Seen a nice eater yesterday.About 150 pounder with a nice pelt.
Wasnt on my trapline however,and I didnt buy a hunting licence.Might pick up a licence today and go shoot that one.Hes hanging out just north of town.

Jack (Gulo) would know better than I but I believe an adult male black bear could easily have a home range that would encompass 100 square miles. I shot a large radio-collared male in Alaska many years ago. I turned the collar in to F&G and they sent me a detailed map with markings indicating every contact they had with the bear. It had denned the previous winter twenty miles away from where I shot it.

Males, females and cubs routinely travel 50-90 miles to food sources as proven by GPS tracking here in Minnesota. One female travelled over 120 miles one way with newborn cubs in about a month. One male denned 60 miles away from the area where he spent most of his summer. 100 miles is nothing for a home range, it's often 5-10 times that much.

Greatest hound hunting experience I’ve ever been a part of!
I’ve hunted coon and rabbits with hounds my whole life. Been on hound coyote and fox hunts. But that hound bear hunt was unbelievably challenging and exciting. If I lived in bear country that allowed hound hunting I’d have bear hounds, without a doubt.
We ran the bear that I killed for 6 1/2 hours. Missed him at 90 yards streaking across a narrow logging road an hour into the race. Treed him 2 1/2 hours into the race and the bear came out of the tree before we could get the last dog tied back for the shot. The houndsmen I was with said that the bear wouldn’t take another tree that day. They were absolutely right. We ran the bear for 4 more hours. Dogs bayed him dozens of times. Before we’d get to the bay site, he’d break and go anywhere from 300 yards to 1/2 a mile and bay again. All of this is taking place in a true swamp. Water from ankle to wallet deep. The bear finally bayed at the edge of the swamp. That allowed us to get to the bay site more quickly. The bear broke in run from the dogs and ran right at me. I killed him at 12 feet.
Unreal experience.
The houndsmen that I hunted with (friends of Swampwolf) could care less about being the shooter.
Not everyone understands/appreciates hound hunting. Those dogs are unbelievably tough.
I’d do it again!!

I had a monster of a bear on a bait some years ago, DNR researchers had the same bear pictured many times at bear reserch center nearly 40 miles from that bait.

Many Minnesota bears in the northeast to north central follow an annual track from over in the boundary waters area early season, gravitating southwest to the goose lake area west of Grand Rapids for the acorns, pretty much straight north from there towards Littlefork for the coming snow, rinse and repeat.
I did some work/help for the bear researchers on that years ago. Very interesting migration pattern that answered a lot of behavioral questions concerning hunting bears in that area. I never did figure out the total route miles but as Bernie indicated it was a bunch.

Osky

PA record kill was over 4,600 in 2019, no bait or dogs

Congratulations?

PA has no boreal forest. The hunting styles that have evolved in PA and the way the game commission manages bears is an adaptation to the habitat, just like the states that have baiting and hounds.

If MI, WI and MN didn't have baiting, there would be no way to reach harvest objectives.

Makes sense, didn't think of the habitat differences

Hey tlguy, nope the bears haven’t got me yet! Been busy here this week working my tail off!
I was going to go hunt this evening, but it’s pretty windy today. Decided to stay home and catch up on some taxidermy.
That looks like a really good bear you got coming in! Hope he sticks around for you!

I’ve never been told why we use bait to hunt bears up here. I started sitting in the treestand at the bear bait with my Dad when I was 10 years old and started hunting bears when I was 12. Always used bait.

I think because of how big our bush is here and the nature of a bear I’d say we need to be able to bait in order to shoot a bear.
Of course someone will shoot a bear on a cut corn field and say they don’t need bait, but for the majority it’s needed.

Bear outfitters here would be out of business without baiting.

Anyone keep the gall bladder. They are legal to sell some places. Known remedy for sore muscles. Back in the 90s there was an article in the NTA mag by an ADG&G bio/trapper on how to dry the the liquid and powder it. He added it to a shot of whisky.

Bait habituates bears to a concentrated location....making hunting success much higher for increased harvests.

It is this very reason that baiting bears in Georgia is illegal. We dont have the numbers that some other states and Canadian provinces do. Our DNR is concerned about over-harvest....especially the southeast Ga population that is centered around the Okefenokee Swamp.

Back in the stand for this evening. The bait has been hit hard now! The barrel of quail feed I brought in last week is all gone! I saw a mother with one or two cubs about 60 yards away from my tree stand as I walked in.
They huffed and puffed at me then ran away.

Got a bear walking in right now!!! Gotta go!

Nice sow and cubs coming back.

Sow and 3 cubs. I can hear another bear crashing around in the bush.

I’m going to sit tight now and enjoy the show!

Whack one, Jurassic!!!!! I'm watching right over your shoulder!

Moosetrot

I know you are Moosetrot! Thanks!

Another sow with 2 cubs just showed up!

Nice white blaze on the sow. Looks like the one cub will follow suit.

Great picsJP.
Good to see back out.

But in my opinion, I'd change baits sight if available.
40 ± years of hunting bears has learned me..., nothing good becomes of a bait where a sow and cubs frequent.

My opinion.