of this 'trail'. Boy . . . what a change! He said he held up his arms up, straight over his head and his hands were NOT over the tops of the brush!At least Jon had some fresh scatt and tracks for his effort . . . I went up to the double saddle out of camp. It is only about 1.25 miles (GPS miles) from camp, but it is 1,200 feet higher than camp. Ouch . . . quite the trudge. I spotted some Bear scatt that was most likely a week or so old . . . NOTHING else.When I got to the saddle . . . I was stunned at the change in the brush. What was once a perfect ambush spot had turned into doo doo. All I had was a VERY narrow lane down the main saddle, a little bit of a view down about 25 yards down the valley we were camped in and NOTHING of the other side of the saddle . . . there is a NICE bowl there . . . no view of it at all. I only had about 25 yards of view up the other side of the saddle directly in front of me. I still hunted for about two hours there . . . nary a chirping bird sound.I finally bailed and hiked another two or so miles to another set of ridgelines . . . no poop, no tracks, no noth'n.The camping was great however. We did check out another place to set up as a base camp . . . Groves Prarie. It actually has a 'campsite' with a bench and firepit. It is about ehhhh 15 miles off of 299. We could use this as a base camp and drive to the trailheads from here.Typical forest service road for the area. We drove several skid trails that I didn't get a photo of. Pretty dang steep and narrow.Nice views from the ridge lines though . . . Packed up and ready to go home late Sunday afternoon. That is Jon by the Jeep.I had one shot of film left . . . so I took a photo of my dog Missy. Woof. She is a Blue Merl Aussi Shep, just as friendly as they come.Well . . . there is always next year . . . Kevin