Home Forums Birds & Dogs Turkey Hunting Finally........what I was looking for....

Try Maine. As far as I know non-residents can still buy over the counter licenses there for bear. Hunting lodges there aren't that expensive (or didn't used to be). And many will get you to your stand and process your kill. It's just not that challenging. Sitting in a stand and shooting a bear that comes to eat a ham bone and old pork fat. There bears I saw there never topped 300 lbs. They probably get bigger, but I never saw one bigger.

NC has over the counter bear licenses, too. Easterm NC bears get huge because they have plenty to eat. You can hunt on the game lands. But you'll have to deal with bear hound hunters. And the bears know when it's hunting season, because they move to the refuges where they can't be hunted. But if you're lukcy, you can nail a huge bear. Getting it out of the swamp will be a major under taking. Some of the rednecks there will "guide you" and their own, or leased, lands for a few hundred bucks. They'll get the bear out for you and back to their garage and clean and skin it for more money.

After I hunted bears in Maine, I never really appealled to it again. Would much rather go out with my camera and shoot them that way.