Bear Advice

[Cdcballer]

Just checked my trail cams over the weekend and have ano unwanted friend. Any advice when Hunting around a black bear?

[mrbb]

being a guy that has bears about him pretty regular, MY advice is, STOP putting bait out IF you are
Bait will keep a bear coming back and once he is ON the bait, IT ain't going far from it
I HIGHLY doubt it will bother you in any way shape of form as long as you let it KNOW your in the area
bears are NOT aggressive by nature, but a startled ANYTHING can be un predictable

bears will prefer to NOT be about Humans, BUT if food is there, they MIGHT just ignore you and eat and care less about you!

other wise hunt as you would any other time is MY advice

I have about 30 yrs of UP close and personal experience with bears and NOT a single BAD encounter to date
they DO give hints to there moods
a bear clicking its teeth at you is a BIG RED FLAG Warning, A BEAR GRUNT/GROWLING AT YOU IS A WARNING, A BEAR SNORTING huffing AT YOU IS A WARNING
ANY OF THE ABOVE, , the clicking of the teeth tends to come LAST and they mean business when doing that!

if you hear these sounds, ! its time to back away slowly and I am a FAN of talking to the bear in a loud but NOT aggressive voice

MOST bears will also Bluff charge too, its what they do with each other, and will do the same to humans that get TOO close

the two most dangerous bears in the woods is a SCARED one and a Starving one,(HIGHLY dangerous is a startled mother bear with young) as both will be un predictable as to what they might view you as!
next will be a cornered one, or a wounded one
99.9 % of all bear encounters end with the bear leaving/fleeing LONG before you even knew you were NEAR one
there nose is about 50 times better than a deer's
so, they tend to sense you long in advance
thus why that startled one that missed you till your on top of it, gets it doing odd things, as you beat its main defense and that makes it to react, and not plan its moves!

as I said, I have a TON of bear experience and knowledge, learned from some of the best over the yrs!

first one here is a 600+ lb male, then him and a 350 lb female he was courting this spring, and then some others after my apple's and bird seeds that fall out of feeder onto my deck
this time of yr I have bears here almost daily, so, YUP, I know pears pretty well LOL

[Cdcballer]

Wow. This is great information. Thank you very much. I am not baiting for deer I am Hunting public land. I on have a few pics and videos because within two minutes of the first picture and ripped the camera off the tree.

Is there any way to tell a male from female from looks and how much do you think this one weighs.

Also do they have any impact on my deer around the area?

Appreciate all the info!!!

[mrbb]

my guess that is a very young male, maybe 2.5 yrs old, and about 150-175 lbs
bears are about one of the hardest animals to judge size on, as different views/angles can make one look bigger or smaller
I have been around and CLOSE to several hundred different bears over the yrs

99% of people think ALL bears LOOK BIG
yet most will always over guess there size due to just lack of bear experience

there is NO set rule on bears , I have way too much experience around them to see all the common one's go out the window

some say big ears mean young and small, some say WIDE paw's mean BIG bears
Some say females have rounder body's
and so On

I have seen SMALL bears with HUGE feet and HUGE heads, and SMALL EARS

ruining all the so called ways to judge

YES MOST time a BIG paw, means a BIG bear
and many other things are COMMON, but there is NO set rule that ALWAYS works

bears , BLACK bears in different parts of the USA< grow differently too and ACT differently too

PA for instance, bears tend to get FAT at a much higher rate and age
a 5 yr old cab hit 500 lbs in PA< where in say AK, Canada, it may never see 500 lbs in 20 yrs if it lived that long(some bears have been known to live WAY past 20 yrs too)

BUT in PA< we might get 700+ lbs bears, but we don't get HUGE skulls, as its a age thing IMO more on skulls than on weight

In Canada you might get a huge scoring skull, but it might be only a 400 lb bear

due again to HOW They live and there environment and access to food and summer months!

I have a female here that is all of 450 lbs, HUGE for a female
and IF anyone say here I would bet 99% of folks would say its a MALE
due to size and her body form
she's been coming here now about 16 yrs, I know her very well! LOL

as for your trail camera
A bear can smell WAY better than a deer, so ODDS are what ever scent you had on your hands, is what attracted the bear to your camera
in bear country, IF you value your camera's you will learn fast to wear scent free rubber gloves to set up and check camera's
other wise you will be buying new one's often!
a bear has two ways of determining what something is
and that is by smelling it, and if that doesn't answer the question for them, tasting it will be next!
I have lost a few cam's before I learned
Always found it funny, , first get a pic of bear, then nose then mouth, then inside mount and then crushed camera LOL
that is if your camera has a FAST reset and pic taking option LOL
other wise you will miss a bunch of the above's! and just get that crushed camera!

reminds me of that old TV commercial, about HOW many licks does it take to get to the center of a Lolly pop!
lick lick BITE! OPP"S!

[Cdcballer]

Great info. Thanks. Ya I have pics and videos of him. He walks up and then a couple videos of him sniffing him then the next is him ripping it off and the last is him sniffing on the ground. Lucky he crush it and just the clips broke. It is set back up so we shall see