Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game Bear size

Can someone tell me their thought on the weight and age of this bear, only ever see a couple running although there are plenty around. My guess is around 225 and I'm basing it by a hog. In front of the wife's blind trail camera is one of the browning dark ops, takes good pictures. Being slick looking I'm guessing it's a male.

Just a wild guess....just under 200 lbs. ! I always refer back to the highly reliable SWAG system! 😉 memtb

That bear is probably 150-175lbs. Looks like a younger bear.

I blew these up a little. The belly too flat to be very old I think.

Probably a little under 200lbs. With bears my rule of thumb is to take my first guess and subtract 15-20%.........

You're probably right about that. If say 200 or less would that make him 2-3 years old?

Tasty, is what I see !

I agree, +/- 200.

Pretty similar to this young boar, i took a couple of years ago;









I would have left him alone, if he didn't tear up my ground blind & feeder !

Meat was amazing, though.

He should have climbed in his hole. Nice picture of it covered in snow.

Long legs, looks tall.

Not a big bear.

Agreed. 150ish is my guess…only one way to find out

Whats the odds of seeing it again, slim to none probably.

Too bad JJHACK ain't around. He's probably nail the weight by +- 25 lbs and the age by +- 6 months....

If it's eating at your feeder, it'll be back, till it goes to sleep,............. one way or the other !

hes 150-185 would be my guess, likelya 2 year old thatw as just kicked loose from momma.

DANNYL;
Good day to you sir, I hope the day's looking to be a good one in your part of the planet and all who matter to you are well.

While I'm not a bear expert by any stretch, they're fairly common here in our part of BC - we've had 4 different animals in the yard since July and have seen 3 other different animals out hunting since September 10th.

I'd suggest that it's exactly what my friend Paul - New 2 99's - has suggested which would be about 175lb to possibly 225lb on the hoof so to speak. Depending upon the populations in your area, it might be a male because there's no cubs and it's old enough to have cubs if it's a female.

Again as a guess I'd think it's at least 3 but not older than possibly 6 because they fill out and begin to lose ground clearance pretty fast.

If Rick's system allowed easier access, I'd throw up a couple different yard bear photos from this year to show what I mean, but around here the female will usually den with the cubs for 2 winters and then kick them lose after that. The 2 ½ year old bears then will have longer looking ears than your photo seems to show and are obviously quite leggy.

They'll fill in a fair bit in the next year if they don't starve or get cocky with an older male and get killed by him. That's why my guess of at least 3 years old.

It's somewhat dependent upon food, genetics and habitat too, as for instance the black bears on Vancouver Island get less winter than we do here so they're up eating for months longer than the interior bears. Thus they're quite often larger overall than ours will ever be.

As well, as noted by Paul, that size will make fine, fine table fare this time of year. If there's a chance it was eating dead things, I'd suggest both freezing the meat for 3 weeks before consumption and also not eating it rare, so a food safe 165° F internal temp should work.

Hopefully that made sense and was useful to you or someone out there.

All the best and good luck on your remaining hunts this fall.

Dwayne

Thanks Dwayne and at the moment if he does come back around I'm not sure yet as to taking it. We can't have feeders in the woods so my thought is he was roaming looking for apples as they are dropping.

He’s probably 150-175 live weight. If there’s any apple trees around, he won’t wait for them to drop. He’ll be climbing them trees and destroying them. I’ve seen apple and pear trees around old home places that similarly look like they were blown apart by a lightning bolt, but it was bears climbing to eat the fruit. They have a bad habit of breaking limbs off and dropping them down to the ground so they can roll around on the ground and eat till they’re full. They do the same thing with white oaks and other oaks. Bears are fun to watch and they are beautiful animals but most of the time when they move in, the deer leave. I would shoot him in a heartbeat, you won’t forget the experience. The meat is fair table fare and really no different then other wild game, dang sure better and healthier than what you’ll find in the grocery store. +1 on getting the meat above 165, you don’t want worms. Have the hide tanned and hang it on your wall, it’ll make a beautiful trophy.

Around here I've seen bears climb sugar pines in poor food years and break the branches off so they can go through them for the seeds. For those not familiar sugar pines are some tall mofo's!

If I saw one like that, I’d make him try on my pants. If they fit, he’s big enough to shoot.

No more pictures, must be on it's route.