Thanks for that! I’m going to keep pressing on. We usually can only cover around 2-3 total miles before he’s pretty wrecked. May try some bike/trailer options. I may squeeze out some solo hunts, but he really wants to be with if we can connect with an animal. After we get through this smoke and illness we’ll be back out there. I also need to develop my own patience when glassing. My adult ADHD and doubt (nothing here) kicks in pretty quick after 15 mins or so.
If you find an area and have any specific questions, feel free to pm me and I’ll do my best to help, if I don’t know, I will tell you I don’t know.
Don’t get too discouraged not seeing scat, if they aren’t using the path you are, you won’t see scat, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t bear around.
One good form of sign to look for is mashed down blackberries, blackberry leaves are white on the bottom side, so if you are glassing around blackberry patches, you will see that white bottoms of the leaves where bear are in there mashing them down, that’s a great way to “scout” areas bear are using, especially when blackberries are the main game in town like this year…
Don’t sit and glass in a spot your wind is going towards where you expect to see a bear, they have the best noses in the woods and will not tolerate human scent, one could be on its way to come out and feed, smell you and sneak off, you’ll never know a bear was around.
I have watched them wind me from crazy long distances. I read their noses are 6-7x better than a blood hound, and I believe that through my experience… you can’t get away with bad wind at all… deer or elk you can get away with a lot more, even pressured and sketched out deer and elk… you can’t fool the nose of a bear, or hope marginal wind will work