Spring Bear Hunting For Dummies

American wilderness to bear. We'll talk about tactics, gear conservation. Who will also bring you into some of the wildest country on the planet Chasing Battery. Thanks for listening to the Bear Hunting Magazine Podcast. The next three episodes of the podcast, we're gonna dive in to the nitty gritty technical side of bear hunting with three different topics. As you'll find out as you listen to the Barony Magazine podcast, anything is on the table for topics. We might interview

old mountain hunters. We might talk about deer hunting, we might talk about bear hunting. We might talk about a particular destination. There's all kinds of things that we might talk about, but I never want to forget the core premise of this podcast, which is to learn to discuss, to talk about bear hunting. It is late in March right now, and lots of guys are getting ready for spring bear hunting. This next episode is going to be

all about spring bear hunting. I had two people here in the office with me, and we basically discussed the ins and outs, the timing, the biology of what bears are doing. We discussed different destinations, just basically the general synopsis of spring black bear hunting in North Amera America. You're gonna enjoy this podcast, and I guarantee you you're probably gonna hear something that you haven't known before. So we're gonna be talking about spring bear hunting, shot placement,

and judging bears on the next three podcasts. I haven't asked you guys to do too many favors, but I would like to ask you to do this favor. If you're listening to this podcast and enjoy it, go and give us a review on iTunes. That helps us in all kind of ways. Pretty generic podcast request here, but we really do appreciate you listening and hope you're gaining value from what you're hearing. Welcome brethren to the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. We have found ourselves again at the

global headquarters Bear Hunting Magazine here in Northwest Arkansas. I have with me today again my good friend Ryan grab Colby moorehead. I'll get some introductions to these guys here in a minute, but first I want to talk to you about what we're gonna talk about. It is to the day I believe is March, and it is go

time for planning spring black bear hunting. So this podcast is going to basically give a general overview of spring bear hunting in the United States and in Canada, what the bears are doing this time of year, what the situation is with getting tags. We're gonna kind of do this general overview of spring bear hunting, so someone who is not familiar at all with spring bear hunting could listen to this podcast and come away with some sense of what spring bear hunting is. So that's that's kind

of what we're gonna do. We're gonna talk about some biology stuff of what bears are doing during the time period when you hunt spring bears states and provinces, and understanding the Canadian outfitting situation basically. So, but I want to make some quick introductions here. I've got Ryan Grab if you listen to. Ryan's been on the podcast a couple of times. But Ryan is a good friend of mine from here in Arkansas who in the last podcast, I introduced him as a man who was killing bears

while my mama was still wiping my nose. I'm gonna stand by that introduction. Um, Ryan's hunted with me all over Canada, and he's also what I knew him for years ago, was killing big bears in Arkansas. And I still stand by this. Other introduction is that when it comes to actual bio mass of bears killed in Arkansas, I have yet to meet anybody that's killed more number of big bears than this guy. Oh shucks, Clay, you're making me blush. It's true, though, Ryan, It's true. Well

it's uh. It's an honor to get to hang out at the Global headquarters with you. Yeah, man, Yeah yeah, to my right, I was just joking about that. To my right. Colby Morehead. I introduced Kolbe in the last podcast, but Kobe works for Bear Hunting magazine. Kobe is kind of like Uh. I like to introduce him as a tech nerd. I don't know if he likes that or not, but to me, that's a compliment. Yeah. Uh, Kobe is the tech nerd of Bear Hunting Magazine. He does all

kinds of stuff for us here. He's just been working here for about a month now, and so, but Kobe is a bear hunter, and uh Kobe has done some some fact research for us about spring bears that he's gonna be adding in. But we'll just jump right into it and this will be one of the series of podcasts some of our podcasts on the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast are. I mean, we might have topics about turkey hunting or deer hunting, or interviewing old mountain men. I mean,

like pretty much anything is fair game. But we also want to supply you guys with some nitty gritty, technical, nuts and bolts stuff about bear hunting. And so that's what this is. Um, let me just start by saying, Ryan, you you really started spring bear hunting about the same time I did. I'm from the South from Arkansas. There are no spring bear seasons in the southern United States, and we were bear hunters hunt in Arkansas and about six years ago, two thousand, Yeah, about six years ago

you went with me? No, No, I had been to Canada before I actually went to Canada and ten or nine now it was Alberta. I went to Alberta with my dad and maybe two thousand ten or two thousand nine, I can't remember snuck away um. But basically, bear hunting in the spring was a new thing for me. And when you know, six years ago when we kind of started hunting Canada and to me, what's so cool. Let me just start off by saying, what it's so cool about spring bear hunting is what other big game animal

can you hunt in the spring? No? No, no, none. I mean there are some sheep hunts and goat hunts, some animals that don't have antlers that shed that you can hunt, But I mean for all practical purposes, there is no other big game. I mean, not many people are sheep hunting in July and June. Chase hoggs. Yeah, you can chase hogs, um, but you know, all the

antler game are totally out of bounds in the spring. Now, we can spring turkey hunt, obviously we do that, but what other big game animal can you take your bow and go and hunt in the spring And the answer is very, very few. The other thing about spring bear hunting people, this this is like really significant news to someone who wouldn't know this, is that black bear numbers

are thriving all across the North American continent. Black bears have the most wide geographic distribution, second only to the mountain lion of distribution across North America. I've said that before and people have questioned me. I actually wrote it one time and an editor edited it out because he didn't believe it. But pre European settlement in North America, the mountain lion, the puma, the cougar, Ryan ranged from the eastern United States to the western United States without

a gap. I mean, there are mountain lions and Kansas. There are mountain lions here and there. There are mountain lions all the way up into Canada. There are mountain lions all the way down into South America. What like, think about like an elk or a sheep, or a white tailed deer or a moose. I want to have to take some of these books home that you're reading. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So mount lion has the largest geographic natural distribution of any big game animal in North America, as I understand

it from the books that I read. Number two to that critter is the black bear. I mean, you think about it, black bear would have ranged from the East coast. I mean there are black bears looking at the Atlantic Ocean, you know, in North Carolina and all the I mean in Maine all the way to black bears in California looking at the Pacific Ocean. Now there would be have been natural holes in their distribution through the Great Plains in different places. I mean, like a bear is pretty

much not gonna live in the Grand Prairie. But there's also black bears that range deep into the boreal forest of the North, all the way down in New Mexico. So I qualify my statement that bears are everywhere. And so that's another thing about spring bear hunting is that you can spring bear hunt. Um well, we'll get into where you can do it, but basically, bears are everywhere. Why do we spring bear hunt? Because bears don't have antlers that fall off and regrow. Number two, spring bears

have exceptional hide that have exceptional hide quality. A bear has been dinning for three to six months, even in some places there they they've produced all this energy and food that they've been in the whole year has made their hide great quality, so that when they're in the den they're preserving heat resources. So when they come out, they've got these great hides. Also, it's just kind of a side benefit. Is not why we hunt spring bears, but I've heard people say that their claws are in

better shape. Like if you kill a fall bear, I mean he's been running around, he's been digging, he's been doing stuff. Um, a bear comes out of the spring, right out of the den, he's gonna have sharp, big, long claws. They've just been growing. Um also bears. Uh, just there's an opportunity to hunt bears in the spring. They're coming out of the dens. They're hungry, they're active and traditional that's when they've been hunted, especially in the North,

not so much in the South. Um. So we let's just start right off the bat by talking about when do you spring bear hunt? And uh, typically we're gonna be spring bear hunting in May in June. Like when I first started, Ryan, if you ten years ago, if you just said when do you go on a spring bear hunt, would you have been able to answer that question as a Southerner probably not. I would have figured April. May you know, yeah, because by June in Arkansas, I

mean it were in deep summer. I mean, so you're not thinking about going and chasing something with your bow. Well, as a general rule, most most places where you spring bear hunt, you're hunting in May and June. Now that being said, there's lots of Western states, not lots, but the the western states that have spring bear seasons that are in the United States sometimes start on April, so you can hunt bears even into April. But in general,

you would say May in June. Um, let's go ahead and talk about the features of the timing of spring bear hunts, because a lot of people wouldn't understand when they go. Maybe they would call a Canadian bear outfitter, and outfitter would say, well, why don't you come the first week of May? Well, there benefits to hunting early. Or you might call an outfitter and he say, why don't you come the second week of June and their benefits, pros and cons to each thing. And most people don't

understand this at all. They just view the spring like just a big, massive time that it's all the same. It would be like white tail hunting Ryan, if you were to say, hey, do you wanna hunt in mid September, you know, if there was a early opener in some state, or would you rather hunt on nob or like explaining that, like basically the bare world is the same pros and cons. You can catch a big buck on feeding pattern and probably kill him in mid September, but you're not gonna

have any rud activity to speak of. But in mid November you might kill a buck that you've never seen before and it's at least bring bear hunts. So, I mean south the ice is out right, things have greened up. You may drive ten hours north of there and things

are still frozen and the bears are on the move. Yeah, So there's variations even between variations, even between places, even in Canada, and that's a good that's a good thing for people to think about, especially if you're talking about Canadian bear hunting, which we're gonna talk about the outfitter situation some in Canada. But like southern Canada is way different than Northern Canada. I mean even in like the

province of Manitoba. You cross over into Manitoba and the you know, the southern third of it is gonna be pretty different than the way up north. And uh, I mean just like here, like the difference between where we are in northwest Arkansas into northern Iowa. I mean, big difference in temperature, big difference in the winters. But we kind of have this idea that Canada is just this

you know, this place, that it's like all the same thing. Um, So let's go ahead and jump right into early season hunting. I like to compare the months of May and jun to the months of October and November when it comes to white tails again, going back to this thing that most people are familiar with white tail hunting, and so the characteristics of hunting early October for white tails would be finding animals on feeding pattern. The characteristics of hunting

them in November would typically be hunting rudding animals. So early, let's just say almost eight probably the outfitters that we deal with at Bear Hunting Magazine start taking clients the first week of May. Some of our northern clients, which with this would be the exception, like in northern Saskatchewan, some of these really far north places don't stake and don't don't start taking clients until mid May to even

late May. Outfitter that we have hunted with in the past doesn't even start taking hunter until the first week of June. But they're way up north, Okay, typically first week of May. And here's the deal. First week of May, there's gonna be very little rut activity happening. Bears are going to be less active because they've probably just come out of the den. But the bores are typically the first bears out of the den. The only well a sou is gonna be rear and young, and we'll stay

in the den a little bit longer. Oftentimes a lot of times the first animals out are boars, and they are they have one thing on their mind. Food. And so if you're hunting over bait or if you're spotting stalk hunting out west, if you find a bear, you can probably kill him in early May, and that goes from bait to spotting stalk. Looking on the side of a mountain in Montana and you see a bear out in a little green field, he's probably not going anywhere.

He's probably gonna be there tomorrow. He's he's found him a food source and he's gonna stay there. The same way you go to an outfit of the first week of May and you get a truck camera picture of a big boar, he's probably gonna be there. So the pro of hunting the early season is bears are on feeding patterns and man, I've seen it. I've seen it where you get pictures of bears and they're just consistent. And now that is contrasted ryan with bears that are

that you're hunting later in the year. The further you get into the spring, the more rut activity that you're gonna have. The more of these bear, these big boards are gonna have fed built up their body reserves that have been depleted during denning, and then they're gonna be starting to rut. I've seen the bear rut really kick off the last ten days of May, and again I go back to that analogy of October and November for the white tail world is like May and June for

the bear world. Late October, you're gonna start seeing rut activity. You're gonna start seeing buck's cruising making sign They're gonna veer off of their natural feeding patterns to start leaning towards those same thing with bear. So you might have a bear on a trail camera at a bait site or on a hillside in late May, and he may be he may be there the next day, but he may not be because he may be, Hey, I'm gonna roll over this next hill, go see if I can

find a sow that's receptive. Um. That that is a big That is a big thing. So further you get into June, the more rut activity. But from a hunting perspective, as you would have seen an experience in different times, you might be sitting on a bait site and a brand new bear that's never been there roamers, just like hunting the white tail rut, he might show up and you might you might take a big board that no

one has ever seen before at that place. Um. And so it's this, it's this, uh, this difference between these two things where you're gonna have bear that uh are really patternable, or you're taking a chance on a bear that might be there for a short period of time with a sow now during the rut. Also, it's not like you're just looking for this lone roamer. What you might find is a bear coming to a bait and he just hangs around for two or three days and

it's gone. I've seen that pattern happened before. Uh any comments on that. Uh you know, Uh, it can work both ways. But like you say, you know, once the rut kicks in and bears are still you know, they'll still feed. They're still feeding. Uh, you know, there's no kind of mass that time of year. There's no soft mass, no berries, So they've got sales on their mind, but

they're also hungry. But it is nice to say mid June have a sour two hanging around the bait, because you never know what's gonna show up with a classic spring June rutt hunt. Ryan to me, from my experience, has been when I killed that color face bear that touched the end of my arrow. Remember that hot soal was in there. This one boar was Breedinger, and then this color face bear showed up, which we believed it

was the first time he ever showed up. I mean it was like Kobe had never seen him on camera. Colby Morrison outfitter, and uh, that was a classic red hunt. Let me jump into the nuts and bolts of the bear rut and all my research, I have never seen this as clearly laid out is what I'm about to say, And I wrote an article for Verity Magazine a couple of years ago, and I kind of did it in response to the lack of information that I had about

the bear rut. But basically, the bear rut is a long window as opposed to a white tail rut, and

there's a biological reason for that. Bears have a process called delayed implantation, which means a sal bear can be bred and the egg isn't actually attached to the uterine wall to start gestation and tell that female has gone all the way through the fall and her body decides that she's capable of rear and young, so gestation doesn't actually start until early November, or bears have a sixty day gestation period and cubs are born in the den in January most of the time. A white tail rut,

ungulate rut, anything like that. Breeding date has everything to do with gestation time and optimal time for that fond to be born in the spring. So that's why that there has to be this really tight window of when an animal is bred. Because of delayed implantation, the bear rut can be much more spread out. The bear rut isn't as concentrated as a white tail rut, and it pretty much is a A salth bear could be bred in August, she could be bred in September. It all

depends upon when she connects with that boar. And it's an awesome it's amazing to me, it's just amazing. It's a biological strategy for an animal with low densities, like a white high white tailed density. I go back this all the time. High white tell density, it's like thirty to sixty per square mile. I mean, there's plenty of opportunity for breeding. A high bear density might just be one bear per square mile, even in a good place.

And so this long breeding window is designed to compensate for low densities because a sal bear might come in the heat and never and just not bump into another board, and so she has this big window. But in the research that that I did and pulled from different sources, was that kind of the peak, if there was a peak of bear breeding, it would be in mid June. And that was on this in this one bear population actually in the Northwest, And so like the peak of

bear breeding for this particular study was June. There were bears that were bred in July. There were also bears that like, the earliest breeding I think they saw was in mid May, but the peak of it was mid June eleven. And so to me, I've I've used that as a again to build this analogy of October and November. I mean probably around here, November the eleventh would be

probably pretty during close to peak breeding time. Yeah, I mean third week, well, probably second week of November, right, So I think that's important for people to understand the bear rut. Toby, any thoughts, any questions about that? Have you ever heard that the bear rut explained like that? Oh? I mean yeah, but just in personal conversations with you rather than any other pretty much, if there's a gap in conversation with anybody in any place, I start talking

about the bear rut. Yeah, and then over until it's really awkward sometimes I just can't keep it out, and then over until like you know, how the egg gets implanted and sometimes it's delayed. That's the second thing I talked. I talked about the bear rut, and then I talked about delayed implantation. Yeah, I'm joking, guys. Yeah, I don't always talk about that. You're right now, I think it's I think it's part of what makes bear is fascinating, but it really, it really does affect the way that

we hunt them. So okay, going back to the purpose of this podcast, spring bear hunting. So spring bear hunting takes place in May and June. June is gonna be your more breeding activity, which might bring in a Rovin a Rovin board that you've never seen. May is gonna be more of your feeding stuff. And to me, this applies in spotting stock and in bait hunting. When hunting

British Columbia. Like my buddy Devin Jewel Bear Pacific Bear Outfitters, he'll tell you, he tells people this will be a rut hunt or this will be a feeding hunt based upon the timing in a rut hunt. He believes it's tougher for spot and stock bears out in British Columbia because he's like, man, you might see a boar on the side of that mountain today, then if you don't kill him like that time, you're probably not gonna find him again. I mean that's a generalization, but that's what

that's typically what happens. Where if you found that same boar in mid May early May, feeding on a hillside in a cut block, as they call him. He might be there for a few days. You probably go back in there and kill him. And so he prefers early season, and I have found a ton of outfitters that prefer early season. And in my I've I have spring bear hunted in Montana two different times and I have yet

to bring back a bear. And every time I've gone, I wish that I had gone earlier, because in the spring, you're fighting green up. Green up is the is the mass crop quote unquote of the spring. I mean, like in the fall down here, we're fighting acrons. If you're baiting, if you're hunting them just in the forest like you're you're you're you're trying to find them on food source, which would be mascrom and the spring. The what they're after is green vegetation, and so in early May there's

less green vegetation. Mountains are cold, high elevations are still frozen, and so if lower elevations fall out, bears will be concentrated down low at least the bears that are up and moving. So that's the general thing. The later you get into the spring, if you go on a spring bear hunt, and the entire mountain from the foot to the top is covered in green vegetation. Bears are gonna be spread out and they're gonna be harder to find,

but all the bears are gonna be moving. So in June you're gonna pretty much have a hundred of the bears that are they're active. If you go to that same place, let's just use Montana as an example. Go to that same place in early May, maybe you've only got sixty of the bears or sevent you know, some percentage of bears are still gonna be fairly inactive. Now they're not gonna be dinning, but just their ranges are gonna be smaller. So in the early spring their ranges

are smaller, they are they are sleeping more. Still, they're they're not as active. By June they're like fully active. So you got a better you You might bump into one. You might go in the early season and only see one bear. You might go in mid June and see five or six bears. But so there's give and take, give and take both ways. So we've talked about give and take for the rut, and now we've just covered the give and take between May and June of the

food source. Does that make sense? Well, in in June would they be more inside the timber, and like May, they would be more to places where you could glass them up. That's a good they could be because by June there would be vegetation in the timber. Like when we were in Montana two years ago. Uh. Um. Now we went in mid May and man, it was already greened up and there was a vegetation everywhere in the timber,

out in the open. And now in the earlier time, the vegetation would only be in places that were receiving direct sunlight. Right, so they would be in the cuts and the openings that road banks. So later you get in the spring, there's just more stuff everywhere. The bears are going to be more spread out. But um, any any other questions on that thoughts on that it's pretty laid out. Uh, kind of gonna get out there. Um. So that's rut and feeding patterns, timing of spring bear hunts.

Let's talk to us a little bit about the Canadian world. Um. At Bear Hunting Magazine, we represent about sixty bear outfitters, many of which are in Canada. The Canadian pretty much all Canadian provinces are open to spring bear hunting, minus some of the provinces that people don't even know exists, like none of it in some of these places where there really aren't I don't think there's black bears and none of it. But um, but the main provinces that

border the United States for sure have spring bear seasons. British, Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova, Scotia, New Brunswick. What which one am I leaving out? Have I lost you? Boys? About Newfoundland? Newfoundland? Yes? New Oh. I hope now o from Newfoundland is listening to this

because I mean Newfoundland, Um, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, New Brunswick. Uh. Anyway, all these, all these Canadian provinces, all of them have a spring bear season, and the Canadian government is set up in such a way that they want to attract US hunters. Said that basically their systems are very easy for US hunters to come into Canada into hunts, so they're set up for that. They want us to come

up there. Um, Ryan, tell about well, before we started this, you said, you know, you and I started bear hunting like ten years ago or fifteen years ago. You were like, yeah, you know, hunting here in Arkansas. You know, it was always a dream to travel to Canada one day and hunt the big bears in the deep woods of Canada. And here it is. I've been four or five times and you know hunted, Uh just a couple of provinces you've hunted, what four or five? But yeah, it's a

Saskatchewan I think is beautiful. Ontario was unreal, had the biggest mosquitoes I think of the other provinces. But yeah, you know, Saskatchewan the lower region is all agg and uh want what you get mid province up there start to hit the shield and the boreal timber and uh but that's I think that's my favorite. Right up bear it's Askatchewan. Well, I was, I would be the same way Ruyn is like Southerners, and I'm using Southerners because

that's just what we are. Perhaps it's everybody, but like, it just seems like this dream to go to Canada hunt bears, and I had no idea how easy it actually was and how affordable that it is. Now you can go on an expensive black bear hunt, but you can also go on a cheap one. We talked about just I mean you just mentioned Ontario that was a cheap bear hunt, Brian, and I went, I mean it was a a bear hunt that pretty much anybody that is working and trying in life could have probably afforded

if they had budgeted. And uh, we went up there and killed a four hundred and thirty five pound bear and another nice bear in three days and we're on our way home. And it could have been a more you know, furnished hunt, but we wanted the you know, more of the do it yourself spike camp and uh, you know, Dave and Ean, they set us up what we wanted and accommodated and and that's that's a good

example of the kind hunt like. This hunt in Ontario was just like, uh, it was just like they had a trailer a camper set up out in the woods and they said, Okay, here's where you stay, cook your own food, here's where the bait sites are. Here's some bait. You can bait him yourself. And they pretty much were out of the exactly what we were wanted. Yeah, and there's no no punches, that's what we wanted. Yeah, And we went in there and they had these baitsites going

and granted we weren't entirely. I mean you got what you paid for. I mean, like these baits were just right off the road, which we didn't necessarily like, but we still can't complain because we killed bear. There's a sense of satisfaction and you know, putting yourself in that situation, the bating process, and you know, running cameras and you know, just like it here at home. We uh, we're woodsman, you know, we're always out. They'll do in our own

kind of hunting. We don't have anybody do it for us. So when we went up there and asked for that, and that's what they give us. And it was nice to go out and run cameras and fill bates and the ride four wheelers to the bait and yeah they supply us. Yeah that was fun. And we've actually not done anything like that since then. So the so that

the total opposite side of the Canadian spring bear hunting. Now, that was in the fall, But if we're just talking about Canadian outfitting situation, we uh, the last several years we've gone to Saskatchewan, which would have been a high end what I would consider a high end black bear hunt. A lot of opportunity for color Phase is a wilderness hunt way back in the way back waiting. We've already

had podcasts about that. But point being is that it's probably doable if it's in your if you would like to go on a Canadian bear hunt. And you know what, I help people all the time with Canadian bear hunting stuff.

I have people call office all the time and just kind of get a feel for what it's like, what it will cost, who they should go with, and I mean, and I can't tell you all those things, but I do know that I personally deal with sixty five bear outfitters and and know quite a bit about their operations. And so somebody will called out here and say, hey, I've got this budget, I have these goals, I have

this time frame. Would you make any suggestions? And and all the time I'll give people three or four outfitters that I think would fit what they want and they call them. So anyway, like we really do try to be a resource to people at Bear Hunting Magazine UM to try to hook them up with what they're actually looking for and hunt. UM. So let's go from Canadian provinces to spring hunting here in the US. There are certain number of states, Kobe, do we do? We have

a number of how many states have spring bear hunts? Uh? Not complete? Okay, well this is going to be incomplete, but let's work together to try to list out the United States that have spring bear hunts. Montana yep, Idaho, Arizona yep. New Mexico. Does New Mexico have a spring bear hunt? I don't see. I don't think so. Okay, okay, uh Utah has a spring bear hunt. I think there's a they have. It's a draw. I think it's a draw.

What other states do you have? Washington draw ye, Oregon, Oregon, Yeah, yeah, I'm not sure if it's drawer over the counter you can there's different in Oregon. There's lots of places where you have to draw, yeah, but there are places where you can buy over the counter. As I understand, there's some nast bears in the Northwest. Is a good is

good and some good hunting. I mean, that's one of the things that I found whenever I was doing some research was just that a lot of these states are split, so some of them you had to draw certain areas and some of them you had, you know, some over the counter opportunities. Um, and then like Idaho, Idaho, I think you can take two bears. Yeah, um Alaska if you take a big trip. Yeah, that's a big one obviously. Um Maine, you can spring bear hunt on tribal lands.

Really yeah, there there's some big Native American lands up there. One of them is pinab scott Um. You have to use an outfitter, but you can spring There's there's outfitters that you can spring bear hunt with in Maine. About Minnesota, did they None of the none of the Great Lake States have have spring bear seasons. Uh, none of the Appalai states have bear seasons except for Maine, which to

Appalachians starting pretty much started Maine. But you and you can only spring bear hunt in on the native lands in certain places. But in the West, is that all there is? Kolbe because there's no spring bear season in Colorado anymore. There's no spring bear season in California. Uh. Nevada. See, I looked at Nevada and it's just it wasn't very clear. Okay, We're gonna have to get back with you on Nevada. If there is a spring boy, I'm I'm embarrassed. I

don't know that. But if they have it is hard to find. If they have it, it is a small hunt. The big states are gonna be the northwestern states of Washington and Oregon, but the primary over the counter traveling to hunt spring bear states are gonna be Montana and Idaho. And Idaho is the bear hunter's paradise. I've actually never bear hunted Idaho. I've mountain lion hunt in Idaho. But the reason I say it's the bear hunter's paradise is a vast The majority of land in Idaho is public land.

I mean there's I want to say it's over. I could be wrong, but you can buy two over the counter tags for black bear. You can bait bears on public land in certain areas. Do it yourself. We could, we could drive up there this spring. Let's go. Let's do it with a low debate, and you register your bait site with the three bait sites. You can have three bait sites per permit, and then you just go set up your own baits and hunt. You can run hounds in Idaho for bear in the spring in the fall.

I think I think hounds are prohibited through July thirty one, So January one through July one, you can't, and you have to have a if you're nonresident, there's a hundred and seventy dollar UH fee for a permit to run hounds in night. Oh. If you're an out of state hounsman. You know, I do know that outfitters can run hounds

in spring. I mean, I know a guy that's going hound hunting this spring in Idaho, So I'm not that may be in certain areas areas, but in general, there's spring fall season to bear tags over the counter, uh some of the over the counter tags in Idaho in certain areas or even like forty bucks um in some areas. Most of what's the price of tags in Idaho? Kobe, Okay, Yeah, Whenever I was doing research, they said there were a lot of color face bears in Idaho. Yep, a lot

of non black bears in Idaho. So Idaho is a great destination and that that's really all the specifics we're gonna get into. We're not gonna go into the real details of it. The lot of a lot of great bear hun the other states, Montana, which Montana is vastly the land and pretty much you're hunting the western side of the state. When you're bear hunting in Montana. Highest barre dnsities in Montana are going to be in northwest Montana UM and much of that ground up there is

forested except for cut blocks and rhodes um Montana. What's a Montana nonresident bar tag? Costs three three and fifty dollars. Tell us about what you have to do though. Okay, so sent you up there and in greasily country you might encounter one. You have to you have to go through a process of making sure you can identify black black bearry versus degrees. So you take an online a

little like takes you like five ten minutes. So to get your license, you have to have this certification that you know how to identify a greasly in the black. And then the other thing is that you have to buy the tag twenty four hours in advance of hunting. So unless you buy it before April fourteenth or April fourteenth or or before, so a black bear license that's purchased after April fourteen, UH can't be used until twenty four hours a full twenty four hour cycle after the

license is issued. Okay, very good. Well, I'm planning a spring black bear hunt this year. Do it yourself out in Montana. Um, you wanna go with me? Rhyde? How many do it for real? Um, I'm gonna take my mules. I've been to Montana twice and man it's tough. I mean, like I see, I mean, I get all these success stories of guys that just roll out to Montana and kill Abart on their first hunt. I've been to Montana twice.

I've spent uh five and six eleven full days bear hunt in Montana and have yet to have a bear in range of me a legal bear. And have you seen any grizzlies while you've been out to Nope? I saw a grizzly last spring in British Columbia wild black bear hunting, but no there is that I'm hunting. Are not the big grids country. Um. But so I've been in Montana twice and have yet to kill a bear. Um. That being said, i feel like I now know what I want to do, and I'm also slightly disadvantaged because

of the way I want to do it. The older I get, the more I want to do things in a certain way and I want to do a equine based back country hunt. The first one I went on, we didn't have horses or mules or anything, and we just backpacked in. And when you backpack into these big blocks of wilderness, you're kind of stuck there. I mean you've committed all this time getting back in there, and

you kind of just waited out. So you might go back in there and not find many bears, and so you might sit there for six days and not see many bears. Uh. The way that a lot of guys are really successful in the West is being really mobile using their trucks, I mean driving around glassing Um also walking logging roads. There's lots of uh, roads that you

don't have vehicular access anymore. So they lots of gated roads and guys just get on these gated roads and walk and so you know they're they're either staying at a hotel or they're camping and they're just mobile. Yeah, I think I think a lot of people have gone to riding bikes down those like even like pulling carts behind the bike with their gear and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, those would be the yuppies, those would be those would be like the hipsterre yuppies, yuppies from like Kansas City.

The real, the real, the real, gritty men. You know, we use mules, but I bet you got a bike somewhere though, I keep the mule tied at camp and ride by bike ride my quiet cat. Yeah, uh no, I'm just I just tea. I say that to say, like there's a there's a two friends that have helped me in Montana, like have said, you kind of got me going in the right direction of where to go. And both of them are like, Clay, you're doing it wrong, man, you know, because they're killing bears just like leaving their

house and in their locals. You're just driving around and glassing and fighting the bear and getting in there and killing it that day or maybe the next day, and for whatever reason. And I may end up doing that, But right now I have this hunt that I want to do, which is a back country equine based hunt for black bear. That's just the way I want to do it, you know, And so that's what I'm gonna keep doing because I've already I've started it, and it's

like now I gotta finish it. And you know, when I first started trading my mule Izzy the whole, I mean, I just envisioned this animal in Montana and I've yet to take her up there. So this year, that's my plan. Let's go to Montana and Hey, the other thing is that whoever went with me Ryan wouldn't necessarily have to ride a mule like like, uh, we would just there's

lots of options. But we could just use the mule to pack in all our gear, you know, pack in two hundred pounds of gear for comfortable hunt without us having to carry big, huge packs back all that distance back in there. So that's that's one way to use equals. The other way is to uh ride them and have a pack animal. So you actually ride and have a pack animal. Um, But that's just an equation. That's just

a personal thing that I like and enjoy. But so spring bear honey, any other thought, I mean, we've covered. We really covered the things I wanted to cover. I want. I wanted to cover just the basics of it, just so that someone could just kind of understand when you hunt, why you hunt those times, what the bears are doing. Um. Where you can hunt Canada, US, there's not really that many options in the US. Most of it's in the

North Way one state in Arizona. I think you know what you know, where you can hunt bear well, I don't want to say it. There may be some tribal lands in I want to say New Mexico that you can that you can hunt bear in the spring. I know for sure in Arizona that there's tribal lands that you can hunt the in the spring. But any other thoughts on spring bear hunting, like because we're guys that weren't used to we did not grow up spring bear hunting.

Take a thermself for sure. If you go to Canada, yea, you know bug suit? I guess you know if it ain't, if it's still cool, won't be that bad. But we have experienced them them days where it's been bad, especially in black flies. Well in the fall has been worse than the spring you're up. I guess it depends too on how much you know. Some in forest hold moisture and some lakes and you got that backwater and might not be as bad. Add as you say you experiencing

bugs when you're in Montana. Or ticks. I'll tell you what a a deterring factor in my mind when I subconsciously think about going to Montana is the ticks. You would not have believed in mid May. I mean it was like ticks out. I've never seen ticks like that. But no, no mosquitoes. I don't know if that was an odd thing or just right where we're at. It was that bad. But if you sat down to glass but in seconds, you would have ticks all over you. I mean like big old ticks, not like seed ticks.

But both trips are more so on the first trip. The second trip we got ticks, but not as bad first trip with Misty when we went, I mean, it was bizarre. But that's and that's something to talk about spring bear and a lot of people. I hear it so much, it's almost like a limiting factor of people, like I bring spring bear hunting. What about the mosquitoes? Man, thermal cells have changed that. Gotta have them, but but

they make it tolerable. I mean there have been times when you just would have been fighting mosquitoes the whole time. But man, you take a couple of them. I take two with me almost everywhere I go in case one breaks, take plenty of refill charges. You know, cartridges and paths and problem solved nature calls. You better have one. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I think Another thing is if, uh, if you want to get into more the draw hunts, maybe looking to because it's it's a lot of information to go through. You might hire, like go to some service like I think go hunt has has a lot of the draws, and I think I saw where they added bear to their draws, so you can look through different units and just see what's offered, and they give a little like background behind stuff. So that might be a good resource if if you wanted to go. There are some coveted

bear units specifically in Idaho. There's some draws that you can put in. Prince of Wales and Alaska is a l primo destination for do it yourself. Yeah cool you. I think Prince of Wales for whatever reason, is just more accessible and commercialized. Who you is, uh as, I understand it. It's a little bit more difficult, but put you better have your your first light ring here, right, that's right, you better have your secret Prince of Wales. Yeah yeah, yeah, um well it am I missing anything

with this Guy's right on? Well again, this is just a series that we're doing of just kind of nitty gritty technical stuff about bear hunting. We're gonna continue this and then we're also gonna have these I love it. Just a good old storytelling, fun podcast or going to meeting with it or a province you know, I mean kind of that. That's to me what's cool about our podcasts.

Anything's on the table, even though we are the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast and uh but hey, we'll close down, and thanks for checking out the Bear Hunting Magazine podcasts. And keep the wild places wild, wild run because that's where the bears live. M