Judging size of a bear

[cgasner1]

Tell us about that CJ homie.

That my friend is a tale as old as time. You see my wife was pregnant with the second kid and we decided she needed a bigger car. I wanted a Durango she wanted a wrangler

 

[The Hedgehog]

Big Stick from AK used to claim how he could nail skull estimates on a live bear. I'd guess if you knew the average top end bear's typical skull size for where you're at, you could be close by just matching a body size of a boar to a skull size. I'm not buying there's a real way to estimate a skull length/width on a bear's melon when covered with a few inches of meat and hide.

Bear judging is pretty tough, I'd say the best advice I could give is to look at them as long as you can, get as close as you can, and compare them to things around them of known or assumed sizes. I can think of several times in the year past misjudging a bear, where I wish I would have noticed how they compared to nearby stumps, bushes, sage, etc. Pay attention to their shape and how they walk, etc. Mostly the times you get into trouble is when you shoot too quickly, just my thoughts. I am always interested in how other people can tell if they are big.

The bear walking in the snow on the video above was a good one for SW MT, 6'11" square and 18-7/8 skull, 10 years old. I could tell it was big and lanky long by watching it walk down hill through all that snow. I've seen some short squatty furred up sows that at first glance appear to be a lot bigger, that were actually 1/3 the size of that one in the video i posted.

 

[The Hedgehog]

Pic of the bear wading through those drifts about an hour after the video was taken. I really could only tell I thought he looked good enough.

 

[ismith]

Pic of the bear wading through those drifts about an hour after the video was taken. I really could only tell I thought he looked good enough.
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I’d be happy with a nearly 7 ft bruin.

 

[Salmonchaser]

Pic of the bear wading through those drifts about an hour after the video was taken. I really could only tell I thought he looked good enough.
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Well yep I think you got a dandy.

 

[mtmuley]

Pic of the bear wading through those drifts about an hour after the video was taken. I really could only tell I thought he looked good enough.
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Nice rifle. Bear too. mtmuley

 

[Trap]

only reliable way is to ground check them. Shoot first ask questions later. just kidding sort of. I have taken some nice bears but I have definitely misjudged a few. I agree with watch as long as you can, rushed shots haven't been good decisions for me. Every really big bear I have shot I immediately knew it was a big bear. Tiny bears are usually more obvious too. The smaller to medium ones are the hard ones. If you have to watch for a while to decide its a shooter it probably is not. Thats been my experience. The ear thing can be effective but far from foolproof. I shot a sow one year and her ears appeared tiny at 300 but so did her head and body once I got up to her.

 

[kiwi hunter]

One of the main reasons I stopped shooting bears is because I just can't nail judging them. Three of the last four bears I shot were mistake sows, and that's hard to shake.

 

[kiwi hunter]

The trouble with cphones, you only have to brush and they reply for you when one was just perusing. Life was so much easier in the sixties.