Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game How exactly does one bear hunt ?

I never considered it before, I always thought it was an opportunity, if I saw one thing.

Any bear hunters here ?

Wearing bear bells, like the leaf lickers hiking the trails around here seems to work pretty well. Maybe spray a little bear spray down wind, that should draw them in. Sorry for the sarcasm. Grizzlys bring that out in a person.

It depends on what kind of bear, and where you are hunting. Here in Michigan I hunt them from a stick blind over bait with a rifle. It is more work than it sounds. I start baiting about 45 days before I start hunting, and the actual hunting usually takes a week or less if the weather co-operates.

Other place need or require some other method.

Long time ago at Bonito Lake out of Ruidoso, NM we went bear hunting. Spent the night at the lake campground in our tent, chasing the bears off the trash cans. At the crack of a cold dawn, I pulled my Marlin 30-30 out of its case and was pleased to note that the old Tasco 4x scope was only lightly fogged up. I had it mounted on tip off bases so I knew my iron sights were available instantly if needed. I had my best 175 gr. Silvertip bullet reloads in the gun, I was ready! I started the hunt over by the trash cans looking for tracks. I picked the biggest set and proceeded to follow them out of the campground into a narrow heavily timber canyon. The bear tracks were very visible in the wide hiking trail but soon branched off into a side canyon following a game trail. Lots of tall pines were shadowing the trail and lots of pine needles were making it hard to see the tracks, but I pressed on slowly, watching for movement, listening for rocks rolling. Then there was the bear. A nice dark cinnamon colored one and it was looking up hill away from me, standing stock still. I slowly raised my rile and centered the crosshairs best I could through the foggy scope right in the heart lung area. Thoughts of where I would run or what I would do if I wounded him and he charged me, were coursing through my head. I shot and nothing! Bear didn't move or even look in my direction. I fired again and nothing! I tipped the scope to the side and started advancing on the bear. Got halfway there before I realized it was a deadfall tree.

Ive hunted bear many times since over bait, from Louisana swamps to Alaska, but none ever got my heart pumping like that first unsuccessful bear hunt at age 16.

Good one Allen!!

Here's how I do it--find bear track--fresher the better--turn strike dog loose--when he opens turn all the dogs loose--go to treed bear and shoot him out--easy, peasy.

Sometimes gettin to the tree can be a bit of an adventure.

Idaho prohibits setting bait before the start of the season with the exception of a few units that allow bait to be set a week before. For most people, topping up bait is an expensive, time consuming job because of travel to bear areas. Unless you know someone locally to do it for you or hire a guide, it's prohibitive.

I had 3 bear baits 7 hours away from home this fall and it started to suck ass. Shot the first decent one on the first night so I didn't have to go back.

It's really more of a chore than a hunt. It's enjoyable to a point though.

Rule number one:

I sit in my truck:



Or setup on my compost:



Or bait them in with my garbage:



Sometimes we use electroshock treatment:




Mostly we spot and stalk on grass flats and slide areas in the spring.

The best way to see a bear is to NOT have a bear license in your hand........

Casey

Glass, then glass some more, then look a little bit, then glass, then get a shot off in roughly 5 seconds.

Knock down a deer or elk and leave the carcass/gutpile. Check it from downwind early and late.

Really depends how you'd prefer to hunt them - spot/stalk, over bait or with dogs.

If you've never hunted them, I might recommend the bait thing in one of the Canadian provinces. You'll get to look at some bears up-close-and-personal with a front row seat. And with the bait scenario, bears are easily one of the most entertaining animals to observe.

Hunting them with dogs definitely adds a bit of excitement to the mix - just be prepared to bust whatever brush or wade whatever swamp to get to the spot where they've tree'd the damn thing. I've never hunted them this way but I've gone along in the preseason for dog training and it's definitely interesting.

If you're in super-predator mode and don't want to stare at a bait pile, the spot/stalk cannot be beat. Depending on locale, this is likely the hardest way (of the three) to take a bear but IMO, by far the most rewarding.

Amen. And then the acorns begin to drop and the berries ripen just in time for the opener.
BTDT - boxes of tshirts. *GRINS*

tkinak: what the heck did that bear bite onto?


in PA the groups I hunt bears with do it by driving, some people sit but most productive way is a group of guys & gals we set out watchers and then push through a section of woods, corn fields, mountain, briars, ect...

And if you're hunting in Wi the baiting regs are a complete joke unless you live local enough to bait just about every day.

Kodiak bear hunting involves sitting on a rock for a long time watching over many square miles for many long, long hours. Once a bear is patterned you go to where you expect him to move and whack him...

Or you sit on a salmon stream in the fall and wait for a good bear to come by at very close range... it can be a little nervewracking when there are lots of bears around...

I love hunting bears. Shooting them not so much, but hunting them yes!

Here, it's hot and dry all summer so early in the fall season watching water and food sources is the very best. Bears want water every day when it's hot out, and they like to lay in water to cool off. Think small pool. I've hunted hot dry canyons that have 4' round pools in the bottom scattered around and they're bear magnets about 5 in the afternoon.

When acorns are ripe, the bears will be in them. Here's a typical Oregon bear hunt.

Drive dirt two tracks looking for bear crossings. They leave slide marks and/or big deep divets in the banks as they emerge from their bedding above the roads to go to water in the gullys. They like to bed within 150-200 yards above their water source. First thing they do is get out of bed in the afternoon and go to water about 5 pm. They like to bed on hillsides above water by hollowing out an old rotten log for a soft bed or above a large tree, wherever they can carve out a small round hollow, often in thick brush. They poop right off the edge of their bed, so you can usually identify a bears bed by this trait. Otherwise, look for a rub tree with hair on it. That tells you what color bear to expect. Bears also break the tops out of 8-12' Douglas fir trees marking that as their territory. You can often find rub trees with hair on them indicating a bear in the area.

Anyway, after watering they wander to the food source where they feed all night until the sun finds them about 9 in the morning, when they head back to timber to bed for the day. If it's hot, they may get up midday and cool off in the water about noon-1, then back to bed until afternoon. It's actually easier to hunt them in the heat due to their need for a daily water source. Be careful cooling that meat out asap if you shoot one in the heat!

Here, food consists of vegetation in early spring, deer fawns and elk calves in season, ground squirrels anytime, lots of big black ants in old rotten logs all summer. By fall, they turn to ripening berries, seeds of any kind, and acorns. The best meat is acorn fed bears, IMO. Here we have Canyon live oak in bush form, and oak trees. Bear Magnets.

They feed several hours a day during daylight hours and as such a hunter can enjoy a much longer productive hunting day vs.deer or elk. We cannot hunt with dogs or bait in Oregon, which is fine with me. Late season bears here become more difficult to hunt as concentrations of food wane, they scatter to all parts looking for pockets of missed berries or just return to more traditional ranges before denning. Hunting the first snow in the right canyons can produce some exciting hunts as bears wander looking for a place to den up, but that's more a specialty hunt for a few days than a staple you can count on.

There are many more tricks but the biggest thing you want to remember is that bears are all about food. If you look for anything that produces large amounts of seeds or protein, bears probably eat it! The biggest bears require seclusion to grow to maturity, while younger bears will live anywhere there's food. Of course, you sometimes hear about the huge bear that was shot breaking into someone's garage to get their dogfood, but I look for the biggest bears where they will be left alone, someplace that has year round water and potential food sources all within a given canyon system, or two. Often a mountain will have one food supply, and a canyon another, so look for a mountain that holds a bear all summer, preferably one with some springs for water, with a canyon that produces a different food supply right next to it.

Once you find sign, bears are easy to pattern, as long as the food supply remains. They are so predictable, they'll walk in the same footprints, every day, within minutes of the same time, while pursuing their favorite food or water source. It's fun getting to know an individual bear and what he's doing. You can hunt a bear for years getting to know him. After all that time, it becomes less fun to shoot, more fun to hunt. I even name some of my bears, never shooting them.

Anyhow, that's about how it goes here.

As others said. Basically 4 ways

1. No tag but you see them all over, eventually hitting one with your truck as they run across the road - not recommended.

2. Bait - labor intensive and far from a sure thing. As SKANE said - a bumper crop of wild food will cause even the best baits to go cold. Once hunted Ontario where this happened. Blueberries so thick it looked like shag carpeting on the meadows. Hunted sun up/down for 7 days and never saw fur.

3. Dogs - never did but want to. Sounds like a blast.

4. Spot and Stalk - where I am, just about impossible. Not enough open country and the bear density is so low - would be more like "lucky chance I saw one".

Don't plan to hunt for acorn eating bears in Idaho except in yards and parks. Oaks aren't native here. This is softwood country.

Hunting big bears in the east involves sitting on their route to the dump. I am pretty sure they are dumb as hell too.

We don't have big bears up here but they eat fish all day for a few months out of the year. They absolutely love fish food, but it makes for a stinky bear that you can't eat. I will take a high mountain bear over a fish bear . They lose their appeal when they have a 20ft tapeworm trailing behind them.....

That bear in the garbage can pic has amazing fur!

Your conclusion that big eastern bears are dumb is incorrect.

Some good info posted.

Spot and stalk is my favorite method if it is a place where bears can be seen at any distance. You can hear them turning over rocks and tearing open rotten logs for bugs, though it is a much quieter sound than you might expect, mostly picking the log apart with claw tips.

Besides the other methods mentioned such as bait and hounds, you could add calling. I've called several bears in WA State, Saskatchewan and B.C. They are reputed to be difficult and inconsistent to call, which IMO means we haven't figured out how to call bears as well as we have some other species. In thick country, calling would be a major way I would hunt them. I've mostly used intermittent calling with about 10-20 seconds of prey distress sound spaced with a minute or more of silence but some good bear callers say to call continuously. Take your pick. I like to listen once in awhile when calling anything. Jack rabbit distress sounds awfully much like bear cub distress and fawn distress.

Stands over bait, stalk downwind of a gut pile, drive standing corn, but hunting with dogs is the most exciting and productive for me.

Uncle Joe had the tag on this fall's hunt.

My son and I have done well with spot and stalk here in Washington. Predator call gets real interesting too...

I don't bear hunt very often, but I'm definitely a spot and stalk guy myself... If I can't "hunt" it, I don't need to kill it...

I live in pretty good Black Bear country in Northern Michigan. Here they are hunted two ways...

Over bait...this is a lot of work but makes for some very nice evenings in the blind. The baiting is the work...constant 30 days minimum of dragging 55gallon drums of bait, checking cameras etc. Blinds up here can get pretty lavish. For example, many have a wood burning stove, recliner, bed, etc.

With dogs...I don't hunt this way buts its popular none the less. The issue around me is that most of the hunters running dogs don't respect private property. Im fortunate to live on acreage and have guys run dogs across my posted property all the time. My neighbor to the south had a tracking dog attack and kill his aging daschound while his wife walked it on his own property. He shot and killed the offending dog only to have the hunter show up and point a rifle at he and his wife. When the cops showed the hunters defense was his dogs can't read signs...lol

I would caution you with this however...many people think Black Bear is unfit to eat. That is simply not true..its fantastic if the meat is properly cared for. Once the animal is on the ground, it needs to be gutted and on ice within an hour or so or it develops a very strong taste. Also the liver is the finest liver I've ever eaten...nothing compares imho.

In Colorado it is more difficult. You can't hunt bear in the spring, only in the fall. You can't shoot a sow with cubs. You can't use baits of any kind. So basically, you hunt deer or elk and hope you run into a bear.

This or if in a dry area sit a water hole. Some years there is good cactus fruit or a acorn crop.

I've seen bears fishing and eating berries. I guess I have not seen one hunt. Bet Phil has.

I'm 71 and shot my 1st one on Oct 2nd. THIS WAY. Im the old fart with the Marlin.

You could go to the dump.



Or just sit up in a tree for a while.



Until a bear happens along.