First time bear hunter advice?

ditchdoc24

Senior Member
Ok folks. I'm going to be up front and say that I'm a flatland hunter. I've never hunted the mountains and never hunted for bear. Basically, I don't know what I don't know. My wife's cousin has invited me to go to Cohutta with him for the hunt in December so I'm wondering what tactics are best. I'll probably be shooting my .308 with 150 grain Core Lokts and taking my .35 Marlin with 200 grain Leverevolutions as a backup rifle. Any advice for a rookie bear hunter? I've been reading as much in this section as I can but I'm always willing to learn.
 

tree cutter 08

Senior Member
Keep reading and reading on here. When you get tired of reading, read some more. Has your partner been to cohutta before? If he's got some experience with it and bear you'll be ahead. If not, read some more. Lots of good info on here specific to our mountains. They still moving good. Found a bunch of fresh sign other day and still getting pics. Leaves will have a lot of older sign covered by then so you may have to look a little harder. Fresh tracks is hard to beat. I quit worrying so much about lack of scat. Tracks are more important to me as is feeding sign.
 

ditchdoc24

Senior Member
Keep reading and reading on here. When you get tired of reading, read some more. Has your partner been to cohutta before? If he's got some experience with it and bear you'll be ahead. If not, read some more. Lots of good info on here specific to our mountains. They still moving good. Found a bunch of fresh sign other day and still getting pics. Leaves will have a lot of older sign covered by then so you may have to look a little harder. Fresh tracks is hard to beat. I quit worrying so much about lack of scat. Tracks are more important to me as is feeding sign.

He's been to Cohutta once or twice before. He killed a bear last year but I'm not sure if it was on Cohutta.
 

splatek

UAEC
Ok folks. I'm going to be up front and say that I'm a flatland hunter. I've never hunted the mountains and never hunted for bear. Basically, I don't know what I don't know. My wife's cousin has invited me to go to Cohutta with him for the hunt in December so I'm wondering what tactics are best. I'll probably be shooting my .308 with 150 grain Core Lokts and taking my .35 Marlin with 200 grain Leverevolutions as a backup rifle. Any advice for a rookie bear hunter? I've been reading as much in this section as I can but I'm always willing to learn.

I am also new to bear hunting, mountain hunting, shoot I am just plain new to hunting and this bear forum has been amazingly helpful! Lots of nuggest in the pages of info, about bear, hunting in general, mnt hunting, and the mountains. I can't echo what the others here said: Read. Like I said I am new to it all, but I still haven't gotten thru it all. One theme you will hear is that the acorn, particularly the white oak acorn (Q alba) might as well be the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. In addition to that there is a lot of advice for what to do, how to do it, when you can't get on the acorns and TONS of pictures about sign, or not.

I need to get me to cohutta and check that place out. Been on the to do list since I started trout fishing, then I learned the trout fishing there was subpar compared to other regions in the east portion of the forest and sort of gave up the idea of going there... need to reignite that...
 
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