Bear hunting/behavior advice

[DLOsoft]

I was on a rifle elk hunt this October in SW New Mexico and saw several different bears during my hunt along with a lot of bear sign. I saw the same 2 large bears on 3 different days (separately twice each and together once) and also found bear scat all over the general area. I didn't have a bear tag in my pocket but I looked it up after and bears are over the counter in the area. I'm thinking about going back to the same area next fall in late September/early October to try and kill a bear, but have never actually hunted bears before and was hoping for some insight on bear behavior and patterns.

Is it likely that those same bears will still be in the same general area a year later? They were both really big bears and I have a feeling that there were more in the area as well given the amount of scat I was seeing everywhere. I know that the bears won't get shot between now and then because the season closed while I was there and the area does not have a spring bear season.

 

[JohnnyB]

Your best bet is to figure out what those bears were eating. Bears travel quite a bit for food sources, but there home turf can overlap with other bears if the food sources are sufficient.

Fall can be a little bit harder than spring. In spring, follow the green up with the snow melt. In fall, there are many food sources and they are dependent on how much water is around, weather, crop health, etc.

I have found bears to frequent the same general area, I have also noticed sows with cubs tend to be in the same areas. There is some interesting info on Yosemite Bear Tracker regarding bear patterns in the fall. They tend to find a den and gradually stay closer to it until calories expended exceed calories consumed.