Ok, I know nothing!!!
 

I watched a bear hunt last night for the first time. I know nothing about this, so please explain. In the show they were hunting over bait, is this the norm everywhere pretty much? And also, this mother bear climbed a tree like a squirrel to get to her young!!! I did not know they could climb that well. How about shooting a mother when she is with cubs?? Is it legal? Ethical? Do most bear hunters with archery do it from a tree???

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Shooting a mother with cubs is Illegal
Baiting is the norm, for the above reason

I have done it once, I baited in 3 cubs and a mother, I was scared to death[&:]

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95% of the time you'll be hunting over bait when bear hunting. As far as shooting a mother with her cubs, I would have to say this is not only unethical, but in some placeslikely illegal.

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there are three ways to hunt bear:

- bait
- hounds
- spot and stalk

All are legal, though not in all areas possibly. Bait is very popular way to hunt bears and allows the hunter the chance of seeing many different bears and having the time to judge and take a good shot.

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I personally have never been on a bear hunt but from what i have read and seen that is the most common way to hunt them. I have watched people do spot and stalk hunts but i think it is more common to sit over a bait. I could be way off though thoughim only basing my answer as a avid viewer of the Outdoor Channel.

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Actually in PA it is legal to take a mother with cubs or even the cubs themselves. It's frowned upon but chances are rareso it happens.

This is a non bait state. Mostly driven with the exception being the stand or still hunter!

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Hunting over bait is the prefered method. Hunting over bait gives you the extra time you need to judge a bear & determine weather or not it is a sow with cubs. Cub's do not stand a chance in the wild if you killthere mother, cubs will be eatin or starve to death.

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It is illegal to bait bears in NC.....and the largest black bear ever taken by a hunter was taken from this state.

IMO.....there's a valid reason why people shoot them over bait;)

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I watched that also last night. That was crazy and I sure wouldn't be moving around taking pics like that woman did. I never knew bears could climb that fast....

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It's all about location;)

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It also allows you to judge the size of the boar to make sure it's a trophy. By hanging a bait high above the barrell the boar will stand and stretch to reach/smell it giving you a chance to size him up.

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I agree with others on hunting them over bait as it's probably the biggest tool used to hunt them.

Being that those cubs are so dependant on mom to survive for a long time, even if shooting a sow was legal....it would probably mean the end to those cubs. They aren't like fawns and can survive on their own after 6 months give or take.

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Gmmat details on the biggest bear.....?

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880#'s......taken in (I think) Craven Co., NC

Weight

Typical weights

Males of breeding age: 125-500 lbs

Females of breeding age: 90-300 lbs

Records

Male: 880 lbs (399 kgs.), Craven Co., NC, 1998

Female: 520 lbs (236 kgs.), St. Louis Co., MN, Aug 30, 1993

Captive bears may exceed these weights.

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Holy crap that is a big bruin. Are there a lot of bears down there?

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Here in N.B. Canada hound hunting is illegal and due to a lot of boreal forest,spot and stalk is not an option.I hunt over bait in the spring and fall seasons using treestands.It gives me plenty of time to determine if it is a sow with cubs or a boar.Shooting a sow with cubs is also illegal here.Black bears are excellent climbers(having had a few over the years climb up the same tree I was in) and have an excellent sense of smell and hearing.I love bowhunting these animals having taken 30+ in my lifetime.It's quite an adrenalin rush when one comes in and more so when he climbs up your tree.

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Bry.....we have them in our mtns. and our coastal plains. Not really in the piedmont. I've never seen a wild black bear.

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30+ bears... Hats off to you, that's awesome. The bear is at the top of my list to huntfor the first time.
And welcome to the forum:D

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From the Pa Game commision based on 2005 data:

Bears were harvested in 52 counties. The largest bear was a 733-pound (actual live weight) male taken in Dunbar Township, Fayette County. That bear is presently ranked, according to skull measurements using the Boone & Crockett scoring method, as the largest bear taken by a hunter in Pennsylvania. While not yet confirmed by the Boone & Crockett Club, it is tied for the largest legally harvested black bear in the world. Only two other black bears — a skull found in Utah and a bear killed illegally in Pennsylvania in 1987 — have higher Boone & Crockett scores. Although ranked as the largest bear harvested in Pennsylvania, it was not the heaviest. In 2003, an 864-pound male was taken in Pike County.


Not contesting any pre posted facts. Just adding to the discussion no agenda, no horse in the race ;)

Just sayin Pa has some big'uns too!

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Well I hope so............it is the biggest[8D]:D

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Most of the shows you see are bear hunting in Canada where baiting is the thing. Illegal to bait here in NY. Most bears in NY are shot during deer season as targets of opportunity with rifles.

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The reason I have taken so many is because we used to be allowed 3 bears per year for the 3 different seasons.Now we are allowed only 1 per year and the 1 licence covers all 3 seasons.Whichever season you get your bear then you are done until the next year.

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The aforementioned733 pounder was killed about 5 miles from my parents' house in '06- and only a stone's throw away from one of the areas that I bowhunt on SGL 51. It was definitely a whopper - PA State Record, actually. I spend a lot of time in a few different parts of that 16K+ acre chunk.

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/sports/outdoors/s_422836.html

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Legal to bait in MN, so I do. This year will be my first year hunting bear from a double bull blind, I'm usually 20+ feet up.

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Dang fran nice to know youve been walking around in the dark with that bruiser watchin ya!:D

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Depends where you're from. Up here I'd say the "norm" is spot and stalk but that's because the coast is conducive to it in the springtime. However there is quite a bit of baiting that goes on. They each have their challenges, benefits and drawbacks.

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quick,
not meaning to hi-jack the thread but how is the hunting up in game lands 51? I used to hunt up in there alot with my dad years back, but it was hurting bad as far as the herd. Has it made a comeback yet? We used to hunt up on the flats at the end of the game commision gate.

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Ya know, Al - I actually think I may have seen that big bruin before he died that fall- actually in the late spring of '06. I hiked in to do some fishing for native trout (got about 1.5 miles deep), and ran into a really big bear on the way out. He'd just came down out of the ledges to chow on some skunk cabbages. They usually don't make me nervous, but it was almost pitch black, I had no light, no cell signal and he was a biggun. LMAO Usually they run, but that guy just stood there and let me walk by with my butthole puckered up to the size of your average decimal point.

I did have a really bad run-in with a smallish sow and cubs once in spring turkey season.In all honesty,Ialmost shot her.She was downrightangry.

Back on topic: Even in areas where baiting is "illegal" - I suspect there are a lot of people who do it anyway. I've found my fair share of bait sites over the years, despite it being 100% banned. People arejust too lazy to do it the hard way, so they cheat.

Ron - "graveyard" flats (on the dunbar side)is, and will always be, home to some of the best deer hunting around. The herd numbers are low, but the age structure is the best around. It's still a needle-in-a-haystack scenario. Lots of the cutoffs are really filling in. Thedeer (gun)hunting in there is marginal, b/c it gets crushed with pressure in bear season, which opens the preceding week.So, the big racks are already locked down tight on the beds once deer season opens. They've played that game before. That said, everybody I know who hunted that area really hard - they all tagged out on good deer. They're in there - they always have been & always will be. You know how it is though - nothing comes easy in there.

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ya batin is norm

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It is illeagl here in California or Arizona to bait bears or hogs or for that fact anything. Hounds can still be used in California, not in Arizona though. On taking a sow with cubs I think is it more of a ethical issue, I would not do it.

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About the sow with cubs...cubs can and do stay with mom for 2 years. Nothing wrong with shooting a sow with 1.5 yr old cubs that weigh 80-90 lbs if you so choose.

I always thought I would go shoot one bear and be done with it. Nope...I love it and hope to go again soon!

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The world record weight for an American black bear is 880 pounds. This was the recorded weight of a 10.75 year-old male bear shot in North Carolina in November 1998.
Theres the Proof to back up GMMAT

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how big was his skull?

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Don't know.

Why in the world would you come up with a system of measuring a skull to determine a bear's trophy potential (there may be a good answer....but I've never heard it)?

When guys mention the bear they killed....what do 99% of them say? Weight.

I don't have a bear in this fight.....but NC does......and its the largest. I suppose we could come up with a method of scoring Bucks on the size of their throat patches, too......but a lot of people who shot 'em with big antlers wouldn't like it!

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Because weighting them in the woods is damn near impossible.[:-]

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I usually see a bear every archery season, this past season was the first one in more years than I can remember that I haven't see one. If you read my journals, the year previous I called on to the base of my tree and took pictures of it while I was filming for a friend. He was in awe of it.

Guys who have shot in my back yard can see my archery target that is tore up/eat'n by a bear I estimated to be around 600 lbs. I woke up to hear him munching on my 3D deer not 15 yards from my bedroom window. I walked down on the porch to watch him in the full moon and he walked by me on the porch a mere 10 feet without seeing me. I figured he was headed for the garbage so I spoke up, what I didn't know was there was already a bear in my garbage, they both bolted.

Big male with his sow.

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That's a beautiful bear, Rob .... you ever hunt them?

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Never in PA. I went to Quebec to take the only bear I've take so far. PA only offers a 3 day season the Mon-Wed before Thanksgiving. I've never had that week off work. There has been an archery season but the odds are I will never arrow a bear in PA.

Here's my Quebec bruin.

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Yeah, Rob's right. The PA bear season couldn't possibly come at a more inconvenient time for the Average Joe. Mon-Wed before Thanksgiving, which happens to be the opening 3 days of WV and MDdeer seasons, and primetime bowhunting across the western border in Ohio.

Most guys who actually have jobs and are trying to juggle vacation time - are constructively excluded from participating in the PA bear season.It's a totalcircus anyway, so it's really no big loss.