Nobody talking Spring Bear?

AIROHUNTER · May 20, 2024

No thread on Spring Bears this year? Who's getting after it, let's see em.

Blindnonresident · May 20, 2024

Cold snowy morning at my place.

Soj51hopeful · May 20, 2024

I’ve been out a handful of times looking at lots of grass and wildflowers, but no dang bears. Trying to get my 13 yo his first one. Between work and kids baseball I haven’t been able to spend enough time getting after it.

grizzly · May 20, 2024

We went four days and never saw a bear. It was the same spot we were seeing 4-10 bears a day a few years ago. The weather is right and the grass and flowers are perfect, the elk and deer are out, but no bears.

I talked to a lady that said they're issuing too many tags and all the bears have been pushed to private. She says she has 7 or 8 on her property and she only has 100 acres.

She didn't offer to let us hunt there though

. Maybe I should've asked

andrew12gauge · May 20, 2024

I spent one day in mid April bear hunting, didn’t see any bears despite the fact it was a perfect day for them to be out. Been too busy with work and kids soccer to make it back out.

llamapacker · May 20, 2024

Just back from a SE Alaska bear hunt. Unseasonably cold and very little bear movement. I did take a nice boar with a 19" skull. Only saw 3 bears in an area I usually expect to see over 50 in a week. Spring is very late in that part of Alaska. It seems with temperatures about 40 degrees and pouring rain all week the bears just decided to stay in their den. Kinda wish I had as well...
Bill

JPickett · May 20, 2024

I’ve had nothing but little ones hitting my bait. To the point where I’m probably done with that bait for the year. Just feeding bears I won’t shoot. Grabbing the rifle and heading out this weekend for some spot and stalk. But I e noticed same thing, not hearing if a bunch a bears hitting the dirt this spring for some reason

grizzly · May 20, 2024

If anybody knows a houndsmen in the Council area, I could really use a hand. My wife shot at a good bear tonight and we're not sure if she hit it, but it got dark on us. We could really use some dogs tomorrow if anybody is available

grizzly · May 22, 2024

grizzly said:
If anybody knows a houndsmen in the Council area, I could really use a hand. My wife shot at a good bear tonight and we're not sure if she hit it, but it got dark on us. We could really use some dogs tomorrow if anybody is available

Update, she got him

Soj51hopeful · May 22, 2024

Nice bear! Did you end up finding someone with dogs?

JPickett · May 22, 2024

Right on. Looks good. She draw that tag or you guys doing the 1 mile from private thing?

grizzly · May 22, 2024

JPickett said:
Right on. Looks good. She draw that tag or you guys doing the 1 mile from private thing?

It was the draw tag, but, man, have they ruined that hunt. I had the tag several years ago and it was great. Now, we hunted five days before we even saw a bear. I'll stick with the OTC units and areas with fewer roads. Between the dogs, the Unlimited hunt, the increased tags, etc... that tag should be OTC. There's no reason to even call that hunt Controlled anymore, IMO.

Soj51hopeful said:
Nice bear! Did you end up finding someone with dogs?

We couldn't find any hounds on short notice and a work day, so yesterday morning we went back to where she shot from and took pictures so we would be able to look for blood in the exact right spots that we knew the bear had run. Once we got to the place we knew the bear had been, we were carefully picking our way through the rocks looking for blood and looked up and the bear was feeding exactly where he had been the night before, tearing up an old stump.

One quick shot and she had him, so it turned out great!

JPickett · May 22, 2024

grizzly said:
It was the draw tag, but, man, have they ruined that hunt. I had the tag several years ago and it was great. Now, we hunted five days before we even saw a bear. I'll stick with the OTC units and areas with fewer roads. Between the dogs, the Unlimited hunt, the increased tags, etc... that tag should be OTC. There's no reason to even call that hunt Controlled anymore, IMO.

yeah, same with 31. i shot a bear in there OTC when they changed it. draws pretty well pointless now. good looking bear though. nice job

AIROHUNTER · May 31, 2024

Well the hunting was slow but we did see Bears everyday somedays 3 or 4. Tags got filled and shots were missed overall the weather cooperated and a good time was had.