Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game new bear hunting tag in va.

the vdgif has lost there mind. they have taken our bear tag away.
up to now when you buy a big game licence in virginia you would get a bear tag included . they have now taken the tag off the regular lic and now you have to pay extra for that tag.this has been pushed for by the bear hunters for years just to stop the average deer hunter from being able to kill a bear while deer hunting. stupity at its finest. we have a fast growing bear population in the mountains of va.while the population has declined in the past few years. this will only make things worse.bear are killing off fawns every spring .this new law will increase bear population and hurt the deer population even more.

most deer hunters will not pay 20.00 extra for a bear tag because they are not likely to see one everyday .in the county i live in we have been pushing the state to give us an extra bear tag instead making us pay extra for the one we already have.the loonies that run this state are surely not looking out for the average hunter.

NC did the same thing last year. The bear biologist wants to know who is actually targeting bear, what the incidental harvest is (were you actually hunting for bear), and what the harvest rate is now that we legalized baiting (with restrictions depending on what part of the state your are hunting in). The tag is only 10 bucks though and free if you have a lifetime license and ask for the tag.

$20.00 is not bad but I would want to know why and where is the money going.

so we get screwed out of a tag we had ,the big game lic stayed the same price. now we pay 20.00 extra just for a chance to kill a bear. it sucks because they only did it to stop the bear hunters from crying. bear hunters association is big here in va. thats the only reason it was passed. i'm already hearing deer hunters saying they will not buy the tag and will shoot every bear they see and leave it in the woods. sounds like a plan to me.its kindof a turnabout on the bear hunters because some of them that i know have been shooting deer and leaving them lay just to keep bear in the area for years.

Sounds like a bunch of ethical hunters in your area.Shooting every bear and leave it lay because of $20 tag is very sad.

Why not just buy a tag? How many can you get? NC has a 1 bear limit.

Idaho has lots of bears and they're very hard on elk calves. Some areas allow 2 bears/yr. We have to buy tags but they're cheap, only $11. Non-residents can buy a deer tag and use it on a bear, wolf, or cougar if they get a chance for one. NR bear & wolf tags are cheaper than the deer tags, though.

A measly $20? And you're good with shooting them and letting them rot?

Geeezze! Pay the lousy $20.00 and go bear hunting. Be happy that some hugger group didn't politic to eliminate the option completely.

I wouldn't even blink at the chance for a $20 bear tag.

Right.

I applied for a draw tag for 14 years and never got one.

The year I got picked was the year I moved to another state.

Suck it up.

$20 for a bear tag. Sounds like a great deal to me!

Just curious what comes with your big game license? Most states I hunt you purchase your hunting license then have to buy all your additional tags.

It's not about the money...seems there's a war between deer hunters and the guys who run dogs.

the problem is that we are dealing with lots of problems here. where i live near the national park there are already to many bear . in the mountain areas west of me for years there were no bear. the vdgif for the past 10yrs has hauled problem bears into remote areas to the west and released them. during those years the deer population has been on a steady decline due to coyotes,bad winters and the growing numbers of bears . plus the fact that the vdgif has refused to cut the number of doe tags allowed . this has pissed off thousands of deer hunters because in many places there are no deer.most life long deer hunters could care less about bear. bear hunter numbers are growing but most are not taking enough bear to help control the population. then there is the other half of the state the could care lass about bear because most places have very few or none. to me this rule change could not have came at a worse time. in the future i see way more bear and very few deer to hunt.

the few of us that live within a few miles of the shenandoah national park have so many bears at times that they will give farmers damage tags weeks before bear season to thin the herd.
i'm hearing that may soon stop. some years i may have 10 bears traveling thru my yard to get to the farms. along with that they tear up everything they can find that even looks or smells like food.they done nothing but create a mess with stupid hunting laws in this state.its like they really don't care if we have game to hunt.

right ,the bear hunter are a bunch of greedy a-holes that want all the bear to themselves. i once killed a bear while still hunting in nelson county and the bear hunters that were running dogs a few miles away happened to come by when we were loading my bear. they followed us to the game checking station and wanted me to give my bear to them. the store owner ran them off before someone got hurt.they have been fighting for 10yrs to get this law in va. they know that most deer hunters are not going to buy the extra tag.

What is the bag limit? In NC, the Wildlife Resources Commission really wants to keep bears from spreading to new areas. There are seasons in counties where you would be lucky to see a bear track.

1 bear per year. there are plenty of counties that are the same way in va. you are lucky to see a bear all year. so if you are one of the lucky deer hunters who has a trophy bear wonder by this year you won't be able to kill it unless you bought the tag. before you would have the already and there was a 90-95% chance that you would never use it. now the bear will spread fast.

I'm sorry that they are making you pay an additional $20 for a tag....BUT it's simple really, if you want to shoot a bear, buy a tag, if not wanting to buy a tag, don't shoot the bear..

The WV bear tag is called a "damage stamp". I presume the money is supposed to be used for compensating folks for bear-caused losses, but I don't know that for sure.

We have a couple of counties were you can take an extra bear, even if you've killed one elsewhere. We also have dog-hunting areas and seasons. The regs are pretty complicated.

I've watched a couple of dog hunts on TV and while the chase looks like fun, shooting a treed bear doesn't appeal to me at all. A bear at bay on the ground would be different, I think! I'd like to see Pigman try to stab old Brer' Bear with that knife of his.

I live in central Md., I guess you'd call it the foot hills of the Blue Ridge Mts. Bears are only legal in a couple of Western Md. counties up in the higher elevations and the tags are by lottery. The DNR puts a limit on the amount of bears they will take. So when bear season comes in, the season might only last a day or 2, possibly up to a week. It ends when they've reached the DNR limit. There are sightings of bears in these parts, but I've never seen one. My wife almost hit one with her car a couple of years ago.

Our license costs are as followed:
Base price $24.50 includes upland & forest game and firearms deer.
Bow stamp $6.00
Muzzle loader stamp $6.00
Bonus Buck $10.00
Migratory Waterfowl $10.00
Fed. Migratory Waterfowl stamp $25.00
Fur Bearer $10.00

As you can see, it can add up. Everything is itemized. That way you can customize your license. I see what you're saying, the price of your license just went up by $20.00. If I thought there were enough bears around here and had the chance, I would gladly pay the $20.00. Especially to protect the deer heard.

I still don't get the part about shooting animals and leaving them in the woods.

plenty of big bear in my area when the food is here. if anyone plants corn the bears will distroy it.

here is what we pay in va.

resident state hunting..23.00
resident bear ,deer,turkey..23.00 this year 23.00 for deer and turkey
resident archery..18.00
resident muzzleloader..18.00
plus national forest is 5.00
this year 20.00 for bear.

There are a few bears around my area, in fact about 10 years ago, a small one carried off a rabbit cage, with rabbit, from my neighbors' yard. I buy a stamp every year, just in case I see a big one, but I'm not certain I really want one, as shooting a bear is a pretty big commitment for an old fat man that usually hunts alone these days.

Actually, the only wild bear I've ever seen was trying to cross U.S. 50 just West of the toney Northern Virginia suburban town of Middleburg. He took his time, looked both ways repeatedly, and waited for a break in the traffic, before sprinting across the highway. I've never seen a wild animal display that much reasoning power before.

$84. for a full years hunting and your bitching about $20. Combined with the fact there are plenty of Bears. Wake up Rip, it is 2015.

its really not the 20.00 ,its the fact that because of the change the bear population only grow when we already have to many in parts of va. we thought they would increase the amount of bear tags in our counties where there are to many bear. by making it an extra fee to kill a bear we will have more bear then ever.before long we will have no deer and no hunters.

The deer kill is down all over VA. The DGIF blames (credits) the increased antlerless kill and disease. No mention of bears or other predators. Personally, I suspect coyotes take more than bears and they are on the increase everywhere.

My younger son lives outside Front Royal and they have lots of everything: deer, coyotes, bears, and turkeys. No bears have been taken yet, but the deer remain plentiful and pretty big. They kill a LOT of deer in that immediate area, enough that they almost never buy beef.

actually the vdgif is telling us now that in the mountains studies are showing just as many fawns are being killed by bears as coyotes.they've also said that the bear population is growing 10% ever 3-4 years along the blue ridge. most counties along the west virginia 10-15yrs ago only had a few bear killed per season. now the bear kills are way up in those counties. for over 10 yrs they trapped problem bear where i live and relocated them to the counties to the west. now problem bears are being put to sleep.

I only hunt on my land now because of increasing prices of licenses. If I was still hunting in other areas I would buy the tag. I get 5 or 6 different bears on the trail cam every year but they are never around in season.

I backpack into the GWNF near Powels Fort for a week or more each year to hunt deer and grouse. The last few years, I have seen ALOT more bear than ever. Being solo 3-4 miles from my truck, I have not shot 1. I have watched them play, fight and forage. I also had a tense stand off with a mother and cubs when I only had a single six with me. The bear population has exploded in the last few years. 2 years ago, I took my wife to the Marriott Ranch outside of Front Royal, to go horseback riding. While we were waiting with a bunch of yuppees from DC, watching a doe and a fawn, a bear charged out of the woods and killed the fawn right in front of us. Last spring, a man and his dog were attacked and mauled in the GWNF by my house west of Strasburg. I hope the VADGF knows what they're doing. Bears need to be managed better in Va, but I would hate to see this game animal reduced to a nuisance animal. Which will happen if the $20 deters the locals from shooting them.

Do you know what the non-resident tag costs?

Do you think they head for the remote areas when the deer seasons open or are just laying low where they are?

My land borders about 10,000 acres of nothing and the guy that owns behind me borders a WMA. They move back in there in the early fall.

Last year, I paid $225 for an out of state hunting license to hunt in Virginia. The sad part is that I stay at my farm, and only hunt the farm that borders my farm, but since I live out of state, I have to pay the out of state fee...

If you're a landowner in VA, you might want to double check those regs again as to what you have to be paying.