Another new to Bear question

[Pizzlegreet]

I’m in WA. I’ve been reading about summer and fall best season. The information that would help is related to berries and nuts and things and when they mature. My plan is keep learning for 2026 and in the meantime look for bear sign and berries and food sources.

I know what ripens and when in puget sound but is it on the same calendar at higher elevations? Can I just run up into a rural valley and start blowing my bear call if I see recent sign?

 

[Dmoua]

Berries will ripen at lower elevations and move up in elevation as the season goes on. Bears will follow their food source so scout before the season and see what the berries are like so you have a general idea what elevation to focus on the first few days of season.

Calling bears takes a ton of patience. Even with fresh sign, if there is an abundance of food source the odds of you convincing one to come into a distress call is very slim. You would be lucky to call in one bear for every 10 setups. In my opinion, the best time/years to call are when it’s a bad berry year or the berries have come and gone. This year the berries came early and there was a shit ton of it. With an abundance of food “huckleberries” the bears hardly have to move and with the heat we had this season they’ll stay hunkered in their dark/thick holes. If you are not seeing fresh sign, keep covering ground until you find it. Once you do, sit and wait all day if needed. Eventually you’ll hear or see one. This is my bear this season. Shot at 30-40 yards an hour before last light. Persistence is the name of the game.

 

[Pizzlegreet]

I’m happy that you got your bear. It looks great. What part of the country are you in?

I know where I saw bears in the woods when I was a kid camping growing up and I’m going to head back to those kinds of areas and start looking for sign. My next idea is to just head up logging roads and wander around in areas with water supply and berries.

 

[StuckoYota99]

Hey dude I'm in Washington too. Bears are super fun to hunt!
Check out Pnwild podcast they have some great bear episodes.
Generally the berry crop will come in once the snow melts. About 60 days after that the berries ripen.
Southern faces will get more sunlight and have a ripe berries sooner than northern faces.
However if there is a drought or extreme heat the berries will get scorched and wilt.
Logging roads that have been decommissioned or gated keep out a lot of recreational pressure.
Freshly logged areas can sometimes hold bears that are ripping through stumps and rolling rocks.
However generally an area will take 2-3 years after logging to start producing a food source.

Like dmoau says be persistent. I got my first bear after 8 years of eating tags.

 

[Pizzlegreet]

I may eat bear tag this year. I will listen to that poscast

 

[StuckoYota99]

There is a lot to learn, if you eat a tag consider it a tuition payment for knowledge. If you have more questions feel free to ask them.

 

[Pizzlegreet]

It’s hard to juggle with work and a family. I am going to book vacation next year and hope the dedicated time lead to some success.

 

[cking96000]

Berries will ripen at lower elevations and move up in elevation as the season goes on. Bears will follow their food source so scout before the season and see what the berries are like so you have a general idea what elevation to focus on the first few days of season.

Calling bears takes a ton of patience. Even with fresh sign, if there is an abundance of food source the odds of you convincing one to come into a distress call is very slim. You would be lucky to call in one bear for every 10 setups. In my opinion, the best time/years to call are when it’s a bad berry year or the berries have come and gone. This year the berries came early and there was a shit ton of it. With an abundance of food “huckleberries” the bears hardly have to move and with the heat we had this season they’ll stay hunkered in their dark/thick holes. If you are not seeing fresh sign, keep covering ground until you find it. Once you do, sit and wait all day if needed. Eventually you’ll hear or see one. This is my bear this season. Shot at 30-40 yards an hour before last light. Persistence is the name of the game.

Nice bear! As the berries work their way up the elevation, once they’ve reached the peak in that area and have dried up what would you do next to locate them?

 

[Jtb.kfd]

Berries will ripen at lower elevations and move up in elevation as the season goes on. Bears will follow their food source so scout before the season and see what the berries are like so you have a general idea what elevation to focus on the first few days of season.

Calling bears takes a ton of patience. Even with fresh sign, if there is an abundance of food source the odds of you convincing one to come into a distress call is very slim. You would be lucky to call in one bear for every 10 setups. In my opinion, the best time/years to call are when it’s a bad berry year or the berries have come and gone. This year the berries came early and there was a shit ton of it. With an abundance of food “huckleberries” the bears hardly have to move and with the heat we had this season they’ll stay hunkered in their dark/thick holes. If you are not seeing fresh sign, keep covering ground until you find it. Once you do, sit and wait all day if needed. Eventually you’ll hear or see one. This is my bear this season. Shot at 30-40 yards an hour before last light. Persistence is the name of the game.

This post sums up my experience as well. When the huckleberries are done in WA as they are getting close now at all elevations bears move into a fall state where they travel long distances looking for food. They spend a lot of time in tall dark timber eating mushrooms and digging roots/stumps. Not sure what the roots are that they eat but they smell like onions. I have caught a lot of bears really focused on digging them up from Sept to mid October. Once a heavy frost hits they seem to stop eating the mushrooms and transition to ripping apart stumps for grubs and digging up ground squirrels in rock slides. I have also seen them gorging on elderberries once October rolls around. After the berries go, the only places we get them consistently are deep, dark and steep drainages. When we find one that holds a bear or bears we can usually hunt it with consistent success for years. Below are two WA bears from the past two weeks. One I got from a berry patch and one I got my son in law on that came from tall dark timber.

 

[BryanL]

This post sums up my experience as well. When the huckleberries are done in WA as they are getting close now at all elevations bears move into a fall state where they travel long distances looking for food. They spend a lot of time in tall dark timber eating mushrooms and digging roots/stumps. Not sure what the roots are that they eat but they smell like onions. I have caught a lot of bears really focused on digging them up from Sept to mid October. Once a heavy frost hits they seem to stop eating the mushrooms and transition to ripping apart stumps for grubs and digging up ground squirrels in rock slides. I have also seen them gorging on elderberries once October rolls around. After the berries go, the only places we get them consistently are deep, dark and steep drainages. When we find one that holds a bear or bears we can usually hunt it with consistent success for years. Below are two WA bears from the past two weeks. One I got from a berry patch and one I got my son in law on that came from tall dark timber.

How do you guys end up hunting big timber? Still hunting? Walking trails and listening for bears munching on stuff? In coast range of Oregon and still trying to pin one down.

 

[Jtb.kfd]

How do you guys end up hunting big timber? Still hunting? Walking trails and listening for bears munching on stuff? In coast range of Oregon and still trying to pin one down.

We still hunt through it scanning with bino’s constantly. We only go in on still wind days as well. With a breeze the wind seems to swirl too much in the timber and they wind you easily. We also choose our timber patches. We look for timber that is old with very little underbrush. The timber should also create a split in the landscape meaning there are different bear holding terrain features on the sides. For example, the sides should have at least one steep drainage with a flowing creek all season. This drainage should be in reprod or at least be very brushy. Bears are super shy and do not like to be seen at all. The other side can be reprod or another deep drainage. This is where we catch them with some consistency. I used to hunt a lot on the coastal side of WA and that terrain was much harder but we could locate similar timber patches among the reprod. Walking through the patches of timber in your area looking for fresh sign is about all I could recommend. By fresh sign I mean scat, freshly torn apart stumps and dig holes with exposed roots. They are easy to recognize when you see them, no other animal could make the holes you will find. You will find bear hair on the stumps and dig holes also. Finding them in dark timber is not easy, we have done it long enough that we have timber patches I just know they will be in during the fall transition. Its worth your time to start checking them out though. Once you find one they use during food source transitions they are not hard to hunt. Its easy to walk quiet and they seem to feel very safe in these patches. They get very focused on digging and make a lot of noise. As I said earlier though, you have to have calm or very consistent wind. Their eyesight isn’t amazing, but its not bad either. But their noses are incredible and they will bust you easily in swirling winds.

 

[Jtb.kfd]

Here are a few examples of tall timber patches that we look for and hunt. Bears inhabit large patches too, but they are not as concentrated as in smaller patches breaking up terrain. The second picture has patches in the bottom that are exactly what we look for.

 

[BryanL]

Here are a few examples of tall timber patches that we look for and hunt. Bears inhabit large patches too, but they are not as concentrated as in smaller patches breaking up terrain. The second picture has patches in the bottom that are exactly what we look for.

Thanks for all that! We’ve definitely found some spots where they have been. The coast side has so much underbrush though it’s crazy. My thought is trying to cow call as we walk through the brush to mask our sound stepping on brush/ferns/brambles. We have access to timber land though so some of those patches exist. Just need to find some not near a road. We came up on a pile of scat on a logging road covered in black berries so fresh it was still warm.

 

[Jtb.kfd]

Thanks for all that! We’ve definitely found some spots where they have been. The coast side has so much underbrush though it’s crazy. My thought is trying to cow call as we walk through the brush to mask our sound stepping on brush/ferns/brambles. We have access to timber land though so some of those patches exist. Just need to find some not near a road. We came up on a pile of scat on a logging road covered in black berries so fresh it was still warm.

The area you hunt will be tough to consistently get them. When I hunted coastal WA I put out a ton of game cameras and that helped me with confidence knowing where and when bears used the areas, but it was much harder than in the mountains. We got them, but I can’t say we had areas where I was very confident we would get one. It was more opportunistic. Good luck!