****OFFICIAL****2024 SPRING BEAR THREAD

We turned up a sow and cub at 400 yds around 3,000 ft first day out (4/13) mid morning. We met two hunters that evening they harvested a boar about 3-4 miles down the same canyon we were hunting. Expecting to see more activity next trip out. 🤞Great start to the season!
 
I would love your guys’ insight with this: I just spent 4 days glassing HARD in an area that is known to hold bears. Picked apart several drainages for hours. Put dozens of steep miles on my boots. All the hillsides I focused on looked about like this in terms of greenup and flowers, with plenty of timber patches for cover, and water in every bottom. I turned up elk and deer, but no bears. Didn’t even see any sign, on old logging roads, in creek bottoms, etc.

I am new to spring bear hunting, and it’s hard to try to figure out what went wrong. The area did experience a dip in temperature from 60s to 40s just before I arrived, and it was fairly windy, could it be as simple as that being the problem? All the elk I saw were in timber and mostly bedded, although the deer were all over.

I know April is early, but the landscape looked like it was a bit ahead.

I want to feel like a better hunter coming out of this trip, but I don’t exactly know what lesson I learned here, except for the fact that it’s possible to find perfect bear habitat without any bears. Any similar experiences, this year or otherwise?
IMG_4417.jpeg
 
KG92 said:
I would love your guys’ insight with this: I just spent 4 days glassing HARD in an area that is known to hold bears. Picked apart several drainages for hours. Put dozens of steep miles on my boots. All the hillsides I focused on looked about like this in terms of greenup and flowers, with plenty of timber patches for cover, and water in every bottom. I turned up elk and deer, but no bears. Didn’t even see any sign, on old logging roads, in creek bottoms, etc.

I am new to spring bear hunting, and it’s hard to try to figure out what went wrong. The area did experience a dip in temperature from 60s to 40s just before I arrived, and it was fairly windy, could it be as simple as that being the problem? All the elk I saw were in timber and mostly bedded, although the deer were all over.

I know April is early, but the landscape looked like it was a bit ahead.

I want to feel like a better hunter coming out of this trip, but I don’t exactly know what lesson I learned here, except for the fact that it’s possible to find perfect bear habitat without any bears. Any similar experiences, this year or otherwise?
View attachment 324614
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Only the bear knows....

Short answer is consistency is your best friend. I've been out in areas where you would bet your bottom dollar you're gonna find one. Then 3 days later and you haven't seen shit you really start to scratch your head. Keep after it, if these areas look like that with some timber and water near by. You'll turn one up no question. Just enjoy it and take in watching the mountains come alive after a long winter. Good luck
 
KG92 said:
Didn’t even see any sign, on old logging roads, in creek bottoms, etc.
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I’ve been on exactly one bear hunt, MT spring. I did my due diligence e-scouting, and in 5 days I saw one BB. However, I found lots of tracks and at least a dozen scat piles in expected places across multiple drainages. The altitude band of the proper green-up seemed to be the ticket. Probably the second most important factor was avoiding areas that just had too little loafing/sleeping cover in the vicinity of food.

Advice is worth what you paid for it, but personally if I did not find ANY sign, my identification of “perfect bear habitat” was likely not so perfect after all. The density of bears can vary quite a bit by mtn range/area. Some low-density areas maybe aren’t the best for beginners. I picked a spot with a known moderate to high density and that seemed to help the learning curve too.
 
Pucky Freak said:
if I did not find ANY sign, my identification of “perfect bear habitat” was likely not so perfect after all.
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I appreciate the insight. I should have clarified - all of my glassing spots and the roads I was walking were about 1500-2000 ft higher than the really good looking elevation band that I was glassing down into. So I technically don’t know if there was sign down there. Just wasn’t any sign up in my zone, which was still green but not as vibrant as the lower stuff.
 
KG92 said:
I would love your guys’ insight with this: I just spent 4 days glassing HARD in an area that is known to hold bears. Picked apart several drainages for hours. Put dozens of steep miles on my boots. All the hillsides I focused on looked about like this in terms of greenup and flowers, with plenty of timber patches for cover, and water in every bottom. I turned up elk and deer, but no bears. Didn’t even see any sign, on old logging roads, in creek bottoms, etc.

I am new to spring bear hunting, and it’s hard to try to figure out what went wrong. The area did experience a dip in temperature from 60s to 40s just before I arrived, and it was fairly windy, could it be as simple as that being the problem? All the elk I saw were in timber and mostly bedded, although the deer were all over.

I know April is early, but the landscape looked like it was a bit ahead.

I want to feel like a better hunter coming out of this trip, but I don’t exactly know what lesson I learned here, except for the fact that it’s possible to find perfect bear habitat without any bears. Any similar experiences, this year or otherwise?
View attachment 324614
Click to expand...
What elevation?

My guess is you are too early for the area. My spring bear hunting experience is the bears slowly work up in elevation as spring progresses eating the new grass and onions.

I hunted one of my honey holes a few weeks ago at 5k’. It’s a spot I’ll see 30-40 bears in a week in mid to late May. I saw Nada. A local game warden told me he was hearing kill reports at 2.5k to 3K feet at that time.

I’d recommend trying the spot again in two weeks. Plus, it sounds like you’re walking too much. Find a high spot to glass miles. Figure out how to reach bears once you’ve seen where they are feeding. My experience is mornings and the rest of the day are slow. Last hour of light is money.
 
brymoore said:
What elevation?

My guess is you are too early for the area. My spring bear hunting experience is the bears slowly work up in elevation as spring progresses eating the new grass and onions.

I hunted one of my honey holes a few weeks ago at 5k’. It’s a spot I’ll see 30-40 bears in a week in mid to late May. I saw Nada. A local game warden told me he was hearing kill reports at 2.5k to 3K feet at that time.

I’d recommend trying the spot again in two weeks. Plus, it sounds like you’re walking too much. Find a high spot to glass miles. Figure out how to reach bears once you’ve seen where they are feeding. My experience is mornings and the rest of the day are slow. Last hour of light is money.
Click to expand...
The “good looking” spots I was glassing into were between 3200’ and 3400’. I did lots of glassing - the spots were just sort of a haul to get into. I’d heard the afternoon/evening is the best, so that’s when I did most of my looking.

I figured that they will move up the hillsides to follow the “right” type of greenup as it becomes available and the stuff below burns off, and in this area, maybe they’ll be more visible and more accessible once that happens.
 
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