CA Late Season Bear Hunt

[N9Line]

I'm still very green when it comes to hunting, and it shows.

I'm completely self-taught (with the help of podcasts, youtube and y'all) and have had 0 help with anything really. I'm not from a family of hunters. My father raised me on fishing and camping in the Eastern Sierra's.
After the Marine Corps and starting a family of my own, I decided I wanted to try out hunting and being able to provide a cleaner/healthier lifestyle and incorporate self-procured proteins into my family's diet.

I know this is in the bear thread, but I'm trying to give a rundown on my experience.
I have strictly been in the D5 area.

Last year was my "official" first year of deer/bear hunting. The reason it's in quotations is because I took a few years trying to learn and scout out areas before taking the full dive. I picked a target area, did tons of scouting, hunted the first 3 weeks of season. I found a ton of deer sign and saw roughly 10-15 does/fawns a day. I saw 0 bears because I think I was in too much of a high traffic area with people/road hunters. I spotted a lonely spike on my last day and decided to call it quits after that since I had work the next day. On my way out, stumbled upon a forky and managed to harvest my first deer. I wanted to (and still do) learn, so for my first deer, I was going to be the one to completely butcher it. After staying up almost all night, i had the whole deer packaged and in the freezer.

Fast forward to this year.

I decided I wanted to get into archery. Learning to hunt while learning to shoot a bow was a lot. I bought a decent bow setup. Once I felt confident out to 50 yards on a 6" target, I decided to go jackrabbit hunting. I have 10 acres and it's backed up to something like 300 of BLM land, so this was just basically walking out my back door. I found my first jackrabbit, with bow in hand, and took my 36yd shot on it. Headshot. Once the googly-eyed rascal stopped flopping around, I grabbed it and handled it and tossed it in the freezer.
At this point, I 100% feel confident in my bow abilities and am ready to go for a deer/bear for bow season.

During pre-season scouting trips, I was seeing TONS of deer and bear. I was so confident that I was going to be able to tag out that I planned on passing on anything that was less than a 3x3 and only focusing on deer and planned on getting a bear after deer season.

Opening day. I get out at first light where I was watching some deer feeding in the late afternoon on the day prior, and sneek up on 2 beautiful deep forked horns. Pass. An hour later, I found another smaller forky. Pass. I found a bedding area where I found a solid bachelor group of 6 GOOD bucks. All 3x3 or better. I sneak up to 30yards, but there's a tree in the way of the vitals of a 4x4 that's snoozin. I decided that it's not worth spooking them and backed out when a spiked fork (i think) looked my way and we had a staredown for about 3 minutes before he put his head back down. Around noon, I was heading back to camp when I bumped a 4x4 because I was being complacent just walking back straight to camp with my head down.
After some lunch at camp, I went to my glassing spot and glassed up a big ole Boar about 1200yds out and watched him for probably 2 1/2 hours. Right as the sun was on the horizon, I spotted a sow with a big cub roughly 1500yds out and decided I was going to wait til tomorrow to do anything since nothing productive was going to happen in the next 30 mins with a bow.

The next day, I saw nothing but deer, but they were all out in the middle of the open all day. I got into a position where they went the day prior, and I think they winded me cause I never saw them after I got closer. No joy.

That's basically how all of my bow season went. Saw deer. All too far out to put a stalk on in a timely manner, or in the middle of the open where I didn't feel like I had any decent chance at success if I were to stalk in on them. On the last day of bow season, I saw at least 1,000,001 bears and 0 deer. I was determined that I was going to get a bear. I spotted a decent sized boar that was about 500yds out. Put the stalk on, got to about 70 yards out and he winded me. After that, the day just went downhill. Some UTV's came through off-trail with their music playing as loud as they could, with their friends on ATV's behind. Called it quits for archery bear and deer this season.

Day before rifle opener. I found a big group of bucks. Decided I was going to go for one and not go for bear until I got a deer. My buddy from work showed up (hasn't hunted since the 90's and only did it from the road) and we glassed up at least 5 bears on opening morning with no bucks in sight. Changed gears and decided to put the stalk on this beautiful cinnamon boar that was 1200yds away. We were at the bottom of a canyon and hiked up to get around on him before the thermals changed. We got to about 350yds from where we saw him last and got on a known vantage point and he was nowhere to be found. Awesome.


At this point I'm pretty defeated. I am learning so much every time I go out.. I find tracks, food sources, water, bedding areas and see them, just can't get to somewhere to tag one.

I decide to go up on a friday after work and go for a quick, down-and-dirty 1 night and 1 day trip. I glass up a sow with a cub and watch them for about an hour when another sow comes into the picture and the other sow runs it up a tree and the sow with cub bail. I put the stalk on the solo sow and climb up the mountain. I get to a point where I can see it from about 500 yards away and tell myself keep going, but don't push it. I get about 100yds from my vantage point which would put me within 200yds of the sow. I'm beat and needed to take a breather for some water and a protein bar since the mountain was nearly vertical. As I'm tossing my trash in my pack, *BANG* (snap rings out overhead as I immediately hit the deck). 3 seconds go by.. *BANG*. I wait about a minute since there was no snap this time, he must've shot the other direction. Less than 150 yds from me, some (I'll go lightly) "hunter" just shot the bear I was stalking. This is public land, so in no way am I saying he took my bear or anything like that, just that shooting in the direction of another hunter probably wasn't the best idea. Time to call it quits for the day as I switched moods. No point in being on the mountain angry.

Fast forward to November.
I have a bunch of game cams out and I found bears at low elevation. I can't find any sort of way to stalk since this is the most dense timber I've been in. Tons of acorns and manzanita for the bears to eat. These bears are FAT.

I finally bought a rabbit predator call and a fawn in distress but have no idea if my calls are decent or if the timing of the year is just off. .

I have the bears on camera. I know they're there. There's just no consistency. One is there one day at 4am, then a week later at 7pm. Nowhere between the times that I can shoot. I found the food. I found the water (It's literally everywhere). I've found rubs. I've found recent tracks.

I will post pictures later of the tracks and some of the deer if I remember, but I'm in the middle of a move and with my wife being pregnant, this isn't really giving me a bunch of time to get out and get hunting. My 6 year old son begged me to get him a bear this year and I told him I would do everything I could to make it happen, and by God, I'm not giving up yet.

What do I do? I'm not normally the person to ask for help, but I'm at a loss and have done as much research and I feel like reaching out for knowledge is the only thing I can do at this point.

 

[David Gough]

I'm no expert, but bears this time of year are in hyperphagia. As a CA bear biologist told me (paraphrasing) "bears eat all day, pass out for a nap from eating so much, and then wake up to do it again.

If there's no way to glass either setup an ambush at a well used food source or still hunt it.

 

[willfrye027]

You’re on the right track. You want to be where the acorns are right now. You may be able to find a more glassable hillside but if not, still hunt the fresh sign but you will have to be super anal about the wind. I doubt calling will work very well if there’s plenty of acorns still.

 

[mxgsfmdpx]

Hey my old stomping grounds! It sounds like you are in good country and you are finding your target animals. In California D3-5 that is 95% of the battle for sure! Good on you!

Keep at it and be patient. You are doing the right things.

 

[N9Line]

 

[N9Line]

 

[N9Line]

Although this is a "trail", it's not used by anyone but me..
And I'm only on it to set cams and pull them. I'm worried of putting my scent all over everything, so I don't like going out there too often.

There's still tons of acorns and there's video of one of the bears eating them, so I know it's still a solid target area, just timing them feels impossible right now.

Edit: Youtube link for some of the game cam footage.

 

[kickemall]

By now a lot of those bears have found solid feed sources and put on fat so they're not moving as much but sitting on the feed patches. Sounds like your best bet is to hunt the area where the feed is and you're getting them on camera. Full moons going away so mornings and afternoons may get better.

 

[N9Line]

So this past weekend, I went out on Saturday morning. I get out there around 4am and it was POURING. I sat at the trailhead in my truck waiting for a bit of light and hopefully for the rain to subside around 5am like it said it would. It didn't.
I fell asleep until about 6 when a deer crashing through the forest woke me up. It was only lightly sprinkling and shooting light was only 30 mins away. Whatever predator that was chasing the deer held up just beyond where I could see in the dense manzanita. I waited about 15 minutes and decided to get my butt in gear and start still hunting at first light.

I still hunted for several miles of trail and some dense forest. I tried calling with my jackrabbit caller and somehow managed to call in 2 does and a fawn. No bears. Some sign, but not a bear in sight or earshot. I found a rub that still had some hair on it, but it didn't look like it was recent cause there was no sign around it.
I went from the drainage that I was in to the ridgeline to the north.

Once I hit the ridgeline, I found TONS of FRESH bear scat. The volume of bear scat on that ridge really made me question how often they're up there. Although it had just rained, there was some scat that was wet and I could step on and it would crumble due to the manzanita and be dry in the middle. Then there was fresh scat that was wet all the way through. Maybe you can say I don't want it bad enough, cause I'm not the guy to stick my hand in a pile of fresh bear scat to see if it's warm still..
I found roughly 40 piles of fresh or relatively fresh scat and came to an area where I could see roughly 50 yards ahead and 15 to either side of me and a game trail that crossed the trail I was on. I decided I'd try calling again and to my surprise, within my first 15 seconds of calling, I hear a crashing through the forest. Branches snapping, brush dragging, and something coming FAST. I pulled my rifle off my shoulder and whatever it was stalled just before the treeline, AGAIN. I sat there for the next 30 minutes trying to call again. No noise. From where I was, wind was good and almost the complete opposite direction of where the noise was coming from. I sat for another hour and nothing came out.

So I've found more fresh sign and I know the bears are around. There's plenty of manzanita and tons of berries on them still. There's branches that have been broken off and have been picked clean of all the berries and I couldn't see anything else around here doing that other than bear. I took my game cams down last week and forgot them at home so I couldn't set them this past weekend.

We try again this weekend. Hopefully.

 

[PredatorSlayer]

So I feel like you quit on the hunt. You get to within 30 yards of several good bucks and then completely back out. You stop to eat a protein bar in the middle of a stalk and someone shoots your bear. My recommendation is to be more aggressive and committed to the task at hand.

 

[N9Line]

So I feel like you quit on the hunt. You get to within 30 yards of several good bucks and then completely back out. You stop to eat a protein bar in the middle of a stalk and someone shoots your bear. My recommendation is to be more aggressive and committed to the task at hand.

I've been told by more than 1 person that if I bump a deer out of a bed, they'll never bed there again. The risk of taking a step in thickest pine needles/twigs you've most likely ever seen and not making noise is not worth bumping all those deer. Knowing they're there and not being able to get a shot and realizing that if I waited much longer, the thermals would switch and they would be gone for good was enough for me to back out.

 

[TheYukiYama]

On private land with a small limited hunting area, I would agree on not wanting to over pressure animals, but on public land with lots of options, I'm going to have to agree with PredatorSlayer. That being said I haven't hunted bear before, but I have killed dozens of deer, a few elk and a couple mountain lion and I'm sure it is similar. I have ended up spooking some deer, but I have been more successful taking some risk than backing out and hoping to find them there again later. May not have happened this year, but stick with it and it will.

 

[PredatorSlayer]

I've been told by more than 1 person that if I bump a deer out of a bed, they'll never bed there again. The risk of taking a step in thickest pine needles/twigs you've most likely ever seen and not making noise is not worth bumping all those deer. Knowing they're there and not being able to get a shot and realizing that if I waited much longer, the thermals would switch and they would be gone for good was enough for me to back out.

I think you were wrong. 30 yards away you risk breaking a branch and spooking them backing out just as much as if you moved to get a better angle. Did you ever go back later and find them in that same bed? You asked for feedback, I gave it to you. I think you quit early

 

[N9Line]

I think you were wrong. 30 yards away you risk breaking a branch and spooking them backing out just as much as if you moved to get a better angle. Did you ever go back later and find them in that same bed? You asked for feedback, I gave it to you. I think you quit early

I checked back a few times after and there were still fresh beds, but I never found the deer in the beds.

Cool, I quit early. We live and we learn.

 

[Sierra Hunter]

You’re a lot closer than most other hunters, I’d find an area where I could watch the trails with as much visibility as possible or a glassing knob relatively close and sit. If the food is still there and you’re seeing that much sign it’s only a matter of time. Good luck

 

[Yoteassasin]

I’m of the mind that you are wayyyy overthinking this . If there are bears In the area you need to cover ground until you bump in to one . They are like pigs . Almost impossible to patern and always on the move. be patient stay out and enjoy your self . Look for mushroom or whatever to ocupy your mind. I took a friends kid out and we had one down in 2 hrs and other times I look for a week with no luck you. But I’ll tell you this . When you find one you won’t be expecting it . It will be like anyother time not seeing a bear except a bear will be right there

 

[Thegman]

I’m of the mind that you are wayyyy overthinking this . If there are bears In the area you need to cover ground until you bump in to one . They are like pigs . Almost impossible to patern and always on the move. be patient stay out and enjoy your self . Look for mushroom or whatever to ocupy your mind. I took a friends kid out and we had one down in 2 hrs and other times I look for a week with no luck you. But I’ll tell you this . When you find one you won’t be expecting it . It will be like anyother time not seeing a bear except a bear will be right there

I completely agree with this. Have to keep putting in the time in until you happen to find one, and you won't be able to predict where and when that will be, it will just happen.

Something interesting to me: In many, many years of spot and stalk black bear hunting, and killing a lot of them, I've never once killed a bear in the same spot where I've killed one before, regardless of how productive the spot is.

In 2005 I killed a 6' boar in one spot I'd never seen a bear but was an area full of blue berries. A week later I killed a very old 7' boar (biggest black bear I've ever killed) on another mountain side. I'd been watching this one in the fall for a couple of years, but was busy looking for moose at the time. He always disappeared by the time I finally got my moose. The third year I got my moose early enough and got him on the third time I went up after him. Being another spot full of food, I figured a smaller bear would move in and take that spot over. Even though I glass these same areas a lot, every year, and both spots have a lot of food, I've never once seen a bear in either of those spots again in 18 years.

This year I started thinking about all the bears I've taken where I hunt, and realized as I said, no two have ever been taken in the same spot. It's making me a little superstitious about bears...I might be running out of spots I can find a bear.

 

[180ls1]

You're doing perfectly. Way better than most this new at it.

Just keep at it and embrace you'll always make mistakes and "could have done better." Just keep getting out there as much as possible and take advantage of every opportunity possible.

 

[N9Line]

With a baby due any day now, the season has come to a close for me.

I really do appreciate the insight and help on learning. After 6 months of game camera footage, I can't make any sort of consistency of their pattern and it makes me feel much better hearing that others are in the same boat.

Next year, we're getting a bear.

 

[Solowhunter]

I'm late getting to this post but that bear will still be around come the 2024 season. I've lived, hiked and deer hunted D5 for all of my life, I can tell by the oak leaves and the 2-track trail your lower in elevation. Thats a big, healthy black bear, been eating plenty of acorns, a fawn or two and possibly a residential trash can here and there?

At that elevation from my experience, you're not the only guy that knows about the bear, quite possibly the bear has had interaction with other hunters and predator calling (bear might be wise to calls). I quit hunting the BLM and National Forest at lower elevations due to the amount of pressure, I hunt and scout wilderness only nowadays. What I know is that I set up to 10 trail cameras come June/July and spend weeks in the field glassing/ scouting at elevations up to 9,500' within D5 and D6. 2023 season I still-hunted onto 2 different bears within 50 yds, glassed half a dozen and my cameras were loaded with black bears. Seems like you've spent a considerable amount of time in that one area on the one bear (from the video it's a sow with cub?). There's a ton of bears in the zone your hunting, I'd move on to greener pastures.

You can glass them all day long, find a vantage point if possible and glass the thick cover. No doubt you'll find bears at the highest elevations down to the foothills (I've seen them down to +-600'). This last year I deer hunted an area (+-9'000') that was lush and thick with willows (plenty of water in the bottom), there were a couple of cow carcasses that were left behind from the previous year and thawed out from being buried in the snow, the basin was loaded with black bears.

Keep at it, you'll get'm!