you probably want a sight on the bow. as nowadays thats essential. plus you get good fast.

I've never really done any camping, but I bought some gear and am headed to Black Hawk, CO to play poker in a week or two while camping and would like to ask some questions:

1.) Searched the thread for 'bear', and since this is my biggest worry, running into a bear, just want to double check that I have little to nothing to worry about... Plan on aquiring bear spray, hanging food far from camp, not peeing near camp, etc. I have a small knife. Are there any other precations I should take?

2.) Is anyone familiar with the area surrounding Black Hawk? Have any recs for fishing/camping spots? Right now I'm looking at Squaw and Chief mountains about 40 min. south. That area seems to be the darkest on the light pollution map.

I wouldn't be too concerned about safety when it comes to bears in Colorado. There are only black bears in Colorado and black bears are not naturally aggressive animals. Unless you physically run into a bear and her cub you will be fine. It is a good idea to secure your food at camp so you don't attract bears. But that's more for the bears sake than yours.

an size knife is too small.

Yeah, I'd honestly much rather have a handful of rocks to throw than any knife there. I don't know even any friends of a friend who've had to legitimately fight a bear though; that's like knowing someone who has won Powerball or something, seems to never happen.

ive had a handful of close encounters with grizzly bears. luckily no charges.
know a few that have gotten mauled or bitten.
bear spray is really the best option to have . most times even a big gun doesnt get it done as attacks happen fast from close up.

Camped and fished at different spots on the Mckenzie River here last week. It's surprisingly full and the river wasn't that great for fishing, but looked great. I've rafted it before in September when it was significantly lower and picking good spots and catching your limit in rainbow trout is easy then.

My parents have been taking me to Clear Lake since I was a little kid, so like 35+ years now. My dad and I went out there one of the days and had the rare isolation day, basically me and my dad in a boat and the lake. We only caught a few but the bird watching was hilarious. It's like bald eagles are varsity and osprey are well below JV when it comes to catching fish there. The eagles swoop in, grab a fish with seemingly no effort and coast off. The whole thing is casual. The osprey fly around forever looking for a target, hit the water with an extremely loud SPLAT (not much other sound out there so you hear it way across the lake), miss the fish like 4/5 times, and (if this is even possible for birds) look pissed off when they fly off. I should have tried to film some of that. Lake looked good though and everything feels so CLEAN out there (no motors).

Well I'm going to consider you a friend of a friend since we've posted in the same thread, Ray. So I can cross off "exciting/dangerous bear encounters" from my six degrees of separation list. I know a guy who drove a taxi for a summer in King Salmon, AK and would drunkenly chase off grizzlies from dumpsters, but I don't count that. Now I need to find some sort of lottery winner connection.

its nice up on the mckenzie. i like fishing it up around vida and blue river. but i used to do well right in town. steelhead and salmon in the Willamette as well.
surprisingly the santiam and siuslaw near you gets good runs of cutts and is great fishing at the right time.
if you can stand the mosquitoes diamond lake is good again and the east side lakes like paulina, and east lake.

as far as lottery goes. a dealer up here his sister i believe hit the lottery for a couple hundred thousand or more twice.

Best bear defense is to bring someone along who is slower than you. I get asked to go bear hunting a lot, Lol.

But really, there should not be a big problem in CO to worry about at all. It never hurts to pack bear spray and keep it handy just in case.

Took a trip out to the Farallon Islands last week (7/5) out of Emeryville Ca to fish for Rock Fish and Ling Cod. Had a really great time with the oldest grandchild, oldest boy and a couple of his friends from work. Just slayed the rockfish. Had a good limit of 10 and caught more that went to other guys on the boat who were targeting Lingcod. Couldn't even tell you how many I caught.

We also had a nice long boat ride. Started in the bay, under the Golden Gate bridge saw some beautiful shoreline before heading out the the Farallons. On the way saw a whale, dolphins, seals jumping out of the water and even puffins which I did not know they had around there. All in all a really great day

This was my bunch of fish getting ready to be cleaned. I normally do not have a problem cleaning my own but after a long day was more than OK throwing a buck a fish to these guys. They did a great job working hard for us all day.


Random fish in the box:


Bearded Wonder (Oldest Boy) and one of his friends



The Golden Gate



The back of the boat and some of the islands


Alcatraz

Almost forgot the most important part.

Finished product

Nice. Very nice.

I take it all back. Bring Bear Spray
Colorado Bear Attack

Really though, this is very rare especially if a person is being careful with food and all that sort of stuff

so what do i see. canary rock fish, black rockfish, possibly a copper , maybe a vermillion, and lings. any yellow eyes in there. i dont know if you can keep them in cal. so maybe not.

yea a black bear attack. always fight back on one of them as they only are biting to eat or see what it tastes like. so you fight back and hopefully they get the message. if its a hurt or starving bear good luck. but black bears are strong but still smallish.
too late for bear spary with one on your head. sleeping in a tent in beaer country is prudent. it gives you time and not being in sight helps.
out of many black bear encounters in my life only one or two didnt run away soon after realizing he was too close to a human.

Lol, Not long after moving to MT I went up on a spring Bear hunting trip just south of Glacier NP. Others int he group did see a grizzly and we came across tracks on top of ours returning on a walk we took when we couldn't drive any further due to snow. Finally the last day of the trip we spot a black bear. We believe it needs to be on the other side of a creek from us to be in legal territory. My buddy stops and he ables into the brus headed in the right direction. He tells me to go over and chase the bear out of the brush and when he gets to the other side to shoot. I look at him and say, "Let me make sure I understand this right. You want ME to go into the brush after that bear and scare HIM over to the other side of the creek?" His reply is "It's ONLY a black bear". For some reason I think that sounds logical and proceed only to fine the creek is actually between me and the bear and is running at full fill runoff. No good certainly quick way to get across that so we decide it's not going to happen. Lol.

I know logically the chances of getting mauled by a grizzly are small. But it still really creeps me out to be hunting in Grizzly country. We do have a few black bears around here and that doesn't bother me. But Grizzly's are a bit different.

We were allowed one of a particular kind. I believe it was canary. Was orange with a distinctive white/grey line down the lateral line of the fish. Other than that I am no good at identifying the different kinds. Left it up to the crew to make sure we were legal. It sure is amazing the variety of different rockfish that were available to catch. All beautiful in their own way.

Bumpity bump

I've never caught one of these, or for that matter seen one caught. If you can't tell, it is a remora. Really cool. If you can enlarge the image, the suction cup thingy is really neat.




My guess is he was previously attached to whatever chomped this. It is (or was) a fairly decent size grouper.

It's November FFS
Where you guys at.
Found this guy this morning with my bow

Jesus that’s an incredible deer.

Beautiful!!!

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So far this season I only have a whitetail doe. I flat out missed shots on a very big muley buck and a cow elk during the first week.
Now my damn knee is jacked up so not sure how much I am going to able to do until Thanksgiving week when the boy will be here to help drag stuff.

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Mighty fine weather down here in Florida.

Yellowtail and Mangrove snapper - yum



My first keeper red grouper



Followed by my second keeper red grouper



Mighty fine day of fishin'