Elk, Mule Deer, Bear & Wolf Hunting Blog

Fall Bear Season Is Looking Good

Wed, 03 Jul 2024 09:00:00 GMT

If you haven’t made plans for fall yet, maybe a fall bear hunt in Idaho’s famous Frank Church Wilderness Area is just the ticket. Cameras on our spring bear bait sites were loaded with color phase bears this year.

We weren’t sure if it was the mild winter or simply the bear population just continues to grow, but the fact is, the numbers and color variety both on camera and killed this spring was incredible. The bears were out and hungry. We left far more on camera than were harvested so fall is looking extra good this year as well.

We have room for just a few fall bear hunters this year. Could it be you? Contact us to book your hunt.

Happy Hunting and as always, take a kid along!

Save Big on Idaho Spring Bear Hunts

Wed, 13 Mar 2024 09:00:00 GMT

This year marks our twentieth season here in Idaho and we are celebrating with 20 percent off on our Idaho spring bear hunts!

We love what we do and love sharing the woods with hunters from all over and hope to continue for another 20 plus years of guiding bear hunters. Can you even imagine saving 40 percent on a bear hunt to celebrate 40 years when that happens? Ha ha

We truly love spring bear season because after driving tracked machines in a sea of white all winter chasing wolves and mountain lions, the woods finally begin to come to life with signs of remerging plant life, early wildflowers beginning to bloom, the river opening up as the bank ice recedes and we get the horses off winter pasture to begin the bear baiting process.

As we get out and set the baits in April, we get to see all that nature has to offer and truly enjoy the experience as we look forward to sharing our love of the backcountry with those willing to invest in an Idaho spring bear hunt with us.

If you have been considering a spring bear hunt, but have just been waiting for the right time, maybe now is that right time to join us here in Idaho and save 20 percent!

Contact us today and let’s get you scheduled for your Idaho spring bear hunt! We still have some openings in May and June of this year.

Happy Hunting!

Celebrating 20 Years Making Memories in Idaho

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 00:17:00 GMT

By hook or by crook, we have made it to our twentieth year in business. We just finished our 19th season here at Wild Idaho Outfitters and as we head into our twentieth season in the “Frank” I may have to suggest that it was probably more possible by the grace of God and the many wonderful hunters that we have met along the way that we have reached this milestone.

We feel grateful and incredibly blessed to have made it this far. We have assembled an amazing team; from the administrative staff to the trail crew and the guides and even the packers, we believe we have some of the best in the business! Question is, what does this mean to you? The ones reading this blog/email? So what, we have made it 20 years, what is in it for you?

That is a very good question, we are glad you asked. We believe we have come up with a suitable answer. Twenty years is obviously a milestone. One that must be celebrated and so we are. For all spring or fall Idaho bear hunts and predator hunts booked with Wild Idaho Outfitters or our sister company Castle Creek Outfitters for the 2024 season, we are offering 20% off our regular list prices* (which I (George) believe are already the lowest in the business). That is a savings of up to $650 dollars per hunter!!!!

Now obviously we have no control over the price of tags, licenses or taxes, but over our prices we do, and we are so grateful that we have come this far and we want to celebrate our twentieth year with as many hunters as possible. That is why we are doing our best to make hunting in 2024 affordable. Won't you join us?

So for our twentieth year of making memories, we want to sincerely say, "Thank You!" for supporting us and creating memories along the way.

Why book an Idaho Spring Bear Season Drop Camp?

Mon, 13 Mar 2023 10:00:00 GMT

Winter of 2023 is a LONG one! Most are itching to get out, longing for spring. We are thinking about camping, fishing, hiking, and hunting. Winter has been a drag on physical and mental capacities.

Maybe you are dreaming of getting away from electronics and crowds and going hunting, and hunting season is a lifetime away. But is it? What about an Idaho Spring Bear Drop Camp??? It’s as close as a few weeks away, not months! How about a horseback ride to be dropped in a fully set up camp deep in the wilderness? A camp surrounded by beauty with a dry canvas tent, warm wood stove, cots, pads, cook stove, dishes, and pre-set bear baits! Complete with no cell service, no electronics, or any people in sight for a week or even two!

You can spend your days exploring and fishing, spot and stalking for predators – coyotes, mountain lions, wolves, and bear. In the evenings you can hunt a bear bait. You’ll be surrounded by mountains, big skies, flowers bursting forth, and wildlife, including deer, elk, and moose. At night you can see stars like you’ll experience in few other places. There is certainly no light pollution! You can not only see the milky way (80% of Americans are unable to see the Milky Way Galaxy from where they live) but also zillions of stars and so many constellations you'll want to brush up on them before you arrive! You'll experience the subliminal relaxing scent of the pines as well as the calming sight and sound of campfires and rushing creeks.

You can fully slip into what we affectionately call “Mountain Time”! Idaho Spring Bear in a drop camp means you have no timelines! You can sleep in, eat breakfast at noon, hunt until 10pm, stare into the stars and/or the fire until 2 in the morning! Or you can leave before daylight and climb an open ridge, scan the country fervently with your optics and put the stalk on a predator. Our area is loaded with color phase bears, beautiful blondes, cinnamons, chocolates, and inky blacks with chevrons. Our area is not easy but rewardingly rugged - well worth the time and effort.

So, despair no more! Winter is a week away from being over! Spring is here! Get out of the office, get off the couch! Make plans to get out in the woods sooner than later! You can hunt now AND this fall! Lose yourself for a week or more with no one telling you what to do, no hustle, no bustle. Listen to a silence so big it’ll make you feel insignificant. Your only limitation will be yourself!

What Spring Bear Season Means to a Seasoned Wrangler

Fri, 10 Mar 2023 10:00:00 GMT

March 20, 2023 is the first day of spring and this means Idaho spring bear season is right around the corner!

Let me introduce myself, I'm Kelly Swingruber, my daughter (Tia) and I pack for Wild Idaho Outfitters and Castle Creek Outfitters. I also manage the livestock. Simple right? Hmm, not so much! We run our livestock start to finish, so to speak, which means, we don't just buy broke stock and put them to work. We raise our stock. We find and buy the right brood stock and raise our replacement stock: mares, geldings, stallions, mules!

Prior to the start of Idaho spring bear season, the young Darling Creek Livestock has to be started. They have to be started clear back when they are Lil kids on their Mommas, but when they get some years on ‘em, it gets serious. When Idaho spring bear season rolls around, the young stock needs to be trained enough to at least throw a blanket and pack saddle on, throw some pack bags on and be able to lead. Hopefully they are a little further along then that, but not always.

Anyways….., before the official start of spring bear, we start setting baits and Idaho spring bear season means packing on Darling Creek colts in mud and remnants of snow and green bursting forth and an end to a long long looooong winter!

When we brought the old pros (livestock) out of the back country the end of November 2022 in snow and cold, some of which were just started before spring bear 22, we came home to rest a little and to dream of the start of spring bear season.

Well folks here it is almost spring, the dreaming is over and the long awaited “work” begins! The colts need saddled, the mules need shaved, the horses need shod, and thousands of pounds of bait needs set!

Horses that were cute colts on their Mommas “just yesterday” now are stepping up to hopefully become “old pros”. Myself, I haven’t just been dreaming of spring and the back country and green grass for a winter, I’ve been dreaming of throwing my leg over these colts for 3 and 4 years. Dreaming of how great they could turn out to be!

Spring also means a new crop of Darling Creek Livestock babies are just around the corner, more fodder to dream on!

Yes, the first day of spring means Idaho spring bear season is almost here but to me, so much more! Not only new growth, new stock, new memories but also new hunters as well as return hunters of which some become friends and family. 2023 is going to be a great year!

Contributed by Kelly Swingruber (Wrangler Extraordinaire)

Spring Prep Underway

Wed, 31 Mar 2021 10:00:00 GMT

With the days beginning to warm a bit and spring bear season just days away, it is time to ramp up our spring bear prep and get moving a bit faster.

Horses need shod, bear bait moved to the backcountry, camps prepped, and wood socked in for the upcoming official opener of Idaho’s 2021 spring bear season.

Although we have been in backcountry often this spring with Mountain Lion hunts and wolf trapping, it seems it takes a bit of the snow melting and warmer days to really “light a fire” and boy has it been lit!

Kelly is prepping Darling Creek colts to pack bait, the phone keeps ringing with bear bait sales and our calendar is full of hunters coming in for a new Idaho spring bear season in “the Frank”. We look forward to it every year, but this year seems extra special with the world having been so cooped up for the past year, this spring just seems a little brighter and we are looking forward to meeting our new guests while we welcome our returning hunters!

Here is to a successful spring bear season! Whether you are hunting with us, another outfitter or doing your own DIY bear hunt get out and enjoy YOUR public lands!

See you in the woods!

Looking ahead to 2021

Fri, 11 Dec 2020 11:00:00 GMT

As the sun set on the 2020 Idaho elk and deer hunting seasons, and since our emails were down, we took some time to reflect on this past year and the craziness that has consumed 2020, the thought that always puts a smile on our face is looking forward to next hunting season and next year’s backcountry adventures!

With tags sold out in most of the popular Idaho hunting zones already, no apparent end in sight of this “pandemic”, and a hostile political environment such as we have never witnessed before, what lifts us out of some of this doom and gloom is to set our sights on next year’s hunting seasons and outdoor adventures where we get to rekindle old friendships and discover new ones.

With all the negativity in this world, one thing that is consistent is our ability to still get out and enjoy our public lands, do a little hunting, hiking, horseback riding, fishing or simply enjoy the great outdoors for what they are…outdoors and not a quarantined hut somewhere in the middle of the city living vicariously through the internet and cable TV.

Now I know that most live in something far larger than a hut, but the point is that (in my opinion) nothing beats the real thing when it comes to outdoor adventure like watching the sunset from the top of a mountain or hearing the forest come to life as the sun rises on a brisk morning in some backcountry locale or listening to the water in a stream flowing gently in a mountain meadow covered with blooming wildflowers or watching the flicker of the flames in a campfire or hearing the sound of a bugling bull elk on a crisp fall morning or enjoying the hoofbeat of good livestock traveling a mountain trail, sometimes even imagining that we can hear our own heart beats as we feel it pounding in our chest as we crest that “next” ridge top. None of these sounds can be experienced in the city. One must get outdoors to enjoy this variety of symphony played by nature.

We just pulled our last camp and yet are already talking to our guides and “regulars” about next year’s dates for not only guiding, but our own outdoor adventures. We hope you are too and that you consider joining us in Idaho for your 2021 backcountry adventure!

George

Bear Hunting with Our Next Generation

Mon, 27 Jul 2020 10:00:00 GMT

I had an exceedingly refreshing hunting experience this past spring-bear season. In camp we had 2 youths; one was a 12-year-old boy, Austin, who was hunting with his father, the other was my 18-year-old daughter, Suzy, who was our camp cook. It was the first big game hunt of any kind for Austin, whose father acted as the mentor of the hunt—teaching and advising his son on everything from nature to firearms to camp etiquette.

This spring was Suzy’s first experience with hunting, too. Suzy grew up in Eastern Bolivia where girls don’t hunt, though wild game meat is a large part of the rural population’s diet and she had eaten quite a variety of it growing up. Since this year is Suzy’s first time to the United States, these are her first impressions. At the start of bear season, Suzy had little interest in hunting, and she could not comprehend the concept of hunting for sport. Why would anyone travel far and spend money to hunt when they already had plenty to eat?

The one other person in camp was an experienced big game hunter who had already taken several color phase bears and was specifically after a cinnamon bear on this trip. He shot one on the first evening. Suzy, Austin, and his father accompanied the hunter and I the morning after the bear was taken to skin it out in the woods. The walk there was quite exhilarating as we had to cross a raging stream on a fallen log to reach the bait site. This would be the first time Suzy had ever seen a bear. She was in awe with the bear’s beauty and thrilled with the overall experience. In the following days, she started paying more attention to the father and son, and noticed they were having fun together outside and by being challenged by the elements. On the 4th evening Austin shot a black boar which was larger than the other hunter’s cinnamon bear. Suzy now saw how the competition and challenge for bigger bears and different colors of bears played into the scheme of sport hunting—and she liked it—along with the camaraderie.

Competition, challenge, and camaraderie are as natural to the human condition as eating meat. I had been teaching Suzy how handle handguns for personal defense, but now she wants a rifle so she can go bear hunting with her dad, too. I’ll be working on that shortly.

Congratulations to Suzy and Austin for everything they learned! It was so much more than a bear hunt.

Good hunting,

Joe Cavanaugh

Bam, Bam: A Great Week of Bear Hunting

Mon, 20 Jul 2020 10:00:00 GMT

Congratulations to Brandon, from Michigan, for taking 2 bears on a 5-day bear hunt with Wild Idaho Outfitters. Brandon took an old black sow on the first evening of the hunt, and a young blond boar on the last evening. Brandon stuck with it and remained optimistic through the entire hunt.

Good hunting, Joe Cavanaugh

2020 Idaho Spring Bear Season Means Bear Baiting Season as Well!

Fri, 28 Feb 2020 11:00:00 GMT

With the official opener of Idaho’s 2020 backcountry spring bear seasons just about 1 month away, now is the time to get prepared by getting your bear bait at an affordable price while supplies last.

There are a lot of places to get bear bait, but only one place that can sell it as affordably priced as this.

All our baits are priced at 20 cents per pound and are packaged in manageable sized packing from 35-pound buckets of peanut butter to 30 pound boxes of jellied candies. All the good stuff needed to attract those hungry bears.

We have a great selection of bear bait in stock and ready for your 2020 Idaho bear hunting seasons, so contact us soon to get your supply of this great bear bait while supply lasts.

We are in Challis, Idaho, right at the gateway to the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Area. Home to great Idaho spring bear hunting, fall elk and mule deer hunting and a myriad of summer activities.

Best of luck with all your 2020 hunts!

George

Not too soon to start thinking about next year

Mon, 15 Jul 2019 17:30:00 GMT

Well, it appears that Idaho has been rediscovered. That can be a good or a bad thing, depending which side of the fence you are standing on.

This year’s nonresident tags in the units we guide, Area 27 and 28, sold out in record time and according to the fish and game commission, they seem pretty bent on reducing the amount of nonresident tags available in the future further exacerbating the tag acquisition process.

Thankfully and gratefully, we as a licensed Idaho hunting outfitter are allotted a certain amount of guaranteed elk tags and outfitters in general have access to deer tag set asides.

What does that mean to you? Essentially it means that if you book with an Idaho Outfitter (hopefully us), you will go hunting. In most states in the west, you can put your deposit in with an outfitter, but are still subject to the odds (whatever they may be) of drawing a tag for the species you are hoping to hunt.

Here in Idaho, if you plunk down your money with an outfitter, you will be able to hunt. Speaking of which, we still have some tags left in area 27 for this year and we are certainly taking reservations for next year so get your name on the calendar for that western elk hunt you have always dreamed of taking!

BEAR BAIT AS LOW AS 10 CENTS PER POUND

Fri, 31 Mar 2017 22:30:00 GMT

Idaho’s spring bear season is literally just around the corner so be prepared with affordable bait as low as 10 cents per pound. We have tons of bear bait in stock and ready to go. We are located in Challis, Idaho and delivery is available. We also stock Northwoods Brand bear scents and attractants.

Choose from icings, chocolates, fig filling, creamers, fudge and granola. Call today 801-598-4881 or see more at our website: www.BearBaitingSupplies.com

Fig filling


Double Dutch Fudge icing	Bavarian Crème filling	Donut glaze


Blue icing	Green icing	Orange icing


Bear Jelly	Gold Rush	Bear Scents

Don’t be a fooled this April 1st

Thu, 31 Mar 2016 14:35:00 GMT

April 1^st is a very important day in the life of an Idaho hunter. It is the first day you can put in for trophy species bighorn sheep, moose and mountain goat as well as, my favorite day, the first day of the spring 2016 backcountry bear hunting season.

Applications for bighorn sheep, moose and mountain goat begin April 1 and run through April 30 so don’t delay in getting your application in if you want a chance at any of these. Remember Idaho does NOT have a point system (a good thing in my mind) so everyone is on equal footing in the draw process. And you will certainly never hunt a sheep, moose or mountain goat if you don’t apply!

Spring bear season is one of my favorite times of year. It is a sure cure for cabin fever and a good time to log some saddle time on the old steeds we have been feeding all winter and is also a good time to start our young mules and colts. Think about it, if they have a come apart and scatter a little bear bait, I figure it is better than scattering me!

The backcountry units start about 15 days earlier than the front range seasons do, offering the hunter who is willing to work a little hard to access the backcountry a 2 week extended season along with, in most cases, a chance at 2 bears to boot! This spring may a bit interesting as there is still plenty of snow in the high country. Grass is starting to grow already in the low country, but you generally have to climb some pretty high passes to get into the backcountry, so access may be a bit extra challenging this spring!

So whether it is spring bear hunting or bighorn sheep on your mind don’t be a fool, get off the couch and either apply for a trophy tag or go hunting…or both! We are always happy to visit with you about best options for trophy species or simply talk hunting, so contact us if you have any questions.

See you in the woods!