Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire PA Black Bear Harvest

Never heard anyone talk about hide squared and we always get them out whole

Thanks.

Interesting different methods in different places.

1.5% success seems low. Just took a glance at ours and most WMU’s run about a 30% success rate

They can, no law against it, but I've never heard of it. PA is a bring out whole state it seems. Seems like noone even quarters elk...

I grew in the Clarion, PENN area in the 80s and my dad would always see bears cross the road by his house. He never hunted them and thought nothing of it. Guys would tell my dad about bear sightings in archery season, but come small game season they would disappear like ghosts. Plenty of posted property in the area, so they were safe. Now in the past few years, I see the bear kill in Clarion is pretty good

My buddy has 15 pts for our area Baldwin unit, up by Caddy. He should draw this Sept. I'll bait for him. I baited 3 years ago for my 74 year buddy , 20 mins into the hunt he shot a 250 lb boar he had 15 pts . I'll be going in this season with 11pts I'm on the fence if I want to keep putting in iv killed 3 bears in Canda all ready.

Wow. You be at the epicenter of bear territory.

No bait and no dogs.

Until recently you had to bring the whole bear out.

It's legal now to quarter them up but few do it still. Just tradition I guess. But all you have to bring is the tagged head and hide to the check station now.

Elk still have to come out whole and be brought to the check station.

Which is why this is a pretty common sight in elk season for the successful hunters.


My only bear was downhill the entire way to the truck. Way down hill. Give it a kick and watch it disappear.


-Jake

Baiting and hounds are legal in Michigan....

In over 40 years as a guide the largest bear I have harvested myself weighted 480 lbs field dressed it was 7 years old.....many weighting 200-300 lbs 3-5 years old....

Here in Michigan it get harder and harder to draw a permit....I went from getting a permit every year to 2-3 years wait and that is for the last hunting period in the UP....
If a person needs to wait up to 14 years in some areas paying $5 to apply every year there going to shoot the first bear they see....

No baiting in Virginia, but hounds are legal in certain portions[counties], son is a hound hunter.
His group took 4 bear opening week of hound season.
Our #'s are starting to get out of control[like deer]

He killed this one while bow hunting[deer] on a 70 degree day.
#300+
It about killed his azz getting it out that day.



Here is a huge male in front of our house.

That's about the same as Idaho.

THIS. 18 is Book for Maine Skull & Antler

Ah, good ol' PA. I've been away long enough now that when I go back all my relatives have accents! To think I grew up never putting an "s" at the end of the words "buck" or "doe" for plural usage, and thinking that's just how it's done, as in "I seen 37 doe, but no buck." Knowing what I know now, there were several deer I should have packed out rather than dragging them, but it was all I knew at the time. Nothing wrong with any of that, just different.

Is bear hunting in PA still a free-fire zone with sows with cubs and cubs themselves being legal game?

New Jersey has the highest population density of black bears of all states, according to a professor emeritus of biology from Rutgers I talked to about ten years ago. A friend of mine shot a big bear during the 2016 archery bear season. It field dressed at 679.5 lbs. I would guess it would be around 800 lbs. on the hoof. I live about 20 miles from NYC, and he took the bear only a few miles from here. Do we have a bear problem? You betcha....

Yes.

-Jake

The eastern states have a lot more good food sources for bears than the western states do. Idaho, for instance, has almost no hardwood forests, only conifers. We have 10x the number of bears in NJ, but we have almost 10x more land. Much of it doesn't have good food sources for bears as the southern part of Idaho is vast areas of arid sagebrush deserts and mountains.
Id allows bear hunting over bait and with dogs. We also have both a fall and spring season. NJ's problem isn't the bears. It's the liberals who won't let the bear numbers be reduced to safe levels.

Plenty of bear around here, they dog 'em mostly but bait is legal the first part of the season.

I heard there was a 900 pounder taken in North Carolina

I saw pictures of a big one. I don't remember the weight