i' ve never hunted black bear but have seen several in the wild while elk hunting. this year i noticed several signs black bears are on my place, the most obvious was several piles of bear crap along the main game trail i was hunting, it' s like black paste with berries in it. the second thing i noticed is several aspen trees with scratch marks about 4-6 foot high. i also noticed hair in several pine trees that were close together, guess he was rubbing his back or something. anyway i knew there were bears in the area and on the last day of the hunt had a big old black bear walk down the trail at about 50 yards. we stayed still and he didn' t even see us. was thinking about getting a tag next year.