Trail Camera Surprise
 

Black bears are fairly rare in Eastern Ohio even though we are I n the Appalachian plateau. This is probably a young male that showed up on my trail camera Saturday morning. I hope he hangs around for a while. This is only the second one caught by my cameras in the past 25+ years.

No worries Harold, they don’t eat grouse.





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Cool ! I’ve killed two blackies in my life , I doubt I live long enough to wanna shoot the third . When I cooked the darn things I could make them taste pretty good but I could never get the meat in a chewable condition , it was usually like what I assume chewing rubber bands would be like .

That’s cool, I’m in southwest Ohio- Next there’ll be lions and tigers!

They have become an every day occurrence here. Some will come right to the house, but none have become a problem. In fact, they are smarter than most of my neighbors. One has been a regular for 9 years. I used to put on a .44 when I was working on my firewood, a good couple thousand feet from the house, but never once thought to use it, so I don't bother anymore. I know of at least one winter den on the place.

We are over run with them in NH, especially Central and White Mt region, where I live. Bait season and stalking season opens tomorrow, Sept 1, then hounding in a few weeks. You can kill two with over the counter tags, and Fish and Game says we still do not kill enough. I have six clients coming in for bait hunting next week. Putting baits out tomorrow. Had a little guy check out our barrels waiting to be put out.

Is there any reasonable way to hunt them without baiting them? Just wondering.

Wonder if anyone hunts them with dogs anymore.

Thanks, Stan

Stan, yes sort of. Hounding them is usually pretty successful depending on the dogs, but stalking them is a tough proposition. You need to find a reliable food source to have any real chance of success. Acorns, beech nuts, berries or the best is standing sweet corn. They can really make a mess of a corn field and most farmers welcome bear hunters to hunt their fields. Most are killed over bait, next would be hounding and then stalking.

I consider them a nuisance animal that is about like a giant racoon. A couple years ago I got pictures of a 500+ pound giant. I wish I had seen it in person as long as I was way up a tree with a big gun.:shock:

giant bear
 

Here's the bear from a couple years ago.
Attachment 143730

According to Steve Hodges, a registered NH Guide, This guy is a 500+ pounder. He's a big lug for sure, and loves peanuts. It doesn't seem to matter where I hang that feeder, He finds it and unhooks it. He will sit there for an hour and eat them, one at a time.

He has not missed many meals that's for sure:rotf: He has all the marks of a huge bear. Tiny ears, a melon of a head, no neck and short legs. And not much scares him!!

My buddy that used to live right outside of Newfoundland PA sent me a video he took about 15 years ago of a blackie looking at his neighbors bird feeders . This guy would put broadcast timed feeders up in the big hemlocks hung with dog chains . Anyway Mr. Blackie sat under the feeder then you could see him look the tree limb back to the trunk and the trunk down to the ground . He then stood up walked over to the trunk climbed up went out on the limb pulled the broadcast feeder up and shook it until most of the seed was on the ground dropped the feeder climbed back down and ate the sunflower seeds . Wish I still had the video I’d post it .

Lot of bear hunting clubs in the valley of VA as well as the upper Piedmont region of VA . Lot of times those guys would run a bear and once tree’d they’d pull the dogs off and not kill the bear . To a lot of them the chase was all of it for them .

Connecticut, largely populated by entitled prigs, has yet to enact a bear hunting season. Voters continue to turn down a solution to a problem they have been complaining about. They still feel bears can be taught to 'respect' human property, and forage in a nonexistent habitat.
As for me, a public hunting season is necessary. I personally have no interest in shooting a bear. I have yet to eat bear meat that was edible and I have no room for trophys. I have more than enough land to share, and as long as they don't mess with me, I won't mess with them.

Stalking bears........my only bear hunt in my early teens was tracking a bear in 8" of fresh snow with a friend of my father who had bear fever! We were three hours into it, and stopped about noon to eat an orange. The friend "Moe" smoked, and was getting tuckered, standing there at the top of a hill, we heard the shot across the valley. When we got there, the bear was tagged!
As to eating bear, tried it twice leaving with no reason to go find one of my own!!!