Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game WY spring bear - why low kill?

Been following the various spring bear threads with great interest. I've always wanted to do a spring spot/stalk out west. Went last spring in Idaho and ended up do a hound and bait hunt with the 'spot' part being a bear coming to bait.

I'm in possession of 2 extra weeks of vacation this year and plan on doing a 2 week WY-CO elk hunt if I happen to get drawn for WY elk with the $1050 NR special tag. Been thinking a WY spring bear hunt would be good scouting trip for any elk trip that materializes.

Started looking at the WY spring bear kill stats and am a bit disillusioned by the numbers. Of the 10 units I'm looking at, the highest kill is bear unit 9 with 33 total bears last year. This number is the highest kill in all 10 units since 2011. I compared them with Montana and MT has much better spring kill numbers. Why the low spring kill numbers in WY? No one hunt them or not many bears?

b, I know we do not have the numbers of bear that Idaho and Montana have.. So I would say low numbers might be a reason..
Also it might be the lay of the land.. These two things together, make that style of hunting tough.. I visited with the game and fish about this years ago.. They felt, at least at that time, spot and stalk would be pretty tough.. I am sure some folks do ok.. but the bears I have taken here have all been over bait..

Spot and stalk is really hard. I don't know how other states do bait site registering. But folks who have had registered bait sites the previous year, get first dibs on registering their previous bait sites for the following year. Good bait sites can stay in the same family for decades, which makes it difficult for others to hunt into blocks and blocks of locked in bait sites in good areas. Might be a factor, Donno.

Hunting b bears west of highway 120 is like ghost hunting. There's some bears to hunt but high g bear populations make it difficult. Don't make a mistake and kill a g bear like the large predator specialist from blame and wish did. Oh and don't shoot across the road like he did either.
The reward is great if you kill a b bear on the west side of the state. Find some bear poop and hope it's a b bear. Sit downwind far enough away and you may see it. Stay on the east side of the bighorns and bait one if you equate success with a carcass.

A couple of factors that can enter into the picture are snow and quotas.

In a number of places early bear season snow prevents easy or any access into areas where bears are coming out of dens. Some years, even as late as July 4 roads can be blocked, and slogging through rotten drifts can be heavy work. There are also wildlife winter habit closures that preclude access into some areas early.

The seasons can be closed abruptly and early if the quota of females is reached early. That can contribute greatly to low numbers if the female quota is reached before much of a harvest.

Also, if you are hunting where black and griz occur, you need to be very sure of your target, so long ranges may be imprudent and close approaches may alert bears. That may amount to missed opportunities.

I believe what you are seeing is the number of FEMALE black bears that are killed. Wyoming bear seasons are based on a female mortality quota. Where once the allocated number of female bears are killed the season is closed. Typically the number of male bears killed far exceeds the female quota. Especially on the western side of the state where lots of bear hunters have lots of baits. As for your hunt this year, we have had pretty heavy snow in the mountains on the western side of the state. So I would expect that a lot of areas won't be accessible until well into May.