LAST UPDATED: May 8th, 2015
The late summer of 2010 brought with it all the common anticipation of any upcoming hunting season, but with a few new opportunities. One of these opportunities was to hunt with and film my friends Justin Zarr and Todd Graf of the Hunting Network. It was a pronghorn hunt with Table Mountain Outfitters of Cheyenne, Wyoming. It was during this hunt that I was fortunate enough to meet the owners of Table Mountain Outfitters, Scott and Angie Denny.
Justin and I with his first antelope, taken at Table Mountain Outfitters in 2010. Click here to watch the video of this hunt!
Fast forward to this Spring 2011. Knowing I had a fair amount of experience not only hunting out West but also running a camera, Scott and Angie asked if I’d like to film some of their bear hunters at camp in Idaho. The only experience that either one of us had with the other was based on a few conversations at antelope camp eight months prior. They were taking a chance with a camera man they didn’t know very well and I was committing almost a month of my life to film with people that I barely knew, in a place I had never been. With that said, it turned out to be an incredible time and allowed me (an outsider) a behind the scenes look at what it takes to run a successful outfitting operation.
When the general hunting population thinks of “bear hunting,” we typically render immediate images of sitting over an afternoon bait waiting for a bear to make its way to a bucket filled with goodies. At Table Mountain Outfitters, you have the opportunity to sit at bait sites in the afternoons, but the morning hunts are filled with what can be fast paced, adrenaline filled hunts with hound dogs. As a long time bird hunter, I have an extreme respect for any type of working dog, but I was still slightly hesitant about hunting bears with dogs.
On the first morning, my uncertainty had evaporated. There is no possible way I can explain to any reader how incredible and unique this hunt can be. It really is something you have to experience for yourself to understand and appreciate. From the hours of care and preparation that the guides put into 22 dogs before and after the hunt, to the sometimes super steep and long hikes in to a tree where the dogs say, “we’ve won,” to the determination of the dogs and the people involved. All that work and that’s just for one aspect of one part of the hunt. That doesn’t include the time spent preparing meals for a whole camp full of hungry hunters, setting bear baits, and maintaining an entire camp in the meantime.
Here’s a few of the bear dogs that Scott & Angie use to track down bears in the remote Idaho wilderness.
It was neat to be a “neutral” party with Table Mountain Outfitters, I wasn’t the hunter or the guide and was able to see both the client side and the business side of this industry. I was able to form my own opinion about everything I encountered. Somewhere around 15 hunters were in camp while was in Idaho, I interviewed several of these hunters during hunts and after hunts and to my knowledge there wasn’t a single hunter that didn’t leave with a feeling of success in regards to both; their hunt and their overall experience.
Hunter Mike White killed this beautiful black bear with his Mathews Z7. This was Mike’s 7th hunt with Table Mountain Outfitters
Teri and her husband Steve traveled from Tampa, Florida to hunt bears with Scott and Angie.
After seeing all the pieces that must fit perfectly together for an operation like this to be successful, I am amazed at and have an incredible amount of respect for Scott and Angie and the team they’ve put together to make Table Mountain Outfitters atop the list for hunting outfitters. If you’re in the market for a guided hunt of almost any species in the Western United States, give Table Mountain a shot at your business, I would bet you are not disappointed. You can visit them online at www.tablemountainoutfitters.com
Scott & Angie Denny – owners of Table Mountain Outfitters. These two work incredibly hard to make sure their hunters have the best chance of success on each and every hunt. Their hard work is what has made them one of the most popular outfitters in the US today.
