Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Bowhunting Black Bear

I built a mineral station up on the mountain behind the house a couple summers ago out of cattle panels and t-posts to keep the hogs out, posts driven deep below the panel tops so deer jumping in and out wouldn't rip their guts out, put salt and mineral blocks buried up to the top, also loose mineral on the ground, after hunting season i put wheat mids/barley sprouts and corn chops for the dove, quail, deer and turkeys until spring browse returns, squirrels and coons have a heyday there too.

All was going well till i had an old buddy run a cat dozer up the mountain late Feb '21 and build a nice pond for the wildlife, pond was nicely filled by late April, trouble is i now have at least 4 different black bears living there, they sleep in that mineral pen at night , some are collared, i called the bear biologist and asked about the yellow collars, red/blue ear tags, he said not to worry, they're not problem bears, just research animals, the colored ear tags are for male and female, yellow tracking collars are for hunters to see as collared bears are not legal to shoot here.

This is where the real dilemma begins for me, there are two very large un-collared bears up there, for some unknown reason i dont know if i'd shoot a bear, something deep in scotch/irish/indian dna? some kindredship? i know full well one of them could stand on my chest while pulling my face off, i respect them, but would certainly shoot one for messing with cattle or trying to come in the yard and eat Wifes little fat Rottweiler puppy, but dont have the hots for killing a bear, anyone else have a weird relationship about bears?

I have an old bow stand on up the mountain from there, it'd be easy enough, they've worn the trail by the stand to near three feet wide.

I have had one come by my deer stand here in PA. I ususally find photos of them on my trail camera.
I know lots of guys that want to take one, especially in the archery season.
I just have to ask myself "what would I do with it if I did harvest one?". I get varing reports on the quality of their meat and I won't kill it if I don't eat it.

10-4 WStrayer, i understand and have visited that part, i have a JD yard trailer with dump bed, it goes behind the lawn tractor, also goes behind ATV, have used it to haul 600lb feed up the mountain for the animals, that said, i thought of stashing it out at the bottom, checked with old bud, he said the instant i kill a black bear, call him and get the guts out of it.

I can manage the bear to the trailer and haul it down the mountain, bud will meet me in the upper pasture with ice, pickup and trailer, he has a cousin with a coroners table i guess it is with water and big walk in cooler, they'll skin the bear and cape? out the head as well as put up the meat, he says it's good eating off a smoker, i dont know.

Something i have to get by, i could hunt Cape Buffalo in Africa and big white tail deer everyday for the rest of my life, Elephant, Giraffe or Lion? no, dont mind if others want to hunt them, just not for me, may have to take a black bear and see, would be cooler if i could do it from the ground with Longbow, who knows.....

I have had bear meat and find it very tasty. We used to be allowed to hunt them in Florida and since it was closed they are real problems. They are getting hit on the roads and in everyone’s garbage. I get them on trail cams all the time

Thanks buddy, the meat will get consumed whether i like it or not, old buddy was damn near shorting the phone out with drool when we were discussing it, LOL! i'll dang sure be able to put this to rest if i arrow one.

I know a few guys that see them often in archery season in PENN and it seems that a fair amount of them are harvested in archery and the youth/senior hunt

Thanks Jericho, anyone ever mention any weird vibes/feelings after killing one?

There was someone on here that said their fat is great for cooking. He made a great looking Blueberry cobbler with it. Don’t know how it tasted but it sure looked flaky. I have never killed one so I couldn’t say but I have come close bow hunting. I had one come up to my stand and look up at me and stood up on the ladder. I had my Ruger .480 out by then and locked on his head. Luckily he dropped back down and went back to eating acorns. It was a tall ladder and had he started to climb he would have as many rounds as I could fire before he either reached me or dropped dead

LOL! good stuff pacecars, i'm thinking one round in the head would have done the deed, glad he backed off, hmmmm, bear lard pie crust, i'll have Wife look into that if i ever kill one, bet bear fat could also be used on Sharps rifles to protect the bores from rust and maybe even grease cookie ingredient, for dang sure lubing patches for round ball muzzle loaders!

As cool as it may be to take a bear on the ground with a Longbow, i fear it may make me unstring my bow and retire it, i love that damn Toelke Montana Whip, wish i wasn't such a damn square when it comes to respect for game animals.

A bear hunt is on my bucket list. I think they are a great animal and a worthy challenge. I would love to take one with the .50-90 Sharps with one of them huge bullets.

As Huey Lewis once said “It’s hip to be square”

Much respect for your ethics

^^^^^^^^^Thanks Buddy.

Nothing wrong with your mixed emotions . I've archery hunted them and taken three, passed some on gun hunts, not sure I care to take another unless it is an adventure hunt (costal AK). I'd say get a tag, sit a stand and hunt, you can decide if you want a kill when the time comes. Just watching and having them close is a thrill.
I've had good and bad bear meat, depends on what they were eating.

I have shot several black bear and passed on many other opportunities. At least two of them were very good eating, and at least one was not so hot! I personally don't like handling the carcass, kind of gives me the creeps! I think it is a combo of the long hair, teeth/claws, greasy carcass and darkish blood, but I tend to find a reason not to shoot them generally.

I have heard ones that eat a lot of fish and carrion suck. The ones around here would taste great since the eat so much corn😜

Dang, i missed this post last night, the scotch was gelling my brain LOL, i can guarantee you'll not get either of the bullets i sent you back on any bear, they are indeed freight trains buddy.

54Woody, thanks for the report, i have an old buddy that drove all the way to Canada, hunted black bear off horseback, killed a very nice bear, i asked him once if he was ever going to hunt them again, he said nope, don't want too......., i may be in the same boat if i ever.

Thank you too patbrennan, i understand part of that, a buddy shot a black bear over in Arkansas iirc it was in the Muddy Creek WMA back in the mid 90's, i was at that camp deer hunting with my mzzle loader, they had the bear partially skinned out on his back on a bumper pull trailer, it looked like a small man, the muscle, meat and bone looked rather thin, made me wonder where all their strength came from, a wild animal of course, but they're not built very powerful looking, that one weighed around 250 lbs.

LOL pacecars, the ones here have been eating corn chops, barley sprouts and wheat midds with all the clean rainwater in that new pond, i have a ditch cut that intercepts a small drainage off the mountain, any decent rain puts a little more water in than just what falls in from the sky,

I've never shot a bear but think I'd like to someday. I buy a bear tag every year to have on hand while chasing deer and elk, but have never hunted them specifically. I was told by a former BIL that bear look like humans when you peel the hide off and that was enough of a turn-off for him to ever want to shoot one again.

A lot of similarities here JGray, i'll by a bear tag this year too, like was mentioned earlier, i'll know whether i shoot one if/when it shows up, i may be getting it figured out, must be because the bear and i are much alike, like to largely be left alone to go about our business, but can get testy i guess when riled!

I feel you. Now that I [finally] have a nice color phase bear, which was my black bear bucket list, I can live without shooting another. Down here bear season is so blasted hot it's hard to hunt anyway. To seal the deal, my bear killing spot, and aluminum stand with it, burned to sand among the 500,000 acres lost in AZ this year. EZ decision.

So the next time I get an itch to hunt them I'll tell myself I'm holding out for a big one.

Id like to shoot one w my recurve but the bait thing im not keen on.

Buds have done it w bow and gun and now just want a whopper.

To each his own.

Id be alright w zapping one from a stand while deer hunting. Secondary target thing.

No bait.

Even the. Its proly be a one and done for me.

Ive eaten some others have shot. Was fine. Nothing great and nothing bad IMHO.

a couple of the guys i knew in PENN that have shot black bears have told me the death moan bothers them a little bit

TIA, sorry to hear about your hunting grounds getting smoked, speaking of big ones, i must have spoke with Phil more than 5 years ago about a big coastal brownie, same/same, i gotta get my mind right on the subject before i waste anymore of the mans time.

hookeye, no bait here either, i certainly wouldnt feel right about a stand over that mineral station, i wont blow a steer out of a feed trough before i go to butcher either LOL! bowhunting bucks on up the mountain and a bear comes by? maybe, i'll know when it happens.

Jericho, well damn! death moan? chit, that may do the deal for me, probably dont need to hear that either, a Cape Buffalo's death bellow sounds like, "IF I COULD GET UP, I'D FKING KILL YOU AND EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!!!" i'm okay with those lol, but a cry/moan? probably not. chit!

My hunting partner and I have fallen love with our spring bear hunts. Sneaking closed logging roads is an exhilarating way to hunt. From 350 pounds to less than a hundred, it matters not us. From fifteen feet to three hundred yards, charged by one that started his charge from a bit over a hundred yards. Ended at twenty feet with a roar. Four rounds from a 405 WCF and 350 grain cast bullets at 2250 and one 220 partition from my featherweight. Wish it was in video but we were busy.
In our wolf and grizzly infested west, I’m pretty sure we’re saving a few elk calves and deer fawns.
Hunting anything is personal, and I can’t wait for September 1 for bear season to start in Wyoming.

Damn, have heard of things happening fast with bears, sounds like you guys have a handle on it, 'all'

Maybe i can join the fun someday, Thanks for the story Frank500.

The death bawl they make can be pretty eerie when it's after dark and close to you. Good thing is it scares off the other bears. They do tend to look very humanlike when skinned out.

Thanks for that info RandyR, good to know if i do arrow one the bawl will make retrieval a little less of a puckering experience, i hunt alone here at the house, but will/do pack a sidearm whether bowhunting or just walking for exercise.

Did pull trail cam card Tuesday night, best as i can tell there's 6 different bears, have pics of two different collared ones, a small uncollared one that looks like a yearling, one good sized male no collar, a damn big male, no collar, and one monster that was facing the camera with head down, his head looked two feet wide, he also posed for the complimentary nut sack shot, they nearly drag the ground, if i take one, it'll be him.

I killed a Utah black bear with a longbow in 2004. It was the most adrenalin rushed hunt I've ever had. The #52 bow zipped a cedar arrow and 2 blade Zwickey broadhead right through him at about 7 yards from a blind. The skull scored 20 2/16" after drying for the required 60 days and at the time it was the #7 all time archery kill bear in Utah. I knew then that I'd never get so lucky as to kill another bear anywhere near that big, so I haven't wanted to hunt bear again. One is enough, especially since he was so big. My taxidermist and the P&Y scorer both estimated his live weight at 500+ pounds and the taxidermist had to use a small grizzly bear form to do the full body mount. He shaved down the hump with a Sure Form rasp and filled in the dished face with Bondo. Wish I could figure out the photo thing on this website. I had it mounted in a full body, standing pose and it looks great. The "death rattle' can be a little unnerving, but it just added to the excitement of a successful hunt.

Gunner Bro,

I crossbow bolted one @ 24 yards, only because it was destroying my deer hunting.

Had 30-30 sitting beside me !

Did it all legitimately, purchased a tag & decided I was going to eat the meat.

As to the "death moan", it is eerie, but on the flip side, you know your bear is done, before pursuing !











Skinned, gutted & butchered myself;











For what it's worth, my corn & barley fed bear, tasted fantastic !

*Cook to a min internal temp of 160*F

Great story Utah, bet it was a rush and a half!

LOL 99, looks like you're practiced at keeping warm and getting groceries at the same time, that bear meat looks great, i've only had it a few times, iirc bud said he smoked it to an internal temp of 168 degrees.

Gunner500, bear meat is good, but on a younger bear. Iv shot 3 , 1886 win. 45-70, Sharps 40-70 and a new Ballard 44-77 Death moan is a bit Spooky, but you know that after you hear it, the bear is dead. Happy Hunting

Dang, good stuff with that sweet and sour post Saddlering, sweet on using the old rifles to get it done, sour on only young ones are good to eat, i wont shoot a little one, crapola. ; ]

I shot a 450lb boar, with the 45-70 1886 he smelled so bad it was tough taking pics with him . Plus the skining, didn't get take any meat from him. Was told he was 11-12 years old. And he was a fall bear. I'm the same as to eat my kills, but, didn't feel bad about not taking meat from that bear!

LOL, i have an old buddy that'll eat anything, maybe he can pepper it up enough to make him a barrel of breakfast sausage, these two bigger male bears i have pics of have a serious sack of nuts on em, so yes, probably old and rank.

I like to think about, what the Animal I'm going to eat, like to EAT!

Bears eat Carcasses, and spoiled rotten Meat!

Yeah, Berries, and other Healthy stuff also, but I just can't wrap my head around, eating Bear meat!

Like many of you Guy's, I won't shoot it, if I don't Eat it!

bear meat = young ones are good to eat , the medium size bears on berries taste good , any big bore is awful to eat > ick you can smell an old bore cooking on the stove

Well, two things to happen first gentlemen, first have to see if i'll shoot one of it shows, second will be when the blade goes in, bet number two will be answered pretty dang quick ; ]

makes sense...
a lot like ducks.
dabbling ducks are good, diving muck rakers not so much...

is it bear that is supposed to taste better in berry season?

I love being around bears. Going out this weekend to hunt them. Usually don't shoot them, just watch. Hate the death moan. Bothers me greatly.

I can relate to all that FB, part of the reason for my hangup i guess, talked to an old Bud that's killed 12 with archery tackle, he said go ahead and arrow one, first bothered him too, he loves to hunt and eat them, same guy that smoked some bear meat at a retirement fish fry i went to last summer.

Nobody has a stranger relationship with bears than I do. I fully understand. Lol. For the record, I have no desire to shoot one either.

Ain’t nothing quite like shooting a big bear. They’re also delicious. Don’t forget to take the heart. It’s the best cut of meat on a game animal

Congrats!

T, it remains a very weird relationship with the bear, that said, i did buy a tag, checked stand locale, happy to report the tight stand of young pines now has some good cedars around the edges, had to saw a couple three pines out of the middle for a place to stand, rolled in and stacked a couple square rocks for sitting, will be hunting a big buck, if a bear happens by, i will know at that time, may be cool as hell just to get to watch one at ground level, locale is on a high point on the side of a ridge, maybe the swirling winds wont blow the setup.

hunter4623, those are great bears, many congrats, i have an old pro cook buddy i'll turn the meat over too if i arrow one.

Good stuff indeed HS58.

gunner500,
Glad to hear that your on stand!

Good Luck!

HS58

I just got back from bear hunting. I did fill my tag. It did bother me greatly. I hunted this bear for days before finally getting in front of him. I love the meat otherwise I'd be a photographer.

Where’s the story FB?

Good luck on your hunt, gunner.
In 2019, I got a bear in Michigan's UP. I didn't have a weird feeling walking up to it. The bear didn't do the death moan. A 338 winnie /225 swift A frame hits them hard. Hope you get one

Many thanks HS58, tomorrow is opening day.

Congrats on your bear FB, it'll be raining in the morning, if i stick one, maybe the rain and wind noise will cancel the death moan, that's one of the reasons for the strange bear relationship.

Thanks jaydub, congrats on your bear too, and hell yes, guess that 338 WM-A Frame deal took enough starch outta that bear it was to much trouble to holler about it ; ] i'll be looking dew North in the morning with a good East wind with rain showers, it'll be a fun hunt whether i hit the release or not.

The area I hunt has acorns that grow on bushes low to the ground rather than trees and are ripe in September. Each year it's a big deal waiting for those suckers to get ripe, lots of trips up in the mountains just picking berries, watching sign, and waiting for September magic time. The bears do the same, stomping through every week or so as the time approaches, and if you spend enough time scouting you begin to pattern particular bears. All of a sudden it arrives and within two weeks there are tracks everywhere but the bears hide during most of the daylight hours.

It's still hot so hunting near water isn't a bad idea. If they're near water they move from 5pm to 6pm pretty reliably going to water first then off to feed. It gets dark about 7:30 so that gives you some decent time to hunt every evening. Morning hunts is ambush between feeding areas and their beds. First you have to find their beds, trails, water, and feed, and put the pattern all together along with times and wind direction. Alot of things have to line up. I found a really good bear and waited at his bed for him one morning and missed him at 45 yards as he came bombing in behind me. I was watching forward of course. I was completely unnerved by his size and how dominant he came stomping in. He shook me up!

I tried again a week later and took my wife along, waiting at the same bed with no bear that morning. About 11 am we moved upslope and moved over 400 yards. I called using a combination woodpecker and deer fawn bleat. About 5 minutes later I see him sidehilling from the right up to us, right from where we just came from, circling downwind to get our scent. I got two shots at 60 and 80 yards. I did get a little blood this time and after trailing him for a half mile decided he was just clipped high on the back and was going to be just fine. I was really upset with myself for missing this guy two times and drawing blood. I almost punched my tag right there but my wife convinced me we needed the great meat and that bear wasn't fatally hit so keep going. If I had hit it hard I would have tagged and been done but she was right, we do love the meat. I caught the same bear on trail camera a week later so she was right.

I added a scope to my 358 carbine that had been open sighted and sighted it in on the way up the mountain one day. I had the load for it so it only took 6 shots to zero. This was a good combination and it shot hole for hole at 70 yards. I just wasn't able to focus on a 16" barreled carbine with iron sights and my eyes. As much as I wanted to hunt with an open sighted little carbine, I just couldn't shoot well enough.

I decided to leave the big bear alone for another week and hunt a long tall bear we had seen only the back half of. His tracks appeared bigger than all but the big one we had been hunting so we named him #2 and went after him. My neighbor got a bear tag and went with me and we watched a stretch of road on opposing corners where the bear had been crossing. He came up near me but caught my scent. This was the 2nd time he had come up to the edge of the brush along the road and busted me. We saw one bear in front of the truck that night on the way out that ran right up the road in front of the truck. Bill was thrilled, it was the first time he'd ever seen a bear in the wild. He couldn't quit talking about it.

I'd been having a lot of leg and foot pain from a pinched nerve in my back that put me down for a couple hours a day. That and bone on bone on my left knee and I was limited to about two miles a day walking in the mountains. I decided to quit acting like I was still 20 and outsmart this bear as close to where he crossed the two track road as possible to ensure I could get him out of the steep canyon country.

I would make a big aggressive hunt in the morning hiking, glassing, and calling and by mid day the left knee was really angry so I'd go for a ride on the quad for a couple hours to check sign and scout deer sign for this weekends blacktail opener. Always looking at bear slides and road crossings for timing and size of bears. About 4 pm I'd head back for the evening hunt. The road had enough slope I could shut off the machine and coast it in pretty quietly close to where I wanted to set up. That saved wear and tear on the sore knee. I had to be very quiet because this bear was bedding just a 100 yards or less below the road in a nasty salal thicket.

I didn't want to go down in there because the wind swirled and visibility was low. I am confident he would have come to a call but hunting alone I prefer not to get a bear in my lap without backup. If visibility had been 30 yards I would have tried it, but this bear needed to be left alone in his thicket and caught when he went out for the evening. I wasn't 100% sure he had water down there but I suspected he did and that would mean he'd cross the two track road about 6 oclock, after going to water and stretching, waking up from his nap.

He busted me one more time with the damned swirling wind. The next time I went up to hunt him he had started crossing at a real brushy piece of road 40 or 50 yards around the corner from where he had been crossing earlier. This told me that even though he knew I was hunting him, he didn't want to leave the area, and he still needed to cross that road to go to food. So I rode the quad about 3 miles around a ridge and found his track down in the bottom of the next canyon over. I glassed around and found some good acorn bushes on the opposing slope, which was about a mile from where he was bedding. Knowing they like to be in the food by 7pm at the latest, I figured I could catch this guy on top of the ridge, above the road I had been sitting, before he dove into the canyon where he was feeding, hopefully in good daylight with enough time left to process him before dark.

I headed back to his bedding area and coasted the quad down the mountain, stopping shorter this time to save on the noise. Loading up the pack and making sure I had a good flashlight, I hiked uphill to the ridgeline then south until I found his trail coming up from below. I was about 150 yards above the road where he had busted me three times in a row. Since he had moved over to the brushy ravine to cross the road, I left his trail and moved over about 40 yards so I could see the ravine real well. It was 4:30 pm.

My mind was alert and I was 80% hopeful I could catch him, but you always have doubts, that's why they call it hunting and not killing. Missing that big dude twice was heavy on my mind, working on my confidence as I sat there and waited. Would I miss again with the new scope setup? It was a tack driver with a scope on it, but you always wonder.

Right at 6pm with no warning, no bluejays squawking, no squirrels scolding, no twigs snapping, I see him coming up the hill on my left, right up the ravine. He had done exactly what I'd hoped and crossed at the brushy spot again and come straight up the hill about 60 yards over from his regular trail. I guess he hadn't heard me coast down in on him and he thought he was all alone. He was just off to my left about 25 yards broadside and moving along sniffing the ground and acting like his food was running away and he was going after it.

This was the first full look I'd had at him. He was a long legged bear and a long bear, but not heavy for his size, if that makes sense. I hesitated and was trying to decide whether to shoot or let this one go when all the work and effort of figuring him out came flooding back in. Deer season opened up next weekend so then my attention would be divided, making it harder to dedicate the time to figure out a bear. Also, I have friends, usually new hunters or people with alot less experience, that I like to help with their tags and having a deer and bear tag unfilled would take away from that, which is one of my big joys each fall. I didn't have a lot of time to ponder the meaning of life, so my instincts just kind of took over and I fired once at his chest. He jumped forward and began to run but by then I had racked the lever and shot again. He made it about 5 yards in all and went down. He let out that gawd awful death moan, twice no less, and laid still.

I sat there trying to get that sound out of my head and making sure he was really done. It really bothers me when they wail like that. They have such a tremendous will to live and are so strong they die hard. Like I said before, if I didn't love bear meat I'd photograph them instead.

When I cleaned him I discovered he had a broken canine tooth that was dark gray, and a healing abscess that broke through the skin on his lower jaw. He was nearly healed but had been suffering for most of the summer and I believe had not been able to put on the weight he should have. If he had not been handicapped by the injury I think he would have been 75 or 100 pounds heavier for his size. His meat was perfect and no odor or sign of anything off other than the scab on his jaw. I finished cutting him up today and it was some of the most beautiful dark red meat I've ever processed. It should be wonderful eating.

Since I was in a hurry to get done before dark and get him off the ridge I only took one photo in the waning light. Here's the little 358 carbine I hunted with irons until it got new glass I picked up here in the classifieds. I load it with 180 grain Barnes ttsx and TAC powder. A real shooter and it shoots flames and bullets! LOL





All cleaned up

Great story, hunt and bear FB, i saw coons, rabbits, squirrels and crows yesterday morning, hunted till about 10 a.m. before it started warming up, i'll go back in the morning for a few hours.

I have not killed many but have hunted them enough to know that I love bear hunting, will likely hunt bears every year as long as I am able, and could not care less if I ever kill another one. It would have to be a true giant or a nice grizz/brown bear to get me very excited. No weird vibes or anything just not sure what I would do with another black bear hide and would prefer to eat elk or antelope (although my experience with the meat has been favorable). The best by far has been the bears we took last month off berry patches in Alaska.

I like being "the guide" and have no qualms if others want to shoot. I am the same about mountain lions. Have treed lots for friends and family but never tagged one myself. I wouldn't mind one large Tom but it won't hurt my happiness if I don't take one and will certainly save on the taxidermy bills