I'm a hound guy, so I like to hunt them with hounds. I guide bear hunters and won't even guide bait hunters, I think it should be legal, but I personally don't want to do it. I did do some hound/bait combo hunts in the past when I needed the money and to amass the experience/seniority to be able pick and choose what type of hunts I would do. I have also at times dabbled with baiting to run dogs off of, but far prefer to rig them. Spot and stalk requires the right terrain to be feasible and is usually done either in the spring when they are out picking the green grass or during berry season when they are out in the berry patches. I have heard in certain areas in Southern Idaho they get into the wild onions in the fall and can be successfully hunted in the wild onion patches that way.
As far as size goes, I go by weight, although it is usually estimated due to the difficulty of packing large bears out whole. The largest bear I ever packed out whole and weighed was 252 gutted. I'm not that tough any more, I can strap one on my back up to about 200 and pack it out, as long as the terrain isn't too rough, but any larger than that gets skinned and quartered unless you can get a quad to it. Weights vary vastly between spring and fall, while skull sizes do not, but I always head shoot bears so there isn't a skull to measure anyways, a 405 grain 45/70 slug usually makes them pretty mushy. A word to the wise on estimated weights, most people vastly overestimate the size of bears. A general rule of thumb I go by when being told estimated weights, unless I personally know the person doing the estimating and trust them, is to divide the estimate in half and this is usually pretty close, although often on the high side still.
