sportsman94
Senior Member
So I am working out the details to go on my first bear hunt next year. Trying to find someone to go with me because things just seem more fun when you have someone to hang out and relive stories with. I have looked at coopers creek, swallow creek, chestatee, chattahoochie, Cohutta and NF land. Still have a lot more narrowing down to do on location. My plan is to go during bow season hopefully. Maybe I’ll get lucky and be able to take the wife up for a scouting trip one day this summer. I have done a lot of reading on this forum to try to figure out as much about bears as I can before I make it up to hunt them. It seems like food is the name of the game. Find the fresh sign and if it’s hot hunt over it. Sounds like the closer to bedding the better. Some years it will be at different elevations and will take a lot of boot leather to find that. My question mostly pertains to bear movement around/through terrain features. Do bears mostly travel on top of ridges, the top 1/3rd, or something different? Do they take the same route every day that they are on a food source regardless of wind direction? If you bump a bear off a food source, do they generally return quickly or are they pretty well spooked? Additionally do bears return to bed mid day (in general) or do they feed all through mid day too? How far will a bear travel from bedding to food in an afternoon? Or will they bed close to a hot food source no matter the cover? I’m sure I will have about a million other questions as I prepare, but I am all ears for listening to things that might increase my chances at success.