Bear Hunting Information

HUNT STYLE

All our Black Bear Hunts are spot and stalk. Baiting is illegal in British Columbia. In the spring we hunt the areas where the grass grows first, along the south facing slopes, river and creek banks, and along logged areas and roads. These spot and stalk hunts are action packed though, with high quantities of bears, seeing 5 - 10 bears a day, with our record set at 26 bears in one day. You can reasonably expect to see 30 to 40 bears in a hunt, with our record set at 102 bears in one hunt. Our lodge at Crystal Lake is at a higher elevation and densely timbered, and while great for moose, is not ideal for bears. Therefore we hunt bears from Greer Creek Ranch, where we have guest cabins to accommodate you. From Greer Creek you will go out in a truck each day with your guide. As the grass grows first in the logging areas, this hunt is mostly a road hunt covering lots of ground and glassing large areas. For the more intrepid hunter there are some great hikes along our sweet spot we like to call "Bear Mecca" or along the Rim Rock where we find bears feeding.

SUCCESS RATE

100%. We like to boast that we have never had a hunter who didn't pull the trigger. Everyone gets their bear. In fact, this hunt is not about whether you get a bear or not, but rather how much bigger your second bear will be than your first. We consider it an opportunity on a tag if the hunter wounded, or missed a bear, but not if he passed it up. The follow table shows our statistics since we began offering Spring Bear hunts in 2002:

HABITS & HABITAT

In the spring, bears start coming out of their dens by mid-April. We have a very healthy bear population which appears to be more dense than it really is because bears gather in higher numbers around the scarce sources of food. Bears are all about food. Their primary food source in the spring is grass, roots, grubs, and later in May moose calves. Late May and early June is the Bear breeding period, and during this time frame large boars move about more in search of breedable sows. It is illegal to shoot a bear in a family unit, which is to prevent the harvest of sows and cubs. Ironically, the more boars we kill, the more bears we have as the boars will kill cubs.

JUDGING A BEAR

Judging a bear to be a trophy is particularly difficult and takes experience and careful examination of the bear. Bears have as diverse a body shape and size as do humans, and while these are some good rules to follow, there are always exceptions. Here is what to look for: small ears, ears will appear to be off to the side of the head, belly close to ground, runs like an accordion, walks with a sway, crease in the forehead, head will be shaped like a box with a nose sticking out of it, large tracks, large diameter droppings. Of course it helps if you have something you know the size of to compare against the bear. Here are the signs of a small bear: large ears, ears stick up as if off the top of the head, long legs with belly way off the ground, runs swift with agility, walks like a dog, head is shaped like an elongated triangle, small tracks, small diameter droppings. Remember it is about quality. Hides are very thick in the spring, and depending on the weather bears may start to rub. If the bear looks scruffy, it is probably rubbed. We are careful to ensure that the bear has a high quality pelt. Poor pelt quality is rarely an issue, effecting less than 10% of our harvested bears. We do have color phase bears including cinnamon, chocolate and the rare blonde. Color phase bears tend to be smaller bears. There are two reasons for this, first hunters will take a smaller bear just for the color, and second, as bears mature they tend to darken, and while they may keep a cinnamon undercoat, they will appear black. The percentage of color phase bears harvested changes from year to year. Our best year was in 2006, when 11 of the 24 bears we harvested were color phase, and 6 of those color phase were trophy bears. We are so confident in our bear population we do not want you shooting a bear less than 5'6". This is an average size bear weighing 150 lbs, what we would consider respectable for a first bear, but not for a second. Our trophy bears go between 6' and 7'6" long and 200 to 300 lbs in the spring with skulls measuring between 18 - 21 inches. A 300 lb spring bear will weigh 400 lbs in the fall. The trick to finding a trophy is not in finding the bear, but rather in being able to judge big bears from average bears. In 2007, 12 of the 26 bears harvested made GOABC Mountain Hunter Record Book with skulls between 18" and 20", almost 50% trophies.

MISCONCEPTIONS

Many hunters bring with them ideas they have formed about bears from magazine stories and hunting tales. Allow me to dispel some of these misconceptions so that you have better expectations. First, most size estimations of bears are false. When told about a bear's size, my first question is "was that an estimation?". We have a scale and have regularly test people's estimation of a bears weigh against the reality and found that most hunters overestimate by at least 100 lbs, and in some cases up to 200 lbs. A 200 lb bear is a VERY LARGE BEAR. A 300 lb bear is GIGANTIC! A 400 lb black bear is moving into the grizzly size category, and your taxidermist will have to order a grizzly manikin to mount it. Do not be duped by stories of 400 lb spring bears, they are extremely rare, and that is probably an exaggerated estimation of an excited hunter in the field. Second, photos can be manipulated to make bears appear larger than they really are. Unlike antlered animals in which you can count points, a bear must be judged in reference to an object, such as a hunter, who is often set far behind the animal to make it appear larger. This is a common practice for outfitters, especially prevalent in magazines, and rarely reliable when it comes right down to size. This has had the unfortunate side effect of causing what is known as "ground shrinkage" when you actually get up on the trophy bear you have just harvested. Skull measurements are the only reliable method to actually determine the size of a bears head. Photos are unreliable. A bear with an 18"-19" skull is a trophy, 20" is huge, and 21" is gigantic beyond most peoples wildest dreams. Compare the two photos below. Both photos are of the same bear Chris Davidson harvested in 2007. It is a nice trophy at 6' long, 225 lbs, with an 18.5" skull. In the photo on the left he is touching the bear, in the photo on the right, he is about 10' behind it. Notice the optical illusion that the bear on the right is bigger.

THE SEASON

Bear season opens April 1st and goes until June 15th. We only hunt the last two weeks of May and the first two weeks of June though. We see the highest numbers of bears during this period, and kill the largest bears during this breeding season.

RECOMMENDATIONS

We always recommend a two hunters with one guide, two bears each hunt. This allows you the advantage of harvesting the first respectable 5'6" to 6' bear so that you know you are not going home empty handed, and after that you can strictly trophy hunt for bears over 6' long. And while you are trophy hunting your partner can fill his first tag. Consider the following table to make sure this is the right hunt for you.

In 2007 Dixie and Carl Stettler harvested 2 trophies and 1 average bear on a 2 bear, 2 on 1 hunt. Both trophy bears were between 7' and 7'6", 250-300 lbs, with 19" - 19.75" skulls. They stopped counting the number of bears they had seen after 65, and could boast they saw 20 in a single day. Dixie's first bear was so large, she would not shoot a smaller bear, though she passed up many 6 foot bears.