Going to call you 400 lb bear shooters LIERS !!!!

[Moosie]

Ok, not all of you, but the ones in Idaho I will.... I was really curious cuz I can't judge weight, I know that I've seen some bigger bears and smaller bears and have taken 3 smaller bears and one "AVERAGE" bear here in Idaho....

I called Fish and game (LIKE THEY KNOW ANYTHING) and had them do a bit of reaserch.. They finaly called me back and told me of a book that I will get soon. My question was the "AVERAGE" size bear and the HIGH end, and the low end...

He started off relying that an AVERAGE bear in Idhao is like 220lbs.. HE broke out females and males but I'll talk averages here...

He said they did a trapping study around the Council area and also.. the Locksaw (I think),.. He said there was only a couple bears pushing the 300LB mark and the average was like 220ish...

I asked what the average bear shot was, He just laughed. Said they don't weigh bears but it depends who ya ask. the guys packing their bear out always thinks it weighs more then it does. But in reality... almost no-one brings in a 350+ bear.

We talked about length and such and the 4 1/2 - 5' was the average and he'd estimate the (REALISTIC) weight to be mid 100's of bears shot. He's seen more then his fair share of bears that were smaller then dogs.

Something else I learned was a bear can live over 30 years !!! Holy crap !! I din't know that. they peak weight usually at 6-7 years.

He said the reason that the smaller bears get wacked is because there are More of them, (Which makes sense). And also people can't judge them.

So I wanted to shout out a congrats to Mntboy on his 260LB bear, thats a dandy for here !!!!!!!

 

[mtnboy]

Wow, you can even learn something on this board... that's good info. there Champ - I figured bears were like dogs and 10 summers was their upper end. I just saved him the anguish of his mid-life crisis...

I recently heard from a warden that bears can gain up to 200 pounds from spring to fall, but I assume that's a biig grizzly and its all relative to size...

It was just dumb luck that let me stumble into that bear anyways.... but I'll take it just the same...

(As far as judging weight goes, my lil' brother, a defensive end, weighs 240 and his Rottweiler weighs 120 and I know the difference. I still toss both around once in a while, but I could barely budge that bear... AND my buddy that scored the bear is the president of the Wildlife Assoc. and Big Game Trophy Association 'round here and has several animals in B&C....

>>>We just green scored his head and he did have a big coconut....it scored 18.25" which would just make it into the Pope & Young Records.... I'm kinda kickin' myself, but.....he'll probably shrink out of the book as he dries....

<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 06-02-2002 15:15: Message edited by: mtnboy ]</font>

 

[Ithaca 37]

We once got a bear that was aged at 22 years by the biologist at the F&G lab who was doing a study. He took a tooth and sawed it off and counted rings.

Very few bears get over 300 lbs in the Fall. Spring weights are a lot less.

Most guys estimate 150 lb bears to weigh at least 250 lbs.!

 

[GatoMan]

There out there but tough to find, its kind of like killing a 360 bull in ID..every yr a few lucky people happen to be in the right spot at the right time. I have one on video from last summer I treed thats over 330 in july then a week ago I bayed one close to 400 but since it was pursuit only and no kill..its kinda hard to weigh a live bear without getting bitten,lol. Most the bears I tree are in the 150 pd range, treed one today that was probably 80 and caught the same bear last fall when it was probably 60 pds. For the most part I find that a sow thats over 200 and boar thats over 250 is pretty respectable bear around here and you probably should pull the trigger.

 

[Ithaca 37]

Gato, How do you find out the weight of the bears you get? Do you use a measurement formula or actually weigh them? When you give a bears weight is it live weight or dressed?

 

[GatoMan]

Live weight and only way I judge them is when there hanging over your head at 20 ft you have alot of time to study over and judge them also being able to watch what I video in played back several times helps. The bear I say that was around 330 last july..I replayed the tape to an outfitter thats put several on certified scales over the yrs and between the 2 of us thats what we came up with him. Same guy killed one in california last yr that was 360 that he put on the scales. When your able to look at several dozen bear a yr under a tree that there hanging 20 ft above you..its alot easier then through a spotting scope at one across a canyon at 350 yds. I know Dale Tobey who comes to this site now and then from maine I have heard him say he can judge with 5 pds of a bear from yrs of experience. Little bear I treed this morning I climbed up and adjacent tree to it and got within 7 ft eyelevel of it...was so close I could see she looked like a swelled up dog in heat ready to be breed.

 

[ELKCHSR]

Thats to cool!!!!

 

[Elkhunter]

Very interesting Gato.

 

[MarvB]

Same story I've heard out this way...according to our illustrious DFG, the average bear shot in Caliphoney is under 175# but every "story" you hear is 300#+ Thats a whole lot o groundshrink IMHO...

 

[DKO]

i think that the norm about everywhere ya go! Maine average is about 125lbs! 200lbs being a good bear! i guess 300lbs sounds better than 150lbs! so thats why most people tend to exaggerate the weight either that or there just clueless! ya know shooting a 300lber at 20yrds is much more difficult and challenging than shooting a 150ler at 20 yrds!

 

[1_pointer]

There was a bear killed in NJ by a mini-van this spring that weighed 630#!!!! That is according to the outdoor radio show I was listening to. Now that is a big bear!!

 

[Ithaca 37]

I'm always very suspicious of estimated weights, even the experts can get fooled by some animals. Weighing is the only thing that means anything to me. When I was a kid in Vermont all deer were brought into the local country store to be checked and weighed. We'd sit there after school and watch the show and guess the weights until, by the time we were about ten years old, we were incredibly good at estimating deer weights. In fact, we'd rarely ever miss by more than two or three pounds. But when we did miss, it was usually a good miss of at least ten or fifteen pounds on a 150 lb. deer. Usually it had something to do with the amount of body fat.

It was always funny to see the hunters guessing 175 lbs.-195 lbs. and three of us kids would be saying, "134 lbs., 137 lbs., 135 lbs." The hunters would look at us like we were a bunch of wise a$$ kids and then they'd put the deer on the scale and we'd hit the nail right on the head! We even got so we'd hustle them and bet money on the weights and we never lost. Partly because you lose a lot of perspective if you're the one who dragged the deer out of the woods, partly because of hunters ego when they shoot something, but mostly because most hunters never actually weigh anything and we made a study of it.

Did you ever notice that hunters estimate weights like 150 lbs., 275 lbs., 200 lbs., and nobody ever estimates 147 lbs., 283 lbs., 206 lbs. ? That's one way to tell a good estimater---they hardly ever round off an estimate to the nearest 5 lbs.!

<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 06-03-2002 18:55: Message edited by: Ithaca 37 ]</font>

 

[Reddoggie1]

Thanks guys I really enjoyed reading this thread. I've learned quite a bit, and appreciate it.


Dennis

 

[Elkhunter]

But Ithaca, you probably were a wise a$$ kid

I was told by G&F here that the average blackie was 350 pounds. I have only seen one that would have been that or more, and I will get the weight from the person wo got it, but most seem to be the 150 pound range. Now I just need to go out and get one and weigh it and report back here.

 

[1_pointer]

As Ithica stated, subjectivity is a funny thing.

 

[ELKCHSR]

 

[mtnboy]

Case in point, I just saw a similar thread on another site.....they were discussing this bear, which is claimed to be a 250 lb boar...... this thing is HUGE (....more like 250 ounces)

<FONT COLOR="#800080" SIZE="1">[ 06-04-2002 22:25: Message edited by: mtnboy ]</font>

 

[Moosie]

I guess that guy is 10'3" then ? HAHA

I usually don't say anything about shoting a forked buck, a doe deer or... a 80# bear.. Unless someone is "FIBBING" about it

 

[Ithaca 37]

Elkhunter, Whomever from F&G told you about the 350 lb. bears must have been pulling your leg!

Look at it this way---how many guys do you know who have actually weighed a bear, or anything else, for that matter. How many guys do you know who even have a scale to weigh a deer or bear with, or an elk, or the quarters of an elk? How many hunters are going to bring the animal out of the woods with the guts still in it so they can get the exact weight? Have you ever tried moving a 300 lb. bear around? I have, and it's not easy.

A guide I had in the NW Territory of Canada told me the previous winter he had trapped the biggest wolf he'd ever seen. He went to a lot of trouble to get it out whole and take it back to Norman Wells, where he lived. He drove around town showing it to people and they were all guessing it weighed 150- 175 lbs. He put it on a scale and it weighed 117 lbs.!

When I was in college I was going bird hunting with my buddy, John, and we saw a road killed bobcat laying by the road, so we threw it in the trunk because there was a ten dollar bounty on them back then and ten bucks was about two tanks of gas. When we got back to school I took it to the game warden and got the bounty and then my buddy took it and showed it to his neighbor. He told the neighbor this fantastic BS story about how the bobcat had charged us and , just as it was leaping thru the air to land on us we pulled up our shotguns and shot it. The neighbor said said, "Hey, my friend down the street is a photographer. How about if I call him to take your picture?"

My friend said OK and when the photographer showed up and took the picture he told the photographer the BS story. The photographer asked John how much it weighed and John said, "55 lbs."

The photographer then said, "Geez, that's incredible! I work part time for the newspaper, do you mind if I tell the editor about this?"

Well, John was trapped and all he could do was say "OK".

Two days later John's picture with the bobcat was in the newspaper under the headline "UVM Students Shoot Charging Bobcat!" with the whole BS story!

I said, "John, Are you crazy? That bobcat didn't even weigh twenty pounds!"

He said, "I know, but how was I supposed to know the guy worked for the newspaper and was going to publish the whole story?"

 

[Elkhunter]

Well Moosie you think it weighs #80, I was thinking #75 when I saw the picture.

Ithaca, maybe they were pulling my leg, maybe not. The 350 weight they said was the average, meaning some are more and some are less. I know for a fact that the one I saw was friggin huge. I watched it from about 75 yards feeding in a meadow for about an hour, ten days before the fall bear season opened. I would also think that when any G&F Dept. was to talk about averages in weight, it would include both spring, summer and fall bears. And I do have a scale to weight them with and a lot of people have these scales. You can ge them from Cabella's as a matter of fact. Mine goes to 250 pounds and I also have a buffalo hide scale that goes up to 450 pounds. So as you can see I can weigh an elk quarter with or without the hide and bone.

See that, you still are a wise a$$ kid, only grown up now.