Gonna give it a shot

A friend and I are planning on coming up Dec. 1st-4th for a hunt. We are calling it a bear hunt but are really looking for anything legal to put in the freezer. We plan on camping. I see Cohutta WMA is having a hunt during that time. Would you suggest we try there?
I was thinking of trying the Chattahoochee National Forest outside of a WMA but have no idea about the camping/ parking for these areas. Could someone please give me a few pointers to kinda give me an idea of what to do.
Not looking for any spots just some knowledge of how things work up there.


Thanks

FirstTimer said:

A friend and I are planning on coming up Dec. 1st-4th for a hunt. We are calling it a bear hunt but are really looking for anything legal to put in the freezer. We plan on camping. I see Cohutta WMA is having a hunt during that time. Would you suggest we try there?
I was thinking of trying the Chattahoochee National Forest outside of a WMA but have no idea about the camping/ parking for these areas. Could someone please give me a few pointers to kinda give me an idea of what to do.
Not looking for any spots just some knowledge of how things work up there.


Thanks

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What kind of vehicle do you drive? Do you have a 4wd? Some places you need one, some you don't. You need to do some internet research and find out where you want to camp. Googling "where to camp on Cohutta", and things like that will help you find the right place to camp. Once you find a place to camp on Cohutta, start looking on a topo map for gaps or saddles, benches, and ridge flats to hunt. In December you should be cruising the woods looking for red oak ridges and red oak filled gaps. Most of the white oaks will be eaten or spoiled by then, and the animals often shift back to the red oaks around that time frame. If you don't know how to read a topo map, you need to download the BackCountry Navigator app, switch the map layer to USFS 2015, and start finding the ridges, benches, and gaps you want to hunt. You need to be looking into how to read topo maps, and you need to have many places laid out to hunt. You need to have your A, B, C, D,and E spots marked, and your routes of approach planned out.
The only way to know whether a gap, bench, or ridge had a good concentration of red or white oaks is to hike there in person and see. This can be an exhausting endeavor in just a few days. You just have to hike there and see. If you get to a saddle that is covered in white oaks in December, I say move on, while others may offer differing opinions. Plan to hike a LOT, and sit a LITTLE on whatever fresh sign you might find. Bears are very difficult to find and especially kill in December. Very few are killed in that month. My suggestion for December is to hunt ridges, gaps, and benches covered with red oaks and pines at the lowest elevations you can find. Bears will move off the high tops in the winter *usually, and you're more likely to find them at lower elevations within the WMA. Good luck. Don't be afraid of long hikes. Work hard. Cover ground. Just keep looking, and looking, and looking. It's not easy hunting the mtns to begin with, and when you're out of town, it is exponentially more difficult with the learning curve. It is something you need to be persistent about and do for years in order to become familiar with. Let us know how you do!

In the mountains, by December, you will also want to be facing on thermal cover. South facing slopes, clearcuts, tornado damage, etc. Bears begin their seasonal torpor around mid november, but the way things are going this season, heck, you never know. Outside of pregnant sows, or sows with cubs, hardly any bears this far south ever actually den up. Most just lay in a bit of thick, steep, thermally beneficial cover and dont move much.

Where I am from, they kill nearly every bear in a 3 day, late november gun hunt, and all they do is drive for em. Dont hesitate to do some one man pushes through south facing laurel heads, clearcuts, beetle kills, etc

Really good insight. Thanks for sharing fellas.

Hammer Spank said:

In the mountains, by December, you will also want to be facing on thermal cover. South facing slopes, clearcuts, tornado damage, etc. Bears begin their seasonal torpor around mid november, but the way things are going this season, heck, you never know. Outside of pregnant sows, or sows with cubs, hardly any bears this far south ever actually den up. Most just lay in a bit of thick, steep, thermally beneficial cover and dont move much.

Where I am from, they kill nearly every bear in a 3 day, late november gun hunt, and all they do is drive for em. Dont hesitate to do some one man pushes through south facing laurel heads, clearcuts, beetle kills, etc

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This is some great insight indeed. This is a major factor that completely slipped my mind. Don't know how I could leave out such an important piece of information. Thanks for that Hammer. Great reminder!

I drive a 4x4 Tahoe. Thank you for the tips. I'm pretty good at reading a topo map, I took a few surveying classes in college before changing my major. I've been doing a lot of research but there is just so much information to consider when planning an out of state hunt, this forum has been helping me out tremendously.

Hammer Spank said:

In the mountains, by December, you will also want to be facing on thermal cover. South facing slopes, clearcuts, tornado damage, etc. Bears begin their seasonal torpor around mid november, but the way things are going this season, heck, you never know. Outside of pregnant sows, or sows with cubs, hardly any bears this far south ever actually den up. Most just lay in a bit of thick, steep, thermally beneficial cover and dont move much.

Where I am from, they kill nearly every bear in a 3 day, late november gun hunt, and all they do is drive for em. Dont hesitate to do some one man pushes through south facing laurel heads, clearcuts, beetle kills, etc

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As Kyle said, a December bear hunt is probably the toughest hunt you could choose to try in GA. But the Blue Ridge Mountains are spectacular and it will be worth the trip if you see nothing. I do more bear scouting than most people because I love it and I help out some south GA buddies for the opener every year but I dont actually bear hunt that much anymore. A few hunts in archery and if I kill one, great, if not, oh well and Ive usually seen a pile by the end of summer and loved it anyway so Im not the best person to ask and take my late season knowledge with a grain of salt.

Being super close to them, on the ground in the early season is my bag!

Great info here, thx for taking the time to share w/us new to the bear hunting.