RE: 2009 spring bear hunt
Depends on weather. Round here it looks like its gonna be a late start again. Still no fresh greens coming up yet. Makes it hard for the bears to 'blow their plugs'. Alberta may be a different story tho. I'm fairly new to bear hunting and have been working on the knowledge of other locals mainly. Bears are up and moving but the question is when they are gonna start feeding hard. Your outfitter should know and probabley wouldn't sell hunts this early if they couldn't get you on bears.
Nice thing about an early hunt like that is the bugs shouldn't be that bad and the hides should be in great shape.