Bear prints

[515Raven]

Any idea what size critter could have left these? Found a series of these in two separate locations on Virginia public land today. One was in some extremely thick stuff near the top of a ridge; the other just off a point on an Eastern slope.

 

[Hall17]

Def looks like bear to me

 

[Topdog]

With nothing next to it for a reference it’s always tough to judge the size of a track in a picture, that being said I’m pretty sure your looking at a 100-150 lb animal. I stare at bear tracks all season on snow, this year it was easier to find a bear than a mature buck it seemed like. My best bear dressed 332, his front pad was 6” wide, I have no idea what live weight was, it took 3 people, ATV, and most of the day to get him out whole.

 

[515Raven]

With nothing next to it for a reference it’s always tough to judge the size of a track in a picture, that being said I’m pretty sure your looking at a 100-150 lb animal. I stare at bear tracks all season on snow, this year it was easier to find a bear than a mature buck it seemed like. My best bear dressed 332, his front pad was 6” wide, I have no idea what live weight was, it took 3 people, ATV, and most of the day to get him out whole.

That’s awesome. So a little guy, maybe two years old? I was surprised how thick of vegetation this one was crawling through. Tracked it all the way through to an open oak flat before his tracks went off into private. 332 sounds huge. Got a pic?

 

[Topdog]

That’s awesome. So a little guy, maybe two years old? I was surprised how thick of vegetation this one was crawling through. Tracked it all the way through to an open oak flat before his tracks went off into private. 332 sounds huge. Got a pic?

Sounds about right. Let me look I mite have one, that was 20 years ago!

 

[515Raven]

View attachment 63318 View attachment 63319 That sucker is getting dusty! I have a weekend project, get the ladder out and get that thing down and blow him off with the air compressor.

Man that’s awesome. What’s the story behind it?

 

[Topdog]

@phatkaw has a real nice bear mount.

 

[515Raven]

We hunt and live in a small rural town on the edge of some serious big woods, just about every other year the local farms get hammered by bears, corn fields, if there’s a heavy crop of beech nuts or something the bears will generally stay up in the more mountainous terrain all season, a few still come down though, it seems like a cycle of every other year, so a lot of bears get killed here annually (NY), easiest thing to do is circle the whole piece and find the main runway going into the corn field with damage, take that runway back to the main bedding area, usually a thick swamp like this was and set up, hunt the wind. I don’t hunt bears anymore, I’m not saying never, but I have a few tanned and a couple mounted and that’s enough for me, I let a real big one go a few years ago during a rut hunt, it was all I could do to not drop that thing but I was on a good watch and knew my brother would not be impressed with helping me get that thing out so I watched him walk off. All of my bears were killed by rifle, except one that was with a bow. Most of the bears killed around here are 100-150 lbs, a few get into the 180-225 range, I’ve seen half a dozen maybe break 300. I prefer bear meat to venison, if handled properly, if I ever shoot another one I’m pulling the required tooth for the biologist and deboning the whole thing on the spot.

That’s a great story. I’ll buy a bear tag in hopes I come across one at one of the WMAs this year. At least two of them hold bears.

 

[phatkaw]

@phatkaw has a real nice bear mount.

Neither one of these pictures are very good and you can't really tell but the mount is awesome.
My taxidermist does nice work!

 

[PapaBear]

View attachment 63318 View attachment 63319 That sucker is getting dusty! I have a weekend project, get the ladder out and get that thing down and blow him off with the air compressor.

That stone work on the fireplace is beautiful.