How do you judge are Bear Hunting Outfitter/Guide?

[teddy12b]

I am in the process of getting a fall bear hunt set up for '08.  It'll be in Ontario again and I'm kicking around a lot of different ideas in my head about where to go.  We really liked the place we went to last year and the people were very nice, but we may try somewhere else just for the sake of trying something different. 

If you went to an outfitter how many bears do you expect to see?  Is the number of bears seen a fair way to judge an outfitter? 

What do you look for in a bear hunting guide?

[leadbutt]

Demand REFERENCES!!!! And then check them out,if you find a bad one keep checking it could just be sour grapes, or a began of a bad place to hunt.

[Graybeard]

I believe if I had hunted with an outfit and was pleased with their service and the results of the hunt I'd be most likely to go there again rather than trying another just for the sake of trying another. As far as how to judge them while on the hunt I offer the following.

How well are you treated by guide and other staff members?

How are their facilities and accomodations?

Are their bait sites well maintained and adequately separated?

Are they being visited regularly by bears?

I'm not sure you can truly get a feel for what a place is like on just one visit if that visit resulted in fewer bears seen than you'd have liked. You'd need to take into consideration all of the above and also the weather while there and possibly even things like how the natural food sources were that year. In a year with an over abundance of natural foods I'd think the bait piles will have a hard time competing and in years with a real scarcity of natural foods they will be hit much harder than they might be on your next visit.

For that reason I think you'd need either several visits on your own or the reports of a lot of hunters from several different time periods to help in judging the success of the baits in drawing in bears.

I know lots of folks want to use percentage of folks who killed a bear as a standard but that's really not fair to the operation and doesn't really help you all that much either. Some will see bears but decide not to shoot what they see and thus lower the kill stats. Some will see bears but miss when they shoot or wound and not recover them and that lowers stats but is not the fault of the guide or outfitter. Some folks will fidget and make noises, slap at bugs, cough and do all sorts of other things that keep them from seeing bears that might be spooked off before they are seen. Again this lowers the numbers but is not a fault of the guide or outfitter.

Knowing what to look for and making a wise decision strikes me as a tough call. I like to see the photos of what bears were taken and try to judge the size/age of them. What are being taken? Are they mostly young small bears or mostly old mature large bears or some decent mixture with older larger bears well represented? If so to me that's a major plus.

I've seen far too many hunters posed with bears that looked to me to be the deer hunting equivalent of a spike or other young buck. If I see a lot of that in the photos of an operation and darn few to no really mature big bears I'd not even consider going there as I'd assume they badly over hunt the area and that chances of getting a mature bear are small.

Just my thoughts on the matter.

[teddy12b]

Good thoughts.  I appreciate the insight.

[Perkins]

real bear outfitters do not offer bait hunt, but spot & stalk only!
fair chase is the name of the game!
there is only one place to go to have a great hunt with a good trophy; British Columbia.
good luck.

[efremtags]

real bear outfitters do not offer bait hunt, but spot & stalk only!
fair chase is the name of the game!

This is a ridiculous statement. Have you ever been to New Brunswick or Maine. You could not spot yourself in the woods let alone a bear.

 Baiting is no guarantee, bears smell you, the see you, they hear you. In a million acre wilderness area, there is no shame in baiting. Not everyone can afford to fly accross the continent for spot/stalk hunt in one of the only areas that rally allows this type of hunting because both population density and terrain allow it.

I use references and photos to base my feel of an oufitters potentials. A few phone calls to the owner doesn't hurt. Ask how many baits they have and how many hunters in a season. They should have appx 1.5-2 baits per hunter, this guarantees activity somewhere and fresh stand rotation. Also ask what types of stands they have. Some outfitters provid great stands, soem are no more than a bucket behind some bushes.

Ask what the bear sighting ratio was and what the avrage bear size is as well. If you are seeing lots of bears that are average sized or better, that is a good sign. Kill ratios have too much hunter involvement to blaim the outfitter. I have been in camps where hunter wound/miss ratio was 50%, not the guides fault people can't shoot.

Also I find outfitters that specialize in archery as well as general firearms are better as the attention to detail for archery stand placement is more critical and this usually means you will have better bait setup for gun as well.

Current photos are key too. If they have not updated there photos from 1970, there may be a reason.

[teddy12b]

real bear outfitters do not offer bait hunt, but spot & stalk only!
fair chase is the name of the game!

This is a ridiculous statement. Have you ever been to New Brunswick or Maine. You could not spot yourself in the woods let alone a bear.

 Baiting is no guarantee, bears smell you, the see you, they hear you. In a million acre wilderness area, there is no shame in baiting. Not everyone can afford to fly accross the continent for spot/stalk hunt in one of the only areas that rally allows this type of hunting because both population density and terrain allow it.

efremtags,
   Takes the words right out of my mouth.  People that bash baited bear hunts have never hunted the same places I have.  I'd love to hunt them any way I could, but to me baited makes a lot of sense.  Just because a bear comes into the bait doesn't mean it's going to get shot.  You can always let them walk or shoot them with your camera if it's not what you're after. 

[billy_56081]

Eframtags you hit the nail right on the head. In the norther woods of Minnesota spot and stalk would be a complete waste of time. And as for trophy bears, how many Boone and Crockett bears are shot in BC every year?

[efremtags]

I am not sure where the largest concentration of Trophy bears lie. I know that the north east receives a lot of hunting pressure because there are affordable outfitters within driving distance of the states, so many hunters from the tristate area visit.

I believe the potential for a 400lb bear always exists, but a 150-200lb would be the norm. It's tough also as many people such as myself only hunt infrequently so judging size is very difficult, especially in the spring when the hair is so long, its like a skinny person wearing a fur coat.

As far as baiting in general, I think it gets a bad rap. I have a friend who live in TX who works on and near many of the more famous ranches in the areas where the famous Muy Grande grow. We both grew up in the north east so we were biased against these canned hunts.

After a few years there and geting permission to shoot some management does and bucks for the ranchers, his opinions have changed. Many of these ranches span 10,000 acres or more, and the goal is to raise trophy animals. Trophy animals take a lot of nutrition and cover to grow, and supplemental feeding between annual crops insures this. Smaller young deer run to the feeders, bu the big boys definately do not. Some only feed at night.

I'm kind of against fencing as a wildlife management program, but If I spend 50k a year to feed and raise a herd of trophy animals for 10 years, I guess I would not want them walking off either. Off the topic, sorry.

[Perkins]

billy, western Canada produces enough big bears.
however, not every hunter needs a record bear to make up for his personal shortcomings.
you get my drift?

[billy_56081]

  Perkins, I am just saying where you hunt spot and stalk may be possible just as it is in the mountians of Colorado. In noerthern Minnesota the forest are so this that this would be a nearly imposible task. And as for the trophy black bears, Canada has ver very few that measure up to the Boone and Crocket record book. Pennsylvaina is near the top followed by Maine, wisconsin and Minnesota. I would really enjoy a spot and stalk bear hunt, but it is not possible where I hunt. I guess we could outlaw bait hunting here in Minnesota and let the DNR control the bear population as it explodes from so few being taken by hunting. I am not knocking one way of hunting or the other. I am not even knocking the bears in Canada, the body size there is enormous, but the heads rarley get large enough for boone and crocket. I am not the one attacking anyone elses hunting method you are! Devisive hunters like you are just as bad as anti hunters in my book! We are all in this sport together and to each thier own. Do you think everyone needs to hunt like you?  We used to have some guys that speared bears here in MN, they never said well using a gun or bow makes you unsportsmanlike, they were to each thier own people. As for personal shortcomings I think your attitude and worried state about how others choose to hunt lets us all know alot about you.

[Perkins]

billy,
I am not raising the the bait.

[Cabin4]

real bear outfitters do not offer bait hunt, but spot & stalk only!
fair chase is the name of the game!
there is only one place to go to have a great hunt with a good trophy; British Columbia.
good luck.

Real experienced hunters know that bear over bait is the only way to hunt bear in some areas. Real experienced hunters know that baiting for bears is one of the critical components of why areas that allow baiting have experienced huge gains in bear size & population.

BC does have overall the best black bear hunting in North America. However, BC is a huge area and there are areas of BC that are not good for bear. So the real way to choose the location for hunting bear cannot be painted with a "Broad Brush". Its a specific analysis of a region that the hunter should look into. As an example, there are areas of northern Idaho that can compete with areas of BC for bear. There are areas of Alaska that can provide a great experience as well. Surprisingly there are areas of Pennsylvania that can produce amazing results. In Pennsylvania you will find some of the biggest bear in north America. 400, 500 , 600 lbs is normal. The state record if I'm not mistaken is over 700lb field dressed. They have a radio colar on a bear in PA that goes well over 1,000....