Black Bear Hunting Series
Re-Published with permission from
Virginia Chapter of American Bear Foundation
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https://www.facebook.com/VABearFoundation
https://www.americanbearfoundation.org/
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The Missouri Black Bear is a hunting/conservation group designed to build a real resource for the serious hunters of Missouri. The Missouri Black Bear is the icon species for conservation.
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This may not all apply to Missouri Black Bear hunting, so use your common sense for each series.
Black Bear Hunting Series
Re-Published with permission from
Virginia Chapter of American Bear Foundation
Follow them on facebook
https://www.facebook.com/VABearFoundation
https://www.americanbearfoundation.org/
These are a series originally done by Unbranded Outdoors and shared by Old Dominion Black Bears. It lays the basics for what the black bear is. The other parts of this series and the ones to follow are designed to help make you a better bear hunter by knowing the incredible animal we chase.
Part 4 of Series - Scouting Continued - Finding bear sign is essential to good scouting - this installment of the scouting serieswill help you look for, find, and see bear sign in new ways.
Knowing the food and water sources to key in on for bear is vital, but so too is knowing where to look for bear travel corridors, how to distinguish bear trails from other game trails, and what sign (scat, tracks, and trees/poles) can tell you. Deciphering these clues can help you determine whether and when bear are in your area, what they are doing, where they are going, and even help you determine the size of bears that are in your area without using cameras and make the use of cameras far more effective.
Bear trails are generally going to be found in areas where travel makes sense; along creek bottoms, at stream crossings (though bear can and will cross streams in far deeper places than will deer normally), between bedding cover and food and water sources, down the crests and military crests of hills and ridges, and along edges between cover types. Often, the most effective way to start identifying and following a bear trail to develop their travel networks is to identify a concentrated food or water source, such as a corn field, an orchard, or isolated water hole.
This can also be done from identifying a marking post or rub tree (discussed further down). In a general feeding and foraging area, such as a hickory flat, bear will not leave defined trails so learning to read natural terrain and determine the most likely routes in and out are going to be important to narrow down where bear are likely coming from to get there and where they are going to when they leave. Don’t overlook old logging roads, either. Bear will definitely use them as a travel route – if it makes sense to get between two areas of interest for them – and will cross them leaving tracks. The same goes for powerline rights-of-way, and while tracks won’t be as easy to find there, check the poles for other sign (discussed further on). And, any time you have an area that has barbed wire fencing; whether maintained or remnants, check that for hair. Bear will cross fences by going under the top strands and between others. That almost always results in hair getting caught in the barbs. This sign can help you narrow down where a bear trail crosses a fence.
A bear trail does not look like a deer trail, at least not after the first glance. The reason should be obvious: deer hooves are small, hard, and pointy; bear paws are large and padded. Where a deer trail with often be rutted or cut out, especially after periods of rain or snow melt, a bear trail is going to be matted and pressed flat. Also, and this is especially true when you get very close to specific and isolated food, water, or marking areas, a bear trail will become so well defined from paws impacting the same place over and over again, bears walking in the exact same foot prints themselves or in the prints of other bears, that it will look like foot prints and not a path at all. If you find a trail like this, pay very close attention to where it leads. It will often be an isolated water hole or an isolated and high-quality food source (like an abandoned fruit tree in what is now woods but was once a farmstead).
One of the very first, and best, clues you will find on a bear trail or in a bear feeding area that positively identifies it as such is scat. Yes, bears do poop in the woods (and fields, and wherever else they go), and that poop tells a story of size (big bears leave big poop, small bears leave small poop) and of what they are eating. Yellow cakes and loaves mean corn; find the corn field, and you will find the bears. Acorn feeding results in a darkish scat not unlike a cow pie; indistinct in shape and substance; the same often the case for beech nut feeding. Hickory nuts will be about the same, but small bits of shell are often still mixed in. Insect foraging might be a bit more defined in shape, but include bits of insect shells, wings, and undigested body parts. Berries and fruit will often have a color as associated with the berry (poke berries, for example, will leave the scat a dark, definite purple, as will blackberries and raspberries) but will be full of seeds. Obviously, any feeding on another animal will have hair mixed in. Reading the scat left by a bear, especially fresh scat, can help you determine what they are – and what they are not – eating in your area.
Tracks, too, are a clear indicator of a bear passing through. Open dirt areas on trails, on rural dirt roads and logging roads, in wet areas of fields and pastures, creek banks, mud puddles, and around water holes are excellent places to find bear tracks. One you’ve found a track you can determine direction of travel (aid in finding those trails) and start determining size. Obviously bigger bears are going to have bigger tracks, but how big? We learned this trick from seasoned bear hunters in North Carolina, the Rockies, and Alaska to determine the approximate size of a bear from a track. Measure the width across the pad in the front paw track, and a clean and clear track is best. Take that number in inches and add 1 to it. That will give you a fairly accurate approximation of what that bear would “square”, which is a measurement of the hide size. Square of a bear hide is taken from a green hide, just skinned from the carcass and pulled out flat. It is a measurement of the length from tip of nose to tip of tail and the width of the hide measured from tip of the furthest claw on one from paw across the shoulders straight to the tip of the opposite claw on the other paw. Take the average of those (i.e., 6’6” from nose to tail and 6’0” from claw to claw is 6’3”), and that is what the bear will square. A 4-foot square bear is very small. A 5-foot bear is about average size (probably in the 200-pound fall weight range). A 6-foot bear is large, to very large. A 7-foot bear is huge, by any standards. For reference, the paw shown in the pictures with this segment left a track that was just over 4” wide, bear squared about 5’3”, and weighed about 225 pounds live weight. The bear in the tractor bucket had a paw that left tracks right at 6” wide, squared right at 7’, and there was better than 225 pounds of cut, cleaned, and processed meat that went into the freezer off of that bear. A dollar bill is 6.14” wide. The camouflage Croc is a size 14 (roughly 6” wide).
Bears will also mark their presence in an area on trees and poles. Powerline poles are a favorite for bears to use, as are the creosoted telephone poles and the like. When you find one that is being used, it leaves no doubt. Bears will often adjust their travel routes just to make sure they hit a marking pole, as they will have known about it from previous use and they will smell it from a great distance. Bears of all ages and sizes will rub on the pole, stand and scratch their backs against it (for scent marking purposes and likely to relieve itching), and scratch and bite it at the highest point they can reach. The more damaged the pole, the more use it has seen, and the higher the damage the bigger the bear. All of this can tell you that bears are in the area, and if you set a camera can tell you a lot about the bears that use that pole.
Bears will also rub against trees in the woods, and especially along bear trails. Many times, a bear “rub tree” is mistaken for a tree rubbed by deer. When deer rub trees, their antlers cut into and shred the bark and cambium. Bear rub against trees much like cattle do, and they rub the bark and cambium off smooth. Bear also leave hair in the bark, perhaps not a lot, but the presence of black hairs in a smooth-rubbed marking tree will leave little doubt. We have noticed that bear tend to prefer to rub against hemlock, though cedar and some pines will also be a favorite. Identifying rub trees can help define bear trails and plotting them on a map can help determine areas to focus effort (such as pinch points, funnels, and even narrow down areas to check for isolated food and water sources).
Using sign left behind by bears can help you determine what areas they are using, when, and the size of the bears as well. All of these clues can help you to determine where you want to hunt, and where to start looking to place your stands for success each fall.
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