By Douglas Boze

Breeding and food! Ok, now that I got your attention, let’s talk about why I titled this article that way. It is springtime and this is exactly what bears are thinking about, so you should be too. If you are one of the lucky hunters who chase bears during this amazing time of year, I salute you! While we in Washington are still battling to get our management spring bear hunt back, I know many others still get to enjoy this very special time to hunt bears and just be out in the woods. Getting out to stretch your legs and fill your lungs with fresh air is something we all can appreciate after a long winter. This hunt provides that opportunity.  

First off, during the early season of spring, bears will be coming out of their dens hungry. There are limited food resources this time of year so finding what the bear desires is key to success. Overall, throughout each state or province that has a spring bear hunt, one thing you can count on is green grass or other greening vegetation. This is what you want to initially look for, it’s almost uniform, geographically speaking. But how to find these delicious patches of chartreuse?  Think about where is getting the most sun. South facing slopes for one is a great place to start. But that is not the end all strategy.

For example, you may have a heavily treed south facing slope, with little ground penetration of the sun through the tree canopy. But, maybe on this hillside, there is an old, decommissioned logging road that is open to the afternoon sun and is growing quite nicely with lush green grass. This is a great spot to keep an eye on, an area that is greening up quickly, but has cover for safety. Logging roads are not the only place to pay special attention to.

Marshlands tend to have some good growth this time of year. The marshes are usually a little bit more open due to the lack of large tree growth (at least in my neck of the woods), and sometimes they are little more than a few inches deep in spots. So, grass grows easily on the edges, skunk cabbage will sprout through first with their yellow and white flowers and shortly after their broad, cabbage like leaves will spread. Bears tend to chew on these stinky plants, getting some good filler for their guts.

Even before you go bear hunting, you should go out for a hike and just check the local areas you like to hunt, where is getting good sunlight, where is the snow line at, where would be a good place to start? When I spring bear hunt, I usually start near the snow line (I like to check for tracks in the snow) then I slowly work my way down in elevation. I try to cover some good distance as I go, looking to cut tracks or more sign. If early on, I am not finding lots of sign (tracks, scat,) at various elevations, I do not panic. The later the spring season goes on, the better the bear activity gets. Although, I do like to try to bag a bear early in season, simply for the fact the hides are full and thick, with minimal chance of a rub mark. The longer you wait to fill your tag, the greater the chance the bears hide will be rubbed, sometimes almost down the skin. Now, the hide isn’t the only reason I hunt bears, but I certainly do love a nice bear pelt. Don’t you?

You must always consider food when hunting bear, spring or fall. It is their number one desire most of their lives, it is their focus. You therefore must make it yours. If you have large stands of douglas fir trees in your area, do not forget that bears will peel these trees for the cambium layer hidden just under the bark. But they do not peel all ages of these trees, only very specific age class and size. How I like to describe it for newer hunters is as such: make a ”C” shape with each hand and then put them together so you make a full circle. That size, along with if you were to spread those “C” shapes up to about 4 inches apart, are the size of tree you are looking for. This is usually about 5-15 year old trees give or take. And in general, this is for a full-grown human to make it.

Why do bears peel these trees? Well in the winter, the sugary sap of the trees retreats back to the roots. Then, once things start to warm up, the sap will begin to go back up into the tree trunk out of the roots. This sap resides in the cambium layer of the wood of the tree. So the bear will strip or peel back the bark and scrap that cambium layer off (think of the very first layer of wood that you would find under the bark), often times from the base of the tree to several feet up. This will result in the death of the tree over the next 3 years or so, resulting in heavy financial loss for timber companies. Some trees recover from this, but most die from what I have seen. Yellowing, orange and red trees of that age caliber spotted along a hillside are red flags and if you are spring bear hunting, you must pay special attention to.

 Some areas you will find only a chunk or two of bark taken out of a tree, this porridge is too cold (referring back to the three bears children’s book). This is an example of the bear testing out the tree to see if it is ready to peel and it was not. Keep searching the area. When you find a good stand of trees, you will know it. Sometimes the tree lines will be riddled with tree peels, one after another. The bark will be peeled in strips and you will see vertical teeth marks on the tree trunk, this porridge is just right! If it is a fresh peel, the bark will appear as such, kind of a pale beige or yellow and with little to no sap. The older the peel the more fading to a stained blackish color the wood will look, along with vertical white tree sap trails along the wound.

Once I find a spot where a bear is feeding, either proven by the scat, tree peels or both, I slow way down and take my time as I work the area. I will most often hear a bear long before I see it, hence why I slow my pace. It is important to use all the various hunting tools in your arsenal when spot and stalking bears this time of year. Your ears can play a very pivotal role in this. Although, my ears leave something to be desired when it comes to actually being able to hear (I have poor hearing overall thanks to rupturing each ear drum five times a piece, an experience I do not recommend).

As spring moves along, it should be noted that yes the bear activity increases, but so does the food sources. So, the strategy of finding early food sources and focusing on them to help secure a bear becomes less successful. Soon, most of the woods will have growth of all sorts of plants and flowers, even some berries, that the bears can graze on at their leisure. This is when you can focus a bit on predator calling using a fawn or calf distress. You might say to yourself, that the calves or fawns haven’t dropped yet. I would remind you, that does not matter. Bears do not have a calendar which shows them when this happens. The whole point of predator calling is to get the bears predator instinct aroused so they come in for a shot, and this is a great time to do it. So, I suggest you always carry at least a hand call for predator calling in your pack (or around your neck preferably in case you need to act quick). I never leave for a bear hunt without one.

Now, as we get into late May and June, we start to see some serious bear action. This being their rut period. So, just like with deer and elk, sows will go into estrous for a short time. I want you to imagine if humans did this. What if the only time humans could mate was a week or two in the whole year. It would be pandemonium with lots of competition. What would your focus be? I know the answer to this, and it is no different for bears. The boars will be cruising large distances looking for a lady who is ready to mate. This means they will be active much of the day, wandering. If you can see (and glass) clear cuts or old logging roads, open hillsides, this is a great way to spot them. If you see a sow, be sure to keep an eye on her. If you lose sight of the bear, watch that trail for a while. You could easily find a boar following that scent trail, trying to catch up to her.

During this time of year, if you see a sow with cubs, you don’t need to focus so much on her. She has cubs and won’t be going into estrous most likely. But that doesn’t mean to completely pass her up, still watch to see if a boar might come because it is not uncommon for a boar to want to kill and eat the cubs, which would bring her into estrous. During a later spring hunt, I will usually go from wandering looking for good food sources, plots, to watching for sows in heat, traveling trails and roads. I tend to glass pathways, saddles and the sort, looking to spot two lovers chasing each other.

Keep in mind that if a good hide is important to you, you want to give time to judge the bear on all sides. Give it a little bit to see if one side is rubbed, maybe it has a bald spot on its hip. They tend to start to rub with the feet and legs, work to the face and then the sides. I would also of course encourage you to have patience to make sure you are not taking a sow with cubs. The yearling cubs will be very small this time of year and will often lag behind. Once a bullet or arrow leaves, it cannot be called back. The bears deserve your patience, so learn to use it.

You will notice more and more attacks on not just bear hunting but hunting and trapping in general. I would encourage each of you to showcase what you do with the bear once they are down. Talk about the pack out, what you do with the hide, if you use the claws for a necklace maybe and more importantly, what you do with the meat and fat. The table fare bestowed upon a successful bear hunter is second to none. It is a fantastic meat which should not only be enjoyed by your family but shared with friends and coworkers. Be sure to take the time this year to defend your hunting way of life. Not only explain the challenges we face legally and legislatively to other hunters, but especially to those who are on the fence about hunting. Do not just voice our plight to the echo chamber that is our local hunting community. Be bold in your assertion and love of the hunt to educate and hopefully, gain as an ally to hunting, those who might not otherwise be exposed to it.

Happy hunting my friends.