Problem is success rates. We have a short season, in late November with no bait or hounds allowed. Tough to compete with states where baiting is allowed. Outfitters in Maine and Canada have 80-90% success rates.

You could come to PA and hunt for free. We have thousands of acres of public land. Also lots of bears. But it would be you going and finding the bear. Not easy :D

The guys who put on drives, though, get several every year. That's usually done with lots of guys - like 20. When we try driving with 4 or 5 guys, we do nothing but spook them.

I have seen two bears and shot one in bear season. I have seen many more in deer season. :D Last year, in archery, I saw two in one day. :D

That's my trouble Barnes. I've seen 7 during the last ten deer seasons. five of those were in range and an easy shot. But they're nowhere to be seen during bear season.
-Jake

Finding their bedding areas and feeding areas are all well and good. But you really need to find their calendar - and destroy it before the season starts :D

Thanks for shedding some light on that. Not very attractive for non-residents.

If you have a group of guys to hunt with, you'll do well. And a non-res tag is like $128 and thousands of acres of public land. Guys I know who drive with a bunch of guys get 5 or 6 a year. If you're on your own, you might go years between bears.

Funny thing - when I shot my bear, it was the first time I actually took time off and actually hunted bear. The next year, I saw another bear in the exact same spot. My wife was on the gun but couldn't find it in the scope. Stuff happens. Two years before that, my neighbor got a bear in the same spot. Then I hunted 5 or 6 years in that spot and saw nothing. Oh well.

My buddy shot one with a bow last year. Anything can happen. There are a lot of bears. You just have to find them without bait or dogs. Anf they like the thick stuff.

Here's one of about 15 I got on the trail cam last year. I got a few more with white chest chevrons. This year, we have 5 on camera so far.

If it is the new world record he should have entered it into the North American Hunting Competition. Its always after that you wish you did.

This would be the biggest hunter-shot bear. I think B&C has one that is 1/16th bigger that was found dead in Utah about 40 years ago.

So maybe he would be SOL, based on that.

Personally, I think "pick-ups" should be in a separate category.

If only the deer were as big as the bear here! lol but i think im going to give bear hunting a try this year. Just a few weeks ago a bear broke into Sears right outside pittsburgh. pretty crazy. Last year i saw my first black bear. I was trying to find away over a big brush pile and fallen logs, i ended up climbing over. a little 100 lb bear ran out. scared the hell out of me.

The deer are getting bigger every year. I wasn't a fan of antler restrictions when they first came out. But, we've been seeing a lot of big bucks since then. And we're seeing bucks over 200lbs every year.

There are a lot of bears in PA and we don't take out too many of them in hunting season. So, a lot of older bears. That makes for some bigguns.