I got a nice chocolate boar with my bow yesterday. He’s measuring 20” now so after he dries he will probably miss Boone and crocket but will make P&Y easily. He was a really nice character bear, one ear torn right off and the other is shredded. Plenty of scars all over his face from many years of scrapping.

Nice, Can’t wait for some pics coil.

TBark

I’ll email you some because we know each other. I don’t post pictures on here.

Come on post some pics.

Still thinking about it... Tic Toc

https://i.imgur.com/zPTd6ml.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/4pJAX4F.jpg

:thinking-006:

One more year popcan

I’d have to disagree and say if you like him, take him. Seems that people think they are like deer and will show significant growth in a year, but I’ve had lots of bears that may fluctuate weight wise year over year, but essentially once they hit their potential there is almost no change if any to skull size and overall length. Bears are very much like us......doesn’t matter what you feed a 5’9” man who is 25......at the age of 50 he is still going to be 5’9” with a skull essentially the same size (skull might increase a bit on bears as the orbitals will continue to grow a while after the rest of the skull max’s out). If you look at states with mandatory registration and tooth aging, there is very little correlation between age and skull size after the first few years. There are 4 yr old booners and 15 year old bears with 18” skulls. And there are 500lb bears with 18” skulls, and 250lb bears with 20” skulls. Not every man will be 6.5ft tall with a head that you can’t fit a hat on, same goes for bears. If you like him, a year won’t do much for you.

Great advice.

Well said.

Yea great advice... that’s the best justification for shooting young, little bears I’ve ever read. I’m not saying it’s all wrong but bears start small and grow as they get older. There may be 4 year old booners but I’ve never seen one. I have however seen young bears grow up and they just keep getting bigger as they get older.

Popcan that’s a young bear. Give him another 4-5 years and he will probably be a nice bear. Today, he’s a well colored runt.

Shoot him when he looks more like this.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...10cfd1232d.jpg

I'm waiting for this one to grow up his mom is a nice colored it's amazing what comes in your yard when you're not around I think I was in the cabin this day LOLhttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...50b7b04a92.jpg

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Coaloil

You are right that bears keep growing, but their frames and heads only grow first the first 10 or so years of their lives. They may get heavier after that, but their maximum skeletal size is set by age 10 for males and about age 6 for females. The world record Black bear last I saw was 880 pounds and 7.5 years old when taken in Minnesota. Wild bears can easily live into the twenties.

The two bears in Popcan's picture are a pair of siblings, maybe two to two and a half years old. They will grow much bigger, both skeletal and body mass but if you are looking for an eating bear, the younger ones are FAR better eating than a 15 year old Boar.

2018 Bear
 

Sorry for the bad field pics but I have a question about this. This is the second bear I have taken from this stand, one last year and this one. Both bears were perfect double lung arrow shots full pass through with G5 broadheads. Neither bear leaked at all I searched for this one till dark and was able to recover it the next day. The hole is enough to put 3 fingers through. he traveled less than one hundred yard but in thick skag. Even when I recovered him there was no blood where he died. When I skinned him though it seems like it is all channeled in his fat. Has anyone else experience this? Bear last year was easy to find only went 30 yards but it also had no blood on the ground

I’ve shot all but one of my bears with arrows (I used a rifle last year cause I had the 2 and 4 year old with me). Now with that said I only started hunting bears in 2010 so I’ve only shot 9.
I found most fixed 1-1/8 broadheads don’t provide much blood. Sometimes they’re ok but often it’s sparse and even worse if the bear has a lot of fat.

The last two I used 2” mechanicals and and the blood was obscene. Bears are thin skinned, thin ribs and don’t go far if you hit them right so I feel ok using a big mechanical on them. I also shoot 520 grains and 80lbs at 30” dl. The one this year and the one two years ago didn’t make it 40 yards each and the blood trail was thick enough to see from the tree stand.

I’ve only got blood trails when I didn’t need them. If the bear runs out of sight I just follow until I find it. If it is more then 100 yards good luck.

I shot mine last night double lung not one drop of blood heard it go down about 100 yards away. Never looked that hard for blood but I couldn’t find any.

I'm not a bear hunter but wholly sht man! That thing is huge.

Yuuuuuge!
All photos are tough to get perspective on, but the melon on that beast is massive.

I know Boone and Crockett black bears are one of the hardest to get but that definitely looks like one

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WOW....massive blackie!!
I wonder if "Northern Alberta" means north of Hinton?
I seen a monster black eating berries in an old cut on a haul road off of Hwy 40 cpl summers ago that I thought was a grizz at first glance driving by,backed up for a double take and OMG WOW THATS A BLACK BEAR!! 😳😱
Had a huge pumpkin much like this guy^^ and was easily 600lbs if he was an ounce!!
And YES I know many people tend to grossly overestimate black bear weights but FWIW,I've guided bear hunters for several seasons and have put my hands on a few 400+ bears and this beast easily dwarfed any black bear I've ever seen in person.

Is it too late to still hunt over bait? I put a bait barrel out today but saw what I think was a guide collecting all his bait barrels ( 12 in total on a trailer). Hopefully not since the season is still on till the 15th!

My progress report.
-Baits set with the boy 28 Apr. (South and East of Fort McMurray)
-Keep it simple method. Running oats, oil and a splash of molasses.
-First bears on the baits 7, 11 of May - and steady activity since.

Running 3:
-Bait (1) I think I have 6 different customers, only patterning 2 bears
-Bait (2) 6 different customers, a couple of which are on a pattern
-Bait (3) 2 boars, a sow w/3 cubs
*Only new site is bait 3.

I think the extreme heat after the long weekend, no rain through May, coupled with a windy past week and a 1/2 has the bears not as active as they normally would be...
Last year I had 29 individual/different bears (i think) over 3 baits in the same general area...also used a different type of oil. Who knows.

I'll run em and sit a couple times through the weekend an that'll be her!

Left home about 7am Sat morn. Had trailer set at 5pm. Went to call my wife after set up and a decent chocolate bear steps out onto gravel road, no gun. He sauntered off. Call wife, go for a drive, up to lake do some fishing.
Sunday morning, driving down to go fishing spot a decent bear drinking at a pond. Good bear, tiny ears. Park truck, grab 30/30 sneak in for a shot. He starts to walk and eat, broad side 100ish yards. Pulled the trigger and he ran 20 yards and piled up. That was at 10:00am. Had to snatch block him back to truck from tree to tree. In back of ttuck by 11:30. Skinned and quartered by 2, fishing at 3. Easy peasy. Saw 8 bears Sunday. Started to rain terribly sunday night so I packed up and came home. It was a good hunt. Sorry for double pic. One was supposed to be the snatch block, lol. Pull 100 feet move 25ish, reset.
Tullfan

2018 bear pic and harvest
 

Congrats Meg! That’s a great bear! What a brute.

beautiful bears! This fellow showed up at our bait pile in May...