Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Pa Bear harvest for 2020 rifle season.. 1st day harvest

https://www.pgcapps.pa.gov/Harvest/Bear

The above link will show Pa's 2020 rifle bear harvest for Day 1, 2, and 3 of the 4 day firearm statewide bear season

Day 1 Sat 748... Day 2 Sun 174... Day 3 Mon 87 This count was as of 6:30 pm 11/23/20. end of Day 3.
*** 7:40pm Day 3 count is now 124 bears harvested

Total harvest so far counting all seasons for 2020 is .....2987 bears harvested. Continued good luck to those still hunting !

**** Total harvest is now 3024 at 7:40pm end of Day 3... and climbing !!!
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HH & Pa Game Comm

Anybody got pics of the PA bears they've shot? C'mon, man, post 'em up.

https://www.huntingpa.com/threads/2020-bear-camp-2g.318415/

Skeen Above is a true story of of a 2020 Pa bear hunting camp in Unit 2G helping out a older successful bear hunter dragging out his kill solo... with no ability to cross a creek safely alone with his kill. Kudos to them helping the older bear hunter out. Sorry No photo available. HH

What about the Ma bears?

No luck in indiana county today.

-Jake

Jake... Sorry to hear you had no luck in Indiana today. I have on occassion come upon steaming piles of bear scat on SGL # 174 in Indiana county in the n/e corner of Indiana bordering Jefferson and Clearfield county when bowhunting deer in my past. Little unnerving when in heavy mountain laurel thicket and carrying a recurve with Fred Bear razorheads. Old school when younger. There was no archery bear season back then.

Kudos to the Pa Game Comm today for all the opportunities to hunt bear in Pa.

1 more day statewide and then a 6 day season Nov 30th to Dec 5th in select Units 1B 2C 3A 3B 3C 3D 4A 4b 4C 4D 4E and 5A during rifle Buck season. Also 2B 5C 5D are open Nov 30 to Dec 12

To the best of my knowledge Bear is NOT open or huntable on Nov 28 and 29th Sat and Sun according to Pa regulations which are the 1st two day of rifle Buck in 2020. Have a safe and enjoyable hunt Pa hunters ! HH

Yeah kudos to the Game Commission for killing participation in the rifle bear season. It's so much more fun with nobody out there to get the bears moving. Aren't they great?

Lots of bears around, we’ve had a couple pretty big ones just roaming around town for the last couple months. They’re showing up regularly on home security cameras. Hungry, no acorns or beech.

Lol, typical. Give people more opportunity to get outdoors, and they bitch. If you’re relying on “other people” in order for you to kill bears, maybe that’s the problem to begin with, or maybe not. Obviously all of the hunting public isn’t going to be happy all of the time, and everyone has their own opinions of how things should be, or what is best. Adapt to the situation at hand, and make the best of it. Or keep complaining. I know which one will have a greater effect.

Ours are spread out over an much larger and less densely populated area as well. Almost nobody lives in the center of the state and lots of areas of inaccessability outside of hiking for some distance.

Need to be hunting Wolf......

https://www.pgcapps.pa.gov/Harvest/Bear

Day 4 Tuesday 11/24/20 * 69 more bear harvested Congratulations to those who continued to hunt and were successful !

1126 bear harvested in the 4 day season. Total for all season so far... 3126. It is in line with previous bear seasons in Pa only we had a few more hunt options. We still have a 6 day season Nov 30 through Dec 5th in rifle antlered season in select units. I think unit 1 B is a sleeper Unit , with lots of potential, and of course all the Units on the northern Pa border.

Good Luck Hunters, Hunt safely ! HH

Borden 811... I agree totally. HH

If you were a Rifle Bear hunter in the northern tier of PA you would understand what has happened to the season

Translation; Archers and Muzzleloaders now kill the bulk of the bears since the Rifle Bear season participation has dwindled away. The PGC has made Bears a target of opportunity for deer hunters rather than the main event

And it sure was fun when they were the main event. Driving bears through mountain laurel is some of the toughest hunting there is.

Rewarding when you finally hear the shooting though.

I'm not going to complain about increased opportunities. Opportunities to hunt are great. But it has certainly impacted the bear camp traditions.
-Jake

Yes it's definitely lonely in woods during rifle bear season only thing I don't like about it is they added more time to the archery and the muzzleloader season is whole week but when they added Sunday they took Wednesday off for the regular firearm season

Yup

Nobody even wants to come up and put on drives anymore. Borden811 says I rely too much on pressure from other hunters but drives are the way we always hunted them. You spent the day driving side hills and the laurel and swamps on top. Now everybody wants to hunt them in their ladder stand with their bow or muzzleloader and nobody wants to do drives

Hunted deer in a camp in the UP they were all from PA originally....they talked about in PA doing nothing but drives....

You mean like tioga and potter counties, or quehanna wild area? Places like that where I rifle hunt? If the people you hunt with aren’t willing to do drives in rifle season, but want to now hunt them in a treestand, that’s on them, not the PGC. Sounds like they’re afraid of a little hard work to get a reward. We hunt the early muzzleloader season. Same group of guys doing drives as in rifle bear. Find the food, find the bears, do the drives. Pretty simple. And the guys that kill in muzzleloader season, they still show up and do drives in rifle season. Because they’re part of the gang, and they aren’t afraid to put in the work. The PGC didn’t force anyone to do anything, they gave them the opportunity to hunt more, and harvest more bears at a different time of year. And apparently a lot of people are taking advantage of it.