July 25, 2024 • 27 mins
"My state doesn't allow baiting and I don't have hounds, how do I find a bear?" That is by far one of the most common questions we get asked and the answer is alway's, "find the food, find the bear." In this podcast we sit down with large carnivore biologist, Myron Means, to talk about what food we should be following to find the bears in the Eastern Desciduous Forest This could also make you a better houndsman or bait hunter too in our humble opinion.
***** WARNING - THIS EPISODE COULD MAKE YOU A BETTER BEAR HUNTER! *********
***** WARNING - THIS EPISODE COULD MAKE YOU A BETTER BEAR HUNTER! *********
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to the Bear Hunting magazine Hunt Cast with me
Kobe Moorehead, We're gonna nerd out on bears hunting and
the outdoors. We'll tell stories, talk biology, tactics, gear, and
the fight to protect the pursuits that we hold dear,
So grab your bino's, lace up your boots, load up
your barrels, and gather the hounds as we venture on
this journey together. Welcome again to the podcast, and today
(00:43):
I'm starting out with the spoiler alert. We do listen
to the questions that people ask us all the time,
and one of the most commonly asked questions that we
get is how do I find a bear? Especially on
public land with canopy covered in the east deciduous for
us here in the South, how do I find bears?
(01:04):
And today we're talking about just that with Myron Means.
Myron Means is a large carnivor biologist here in Arkansas,
and today we're talking about how to keen on food
sources and find where the bears are. I am pretty
sure you haven't heard a conversation quite like this. Myron
is a wealth of knowledge and he shares how he
(01:28):
told a friend about the same thing and his friend
got it done on public so he's the perfect guy
to talk to you about this. In a later podcast,
we're going to learn about what it's like to be
a large carnivor biologist and some of the things that
they've learned about bears. But I'm pushing this one ahead
because it's almost time to start scouting for some guys.
(01:49):
I've gotten videos of five bears over the last two
weeks on one of my trail cameras on on public land,
and it is almost time to get after him. And
if this doesn't seem relevant to you, you should listen
again because if you know where the bears are keying
in on natural food sources, whatever your method of pursuit is,
(02:12):
this information is relevant to you. And take the principles
and the way that Myron talks about these bears and
apply them to the bears in your area, figure out
what they're ken in on what they're eating, and you'll
definitely be more successful. I don't hope, I know you're
going to like this one. Let's get on and talk
(02:33):
to Myron about how to find some bears. Myron, you
have been involved in bear research the last thirty years
here in Arkansas. Tell me how someone should try to
find a bear in different seasons. And this is something
I know that you know a lot on because I've
(02:55):
been to your seminar before. Give us the full board.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Man.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Well, I mean, to be a really effective public land
bear hunter, you have to be kind of a you
have to be kind of a plant nerd, a tree nerd.
I mean, you really do. You have to know your
You have to know your producing hardwoods, your hickory's and
your oaks. You have to know that. But you also
(03:20):
need to know your soft mass producers. You need to
know sassafras. You need to know Devil's walking stick, the plant,
not the insect. You need to know black gum. Definitely
need to know black gum, and you don't. You don't
just have to know how to identify those particular ones.
(03:41):
You have to know where you're going to find black
gumsh You have to know where you're going to find
white oaks as opposed to red oaks. You know you're
not going to find white oaks on the north facing
slope halfway down that's going to be full of cherry
bark and stuff like that. You're going to find your
white oaks on the west facing slopes, on the ridgetops,
(04:05):
on benches and things like that nature where white oaks grow.
You have to know the palability index. I call it
the palatability index of the different oaks. You have to
know that any white oak is going to be preferred
over any red oaks species because of the tannic acid
(04:25):
content of them. White oaks have. White oak quircous alba
has a very big nut. We all know what a
white oak looks like, but they have probably the least
amount of tannic acid of any oak. That's why they're
so preferred by a deer and squirrel and every cruter
(04:46):
in the woods. White oak is a crown jewel. Okay, Well,
in the absence of white oaks, what's the next best
preferred oak? Probably a post oak, But post oaks typically
don't drop until mid oak midowk October, you know in Arkansas,
So you have to know where to find them. You
have to know the cycle, the typical cycle of those oaks.
(05:11):
For instance, you talk about the soft mass and what
to find. At the end of August the early part
of September, you're gonna be looking for soft mass because
none of the hard mass is gonna be right then,
whether it's hickory nuts or acorns. But so you're gonna
key in on soft mass. You're gonna key in on
Devil's walking stick. You're gonna key in on elderberry. You're
(05:34):
gonna key in on polpberry. And as September starts to
roll around, especially the early part of September, you're going
to key in on black oaks. Black oak berrys. They
look like a little bitty grape. And I'll tell people this,
and it's a really good queue. After labor Day and
(05:56):
you're up in the mountains, say you're gonna go scouting
or something like that, you can look across the landscape
and the very first trees that always start to turn
red are going to be black oaks, black gums. I
keep saying black oaks, black gums. They're gonna be black gums.
And so that's a really that's a really good queue.
(06:22):
I mean, I can drive down, I can drive up
Highway seven north of Russellville September tenth, and I can
pretty well spot every black gum that's on the side
of the road because it'll be the first red tree
out there. And believe me, before the oaks and the
hickorys get ripe. If there is a black gum crop,
(06:46):
those bears will flock to those black gums. It's the
equivalent of blackberries or wild cherries. Okay, you know blackberries
in June, wild cherries in July. Matter of fact, I call,
I caught a sow that I put a GPS collar
on four days ago and I caught her and this
(07:09):
I caught her in a trap, came being trapped, remotely
dropped the door on her. She had four cubs with her,
but her scat in the trap was completely solid cherry pits.
Oh okay, So there has been a really good cherry
crop so far this year. This was in those arcs.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I found a lot whenever I was scouting for gear
on a local property.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
And you can look for a lot of that sign,
you know, when you're scouting in late August. The cherries
aren't going to be there, but the sign of the
bears climbing up the cherry trees is still going to
be there.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, And the scat with the pits in it.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
And the scat with the pits in it's going to
be old, but it's still going to be there. So
you need to follow whatever food is in season in
an appreciable quantity going into that hunting seat. And so,
you know, if our honey season this year starts September eighteenth, man,
it's a toss of the dice as to whether or
(08:07):
not the white oaks will be ripe then or not. Yeah,
they don't have to be ripe and on the ground,
they just have to be ripe because the bears will
climb up a tree and get them. Yeah, we all
know that. So it could be a good hickory crop
this year. You know, if the hickorys are making, bears
will climb up a hickory and sit there and pop
hickory nuts and eat hickory nuts just like they do acorns.
(08:31):
And so you know, one thing that affected us last
year that was kind of surprised to me was the
muscadine crop. Really yeah, well where I hunt on my
bear lease. Yeah, it kind of hampered our bait sites
because it was such an incredible muska dyne crop last year,
(08:53):
you know, And those are some of the things you
can look for too. They're going to start getting ripe
in early September and last through the weeks in September.
So any of those natural food sources that you can
key in on that's in a reasonably small area, in
reasonable appreciable quantity, the bears are going to forage there,
(09:14):
and they're going to forage there until they're pushed out
or the food's gone. And unique thing about bears is
wherever they eat a lot, they defecate a lot. They
have a very short gut. It's not designed for plant matter.
It's designed for animal matter, carnivore guts. But they've evolved
(09:37):
in the plant So whatever they eat, I mean, anybody
that has seen any bear scat anytime in the wild
can understand and appreciate whatever they eat. Vegetation or plant
based usually just goes right through them. And so if
they're eating acorns, it looks like a pile of acorn
(09:58):
mash on the ground. If they're eating cherries, climbing up
a cherry tree and eating wild cherries, their entire scap
is full of cherry pits. Same thing with blackberries. They'll
be whole blackberries and bear scat. Whatever they're eating that
time of year, and whatever they're going to eat, that's
(10:20):
what you're going to frame your stand placement or your
hunting location. That's what you're going to frame it around,
is those food sources. And I tell people all the time,
and I don't know if some people really believe me
or not, but you can talk to some of the
people that are routinely successful on public land. They'll tell you,
(10:41):
just like I tell people, Hey, a really good white
oak or a black gum tree that's throwing a lot
of food in a key location, you know, on a
good bench that's as good as a man made bait
site that's a natural bait site.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
They'll leave the bait site to go to the you of.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
That bait site, to go to that black gum that's
stolen black gumberries, you know, like crazy. I mean, bears
have evolved to eat what mother nature provides. Yeah, And
I tell people all the time, and you know my
seminars that I give. If mother nature doesn't provide, it
(11:20):
really doesn't matter what you bait with. And if mother
nature does provide, it really doesn't matter what you bait with.
Yeah you know if yeah, So, I mean, you know,
that's just the way bears are. I mean, they are
that focused and evolved into that's life or death to them.
(11:44):
That's what they're used to. You know, they're used to
cycling the blackberries to cherries, to polk berries to elderberries
and then going into the nuts in the fall and everything.
So you know, that is their life and it drives
everything that they do. The only time that food isn't
(12:04):
driving their behavior is in May, June, and July in
Arkansas with the males during the breeding season. Yeah, it's
still driving the females, but that's the only time food
is not driving their behavior. Yeah, and so outside of that,
it doesn't matter male, female, female that's pregnant or female
(12:29):
with cubs, it doesn't matter. That's what's driving their life.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Do we have any idea how they are on like
fund predation and stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
They will they will predate fawns. I mean, I don't
know how actively bears will seek out fawns, you know,
during that key time when the when the female when
the dough has the fawns and leaves them before they're
healing or something like that. I mean, honestly, just kind
(12:59):
of knowing how bears are and how kind of lazy
they are, Yeah, opportunistic, They're more likely not going to
run down a fawne once it starts healing with the mom.
But that two week period in there, week and a
half whatever it is, when they're just hit out. Yeah,
they've the CWD stay that they have going on up
(13:20):
in the north central part of the state. They've they've
documented bear predation kyote predation.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
On those funds.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so, I mean it happens. You know,
bears are opportunistic.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
But the majority of their diet throughout the year, even
though they have that that carnivore gut, doesn't revolve around
any type of carrying.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
No, it really doesn't. I mean, you know, opportunity to
pull a roadkill off the roadkill and drag it up
in the woods and eat it.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
They'll do that.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Yeah, I've actually seen them doing that dragon road kills
up and and foraging on them in you know, up
in the woods.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
You know. But inside of the scope of your guys's
nuisance calls, have you had bears pre dating on any
type of like livestock or.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
You know, occasionally they will and it's usually always a
male bear, you know, most of the time as subadult
males that don't know any better. But occasionally you'll get
a big mail that'll you know, eat and kill someone's goat,
drag it over the fence, you know, or something like that.
(14:29):
I get a lot of calls from year to year
about people saying, well, you know, my calf got killed.
You know, it's a I don't know, a two hundred
pound calf, but or even a even you know, a
small calf, a newborn calf. Bears just they don't want
to work too hard at anything. Yeah, and if they
(14:51):
have to deal with the mad mama cow, they're not
going to, you know, and they're certainly not going to
deal with, you know, a calf or cow of any
preciable size to it. You know, that's just that's just
it's just too much work. There's too much of a
risk factor with them. Yeah, I mean, you know, they
(15:11):
would much rather walk over and PLoP down in a
berry patch and forage for twelve hours in a BlackBerry
patch then try to run around and catch a fawn.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah. But they tear up the insects for sure, though.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, hey, whatever's there, whether it's
insects or you know, blackberries or whatever.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Mm hmm. I know, like when we hunt in the West,
one of the things we're looking for is fresh. What
the guys in that area call is bear scratch. So,
and we were hunting a timber you know, harvest area,
and so those bears would go out into those old
stumps and they'll tear off the bark and just go
after tear into that after. Yeah, just whatever in there.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
I tell people in that Hunt National Forest areas to
look for a lot of rock rolling. Yeah, you know,
and that's really a predominant behavior in the post dan emergence,
like you know, from April to or March to June,
and when the blackberries get ripe, you know, they're doing
(16:17):
a lot of rock rolling that time, once the insects
come out and everything else, a lot of rock rolling,
log rolling, a lot of foraging of that nature.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Is that when they would key in on like hornet's
nest too.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Yeah yeah, yup, dig up bumblebee nests. Yeah, you'll see
them do that.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
But that's what I found whenever I've scouted public Land
is a lot of log rolling, rock rolling, and several
dug up yellow jacket nests. But one of the things
I found interesting, like whenever I was baiting last year,
there was a lot of yellow jacket nests. Like one
of them got after me pretty hard one day, and
(16:54):
I was just like, why aren't these bearers eating these
It's like they're so close to the to the bait,
like it's just right here. I pass it every time,
but it's like, why aren't they going after them?
Speaker 3 (17:07):
They might have been stung on those one too many times.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I man, I've had a couple two years of bad
luck in regards to hornets of different sizes.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
And yeah, it's uh, I mean they're tough about it,
but in the same respect, you know, they can only
tolerate so much, you know, but uh, it's a and
you know, to say that's a behavior in the spring,
it doesn't mean it doesn't happen all through the year.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
That's just the focus because the things are.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Predominant behavior forge behavior like that happens. But you know,
in between foods, horses throughout the summer, they'll do it.
I mean they're just walking around through the woods, going
from one cherry tree to the other, and they see
a log. They're gonna pull the log apart and see
if they can get grubs or ants or whatever's easy.
Whatever's easy. Yeah, so uh, yeah, it's it's not to
(17:59):
say that, you know, rock rolling is a big queue
because you can look across the landscape and you can
see rock rolling. You can see a good rock turned
over fifty yards away. Until it's been turned over. Yeah,
most people can determine reasonably how fresh it is. But
the big thing is, you know, the claw marks going
up the trees and everything. If they're climbing cherry trees
(18:21):
or hickorys or white oaks or any oak for that matter,
you know black oaks, you can see the claw marks
going up and down the tree.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
We have a guy that wrote an article a few
years back that talked about that's how he does it
on the East coast. I think he was in Georgia
and just.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Say Georgia or the Carolinas or something like that.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Yeah, pretty consistently taking black bearris. And one of the
things he talked about was going and finding those claw
marks on different trees that are coming off and he
just eases through and tries to catch them up in
the tree. It's before the acres drop or whatever mask up.
And he would go out and he would find where
(19:03):
he's seeing consistent claw marks in different trees, and he
would go into those areas and he would find them
while they were still up in the tree just snacking on.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
I could see that happening, because a bear up a
tree is not a bear climbing up or down a
tree is not quiet. Yeah, I mean you could hear
that one hundred yards away, especially a good sized bear
going up a tree and down a tree. They may
walk quiet in the woods, but when they're climbing up
(19:35):
and down a tree or forging in a tree, they
are not quiet. I mean, you can imagine a three
hundred pounds squirrel running around up in a tree, breaking
limbs and just doing making all kinds of noise. So yeah,
I could see that definitely. And I have a friend
of mine that killed one on public land several years ago,
and I told him an area to go look at,
(19:56):
and I said, it's a good white oak bench. It
was a couple of benches down from the top. And
he got on that bench and he started noticing a
progressive sign going down the bench. You know, he found
some real fresh sign. And he went back a few
days later and that sign was kind of old, the
scat was, but as he went further down the bench,
the sign was newer and newer, And I mean you
(20:18):
could just tell they were undisturbed. It was a great
white oak bench, some big mature trees that were producing,
and it was just you could just follow the sign.
And he got down there and so he anticipated, Okay,
at this rate, by the time the season opens, you know,
next weekend, they should be here. And so that's what
(20:41):
he did. He went down there and he snuck up
in a tree, and sure enough, just like clockwork. I mean,
they were right there in his area, in his wheelhouse,
bowl hunting and that's where they were foraging. So it's
as long as they're undisturbed and everything, I mean, depending
on what it is, it's just as predictable as anything.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
What are your thoughts on keyen In on water sources.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
I think it's really important. You know, these early I'm
going to say early September seasons, we're probably going to have,
you know, just depending on what the lead up to
that time of year is. If it dries a powder
keg out there, man, water is going to be a
real valuable food source, and you will more than likely
(21:28):
be able to see bear trails coming to and from
those water sources. And when I say bear trails, I
don't know if people have if You've talked to people
about this on air before, but a bear trail is
very distinct. You can see their footprints or dish depressions
every step they take coming into that water hole. And
(21:49):
I've been to a lot of waterholes across the National
Forest when we're doing research or whatever else that time
of year, and yeah, it's it's as obvious as a
nose on your face, you know, coming to a water source,
and it's obvious that's a bear trail because they're gonna
come in the same trail, walk in the same steps
(22:12):
every day, and they're gonna come to that water every day.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Now, if you get a two inch train event, you know,
three to four or five days before the season, don't
go hunt your water source because they can get muddy
water out of any mud puddle.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
I did pretty good last year on trail cameras going
and finding remote water sources, and so I would do
things like I would walk a dry creek and find
little like single pulls, just like one spot where it
pulls up and put a camera on that. And then
I would find remote ponds that took a while to
(22:50):
go dry. And the cool thing about that is you
can see their tracks around that. A lot of times
those dry creeks are pretty rocky, but when you get
into that water source, you can see them walking around it.
And then as far as like you're talking about a
bear trail and how you know you have depressions here
and here, and it's real methodical. I went, I went
(23:11):
on a bear hunt up in Maine last year. We
were trying to foot snare a bear. Oh real, And
that in itself was I mean, just going with that
outfitter and learning everything that he did to make it
that successful and how he was selective was very cool.
He was the lead trapper for I think like twelve
(23:34):
years for Maine. He worked with Randy Cross back in
the day, and I mean it was a masterclass on
bear behavior. Like he did have a bait there, and
then he would go and he would close off these
other trails where the bears would come in by just
putting a limb over them. And he was like, a
bear won't walk over something it doesn't like it's belly
(23:55):
being brushed by sticks and limbs. And then he would
take these he take these dry sticks and he would yeah,
and he would make them step where he wanted. He
would he took and kind of like did a half
fist and packed down the everywhere he wanted bear to step,
and where he was put in his trap, he put
(24:15):
a few sticks to make them take just a little
bit longer of a step. And I mean, he was like,
you block off these other ones and just leave this one.
He's like, it'll mess with them for a couple of nights,
but they will come back to this. And even the
difference between a boar and a sow, he said that
once you catch a south it is hard to recapture
(24:38):
a sow. They're so smart, he said. A boar, he's like,
you can catch him often, you know, repeatedly, and to
be selective on the size of bear that he was.
After he would take he would go and look for
a particular diameter of green stick, and after he had
set his foot snare, he would go and put those
(24:58):
those green sticks over the over the mechanism and then
cover it up with you know, like moss and dirt
and everything. And uh, it was one of the coolest things.
I just felt like I learned so much in a
really brief amount of time just watching him and him
explaining things to me.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Well back in the back in the old days, you know,
when I was when I was first start with Game
of Fish and then undergraduate work in the eighties and
nineties when we were doing so much snaring and everything.
That's the way we did it. I mean, we did
it the old school days using aldridge foot snares that
we put in the ground. And I mean it would
take it would it would take a two or three
(25:39):
man crew forty five minutes or an hour to set
up one snare site. Yeah, and uh, you know, and
it was all evolved around, you know, just what you
talked about. It was the old way of making bear
you know, fences and creating a trail and the illusion
of having a bear trail and making them step with
(25:59):
step in sticks or rocks or whatever you placed in there,
and depressions in it. And oh yeah, it was a
it's a big, long drawn out deal. I mean, but
anymore it takes us five minutes to say, yeah, we
just go to the tree and screw the pipe into
the tree. So but you know, it's it's it's an art. Yeah,
(26:20):
it's definitely an art about it. And bears, you know,
I like to give them credit and think they're the
smartest animal in the world in the woods. But uh,
you know, they're just they're just leery. Yeah, they can
make some really odd choices, but they're very, very habitual.
When they go to a water hole, they walk in
(26:41):
the same prince. I've seen water holes coming up to
some ponds before that have depressions that are four inches
deep because for years and years and years, these bears
have been coming to the same pond the same way,
in the same steps, and it's just crazy, but you
know they were.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Thank you for listening. The Bear Hunting Magazine Hundcast is
recorded by Bear Hunting Magazine and produced by Mountain Gravity Media.
Be sure leave us a five star review on iTunes
and keep guarding the gate.
Welcome to the Bear Hunting magazine Hunt Cast with me
Kobe Moorehead, We're gonna nerd out on bears hunting and
the outdoors. We'll tell stories, talk biology, tactics, gear, and
the fight to protect the pursuits that we hold dear,
So grab your bino's, lace up your boots, load up
your barrels, and gather the hounds as we venture on
this journey together. Welcome again to the podcast, and today
(00:43):
I'm starting out with the spoiler alert. We do listen
to the questions that people ask us all the time,
and one of the most commonly asked questions that we
get is how do I find a bear? Especially on
public land with canopy covered in the east deciduous for
us here in the South, how do I find bears?
(01:04):
And today we're talking about just that with Myron Means.
Myron Means is a large carnivor biologist here in Arkansas,
and today we're talking about how to keen on food
sources and find where the bears are. I am pretty
sure you haven't heard a conversation quite like this. Myron
is a wealth of knowledge and he shares how he
(01:28):
told a friend about the same thing and his friend
got it done on public so he's the perfect guy
to talk to you about this. In a later podcast,
we're going to learn about what it's like to be
a large carnivor biologist and some of the things that
they've learned about bears. But I'm pushing this one ahead
because it's almost time to start scouting for some guys.
(01:49):
I've gotten videos of five bears over the last two
weeks on one of my trail cameras on on public land,
and it is almost time to get after him. And
if this doesn't seem relevant to you, you should listen
again because if you know where the bears are keying
in on natural food sources, whatever your method of pursuit is,
(02:12):
this information is relevant to you. And take the principles
and the way that Myron talks about these bears and
apply them to the bears in your area, figure out
what they're ken in on what they're eating, and you'll
definitely be more successful. I don't hope, I know you're
going to like this one. Let's get on and talk
(02:33):
to Myron about how to find some bears. Myron, you
have been involved in bear research the last thirty years
here in Arkansas. Tell me how someone should try to
find a bear in different seasons. And this is something
I know that you know a lot on because I've
(02:55):
been to your seminar before. Give us the full board.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Man.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Well, I mean, to be a really effective public land
bear hunter, you have to be kind of a you
have to be kind of a plant nerd, a tree nerd.
I mean, you really do. You have to know your
You have to know your producing hardwoods, your hickory's and
your oaks. You have to know that. But you also
(03:20):
need to know your soft mass producers. You need to
know sassafras. You need to know Devil's walking stick, the plant,
not the insect. You need to know black gum. Definitely
need to know black gum, and you don't. You don't
just have to know how to identify those particular ones.
(03:41):
You have to know where you're going to find black
gumsh You have to know where you're going to find
white oaks as opposed to red oaks. You know you're
not going to find white oaks on the north facing
slope halfway down that's going to be full of cherry
bark and stuff like that. You're going to find your
white oaks on the west facing slopes, on the ridgetops,
(04:05):
on benches and things like that nature where white oaks grow.
You have to know the palability index. I call it
the palatability index of the different oaks. You have to
know that any white oak is going to be preferred
over any red oaks species because of the tannic acid
(04:25):
content of them. White oaks have. White oak quircous alba
has a very big nut. We all know what a
white oak looks like, but they have probably the least
amount of tannic acid of any oak. That's why they're
so preferred by a deer and squirrel and every cruter
(04:46):
in the woods. White oak is a crown jewel. Okay, Well,
in the absence of white oaks, what's the next best
preferred oak? Probably a post oak, But post oaks typically
don't drop until mid oak midowk October, you know in Arkansas,
So you have to know where to find them. You
have to know the cycle, the typical cycle of those oaks.
(05:11):
For instance, you talk about the soft mass and what
to find. At the end of August the early part
of September, you're gonna be looking for soft mass because
none of the hard mass is gonna be right then,
whether it's hickory nuts or acorns. But so you're gonna
key in on soft mass. You're gonna key in on
Devil's walking stick. You're gonna key in on elderberry. You're
(05:34):
gonna key in on polpberry. And as September starts to
roll around, especially the early part of September, you're going
to key in on black oaks. Black oak berrys. They
look like a little bitty grape. And I'll tell people this,
and it's a really good queue. After labor Day and
(05:56):
you're up in the mountains, say you're gonna go scouting
or something like that, you can look across the landscape
and the very first trees that always start to turn
red are going to be black oaks, black gums. I
keep saying black oaks, black gums. They're gonna be black gums.
And so that's a really that's a really good queue.
(06:22):
I mean, I can drive down, I can drive up
Highway seven north of Russellville September tenth, and I can
pretty well spot every black gum that's on the side
of the road because it'll be the first red tree
out there. And believe me, before the oaks and the
hickorys get ripe. If there is a black gum crop,
(06:46):
those bears will flock to those black gums. It's the
equivalent of blackberries or wild cherries. Okay, you know blackberries
in June, wild cherries in July. Matter of fact, I call,
I caught a sow that I put a GPS collar
on four days ago and I caught her and this
(07:09):
I caught her in a trap, came being trapped, remotely
dropped the door on her. She had four cubs with her,
but her scat in the trap was completely solid cherry pits.
Oh okay, So there has been a really good cherry
crop so far this year. This was in those arcs.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
I found a lot whenever I was scouting for gear
on a local property.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
And you can look for a lot of that sign,
you know, when you're scouting in late August. The cherries
aren't going to be there, but the sign of the
bears climbing up the cherry trees is still going to
be there.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Yeah, And the scat with the pits in it.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
And the scat with the pits in it's going to
be old, but it's still going to be there. So
you need to follow whatever food is in season in
an appreciable quantity going into that hunting seat. And so,
you know, if our honey season this year starts September eighteenth, man,
it's a toss of the dice as to whether or
(08:07):
not the white oaks will be ripe then or not. Yeah,
they don't have to be ripe and on the ground,
they just have to be ripe because the bears will
climb up a tree and get them. Yeah, we all
know that. So it could be a good hickory crop
this year. You know, if the hickorys are making, bears
will climb up a hickory and sit there and pop
hickory nuts and eat hickory nuts just like they do acorns.
(08:31):
And so you know, one thing that affected us last
year that was kind of surprised to me was the
muscadine crop. Really yeah, well where I hunt on my
bear lease. Yeah, it kind of hampered our bait sites
because it was such an incredible muska dyne crop last year,
(08:53):
you know, And those are some of the things you
can look for too. They're going to start getting ripe
in early September and last through the weeks in September.
So any of those natural food sources that you can
key in on that's in a reasonably small area, in
reasonable appreciable quantity, the bears are going to forage there,
(09:14):
and they're going to forage there until they're pushed out
or the food's gone. And unique thing about bears is
wherever they eat a lot, they defecate a lot. They
have a very short gut. It's not designed for plant matter.
It's designed for animal matter, carnivore guts. But they've evolved
(09:37):
in the plant So whatever they eat, I mean, anybody
that has seen any bear scat anytime in the wild
can understand and appreciate whatever they eat. Vegetation or plant
based usually just goes right through them. And so if
they're eating acorns, it looks like a pile of acorn
(09:58):
mash on the ground. If they're eating cherries, climbing up
a cherry tree and eating wild cherries, their entire scap
is full of cherry pits. Same thing with blackberries. They'll
be whole blackberries and bear scat. Whatever they're eating that
time of year, and whatever they're going to eat, that's
(10:20):
what you're going to frame your stand placement or your
hunting location. That's what you're going to frame it around,
is those food sources. And I tell people all the time,
and I don't know if some people really believe me
or not, but you can talk to some of the
people that are routinely successful on public land. They'll tell you,
(10:41):
just like I tell people, Hey, a really good white
oak or a black gum tree that's throwing a lot
of food in a key location, you know, on a
good bench that's as good as a man made bait
site that's a natural bait site.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
They'll leave the bait site to go to the you of.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
That bait site, to go to that black gum that's
stolen black gumberries, you know, like crazy. I mean, bears
have evolved to eat what mother nature provides. Yeah, And
I tell people all the time, and you know my
seminars that I give. If mother nature doesn't provide, it
(11:20):
really doesn't matter what you bait with. And if mother
nature does provide, it really doesn't matter what you bait with.
Yeah you know if yeah, So, I mean, you know,
that's just the way bears are. I mean, they are
that focused and evolved into that's life or death to them.
(11:44):
That's what they're used to. You know, they're used to
cycling the blackberries to cherries, to polk berries to elderberries
and then going into the nuts in the fall and everything.
So you know, that is their life and it drives
everything that they do. The only time that food isn't
(12:04):
driving their behavior is in May, June, and July in
Arkansas with the males during the breeding season. Yeah, it's
still driving the females, but that's the only time food
is not driving their behavior. Yeah, and so outside of that,
it doesn't matter male, female, female that's pregnant or female
(12:29):
with cubs, it doesn't matter. That's what's driving their life.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Do we have any idea how they are on like
fund predation and stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
They will they will predate fawns. I mean, I don't
know how actively bears will seek out fawns, you know,
during that key time when the when the female when
the dough has the fawns and leaves them before they're
healing or something like that. I mean, honestly, just kind
(12:59):
of knowing how bears are and how kind of lazy
they are, Yeah, opportunistic, They're more likely not going to
run down a fawne once it starts healing with the mom.
But that two week period in there, week and a
half whatever it is, when they're just hit out. Yeah,
they've the CWD stay that they have going on up
(13:20):
in the north central part of the state. They've they've
documented bear predation kyote predation.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
On those funds.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so, I mean it happens. You know,
bears are opportunistic.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
But the majority of their diet throughout the year, even
though they have that that carnivore gut, doesn't revolve around
any type of carrying.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
No, it really doesn't. I mean, you know, opportunity to
pull a roadkill off the roadkill and drag it up
in the woods and eat it.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
They'll do that.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Yeah, I've actually seen them doing that dragon road kills
up and and foraging on them in you know, up
in the woods.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
You know. But inside of the scope of your guys's
nuisance calls, have you had bears pre dating on any
type of like livestock or.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
You know, occasionally they will and it's usually always a
male bear, you know, most of the time as subadult
males that don't know any better. But occasionally you'll get
a big mail that'll you know, eat and kill someone's goat,
drag it over the fence, you know, or something like that.
(14:29):
I get a lot of calls from year to year
about people saying, well, you know, my calf got killed.
You know, it's a I don't know, a two hundred
pound calf, but or even a even you know, a
small calf, a newborn calf. Bears just they don't want
to work too hard at anything. Yeah, and if they
(14:51):
have to deal with the mad mama cow, they're not
going to, you know, and they're certainly not going to
deal with, you know, a calf or cow of any
preciable size to it. You know, that's just that's just
it's just too much work. There's too much of a
risk factor with them. Yeah, I mean, you know, they
(15:11):
would much rather walk over and PLoP down in a
berry patch and forage for twelve hours in a BlackBerry
patch then try to run around and catch a fawn.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah. But they tear up the insects for sure, though.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Oh yeah, yeah, I mean, hey, whatever's there, whether it's
insects or you know, blackberries or whatever.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
Mm hmm. I know, like when we hunt in the West,
one of the things we're looking for is fresh. What
the guys in that area call is bear scratch. So,
and we were hunting a timber you know, harvest area,
and so those bears would go out into those old
stumps and they'll tear off the bark and just go
after tear into that after. Yeah, just whatever in there.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
I tell people in that Hunt National Forest areas to
look for a lot of rock rolling. Yeah, you know,
and that's really a predominant behavior in the post dan emergence,
like you know, from April to or March to June,
and when the blackberries get ripe, you know, they're doing
(16:17):
a lot of rock rolling that time, once the insects
come out and everything else, a lot of rock rolling,
log rolling, a lot of foraging of that nature.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Is that when they would key in on like hornet's
nest too.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Yeah yeah, yup, dig up bumblebee nests. Yeah, you'll see
them do that.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
But that's what I found whenever I've scouted public Land
is a lot of log rolling, rock rolling, and several
dug up yellow jacket nests. But one of the things
I found interesting, like whenever I was baiting last year,
there was a lot of yellow jacket nests. Like one
of them got after me pretty hard one day, and
(16:54):
I was just like, why aren't these bearers eating these
It's like they're so close to the to the bait,
like it's just right here. I pass it every time,
but it's like, why aren't they going after them?
Speaker 3 (17:07):
They might have been stung on those one too many times.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I man, I've had a couple two years of bad
luck in regards to hornets of different sizes.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
And yeah, it's uh, I mean they're tough about it,
but in the same respect, you know, they can only
tolerate so much, you know, but uh, it's a and
you know, to say that's a behavior in the spring,
it doesn't mean it doesn't happen all through the year.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
That's just the focus because the things are.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Predominant behavior forge behavior like that happens. But you know,
in between foods, horses throughout the summer, they'll do it.
I mean they're just walking around through the woods, going
from one cherry tree to the other, and they see
a log. They're gonna pull the log apart and see
if they can get grubs or ants or whatever's easy.
Whatever's easy. Yeah, so uh, yeah, it's it's not to
(17:59):
say that, you know, rock rolling is a big queue
because you can look across the landscape and you can
see rock rolling. You can see a good rock turned
over fifty yards away. Until it's been turned over. Yeah,
most people can determine reasonably how fresh it is. But
the big thing is, you know, the claw marks going
up the trees and everything. If they're climbing cherry trees
(18:21):
or hickorys or white oaks or any oak for that matter,
you know black oaks, you can see the claw marks
going up and down the tree.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
We have a guy that wrote an article a few
years back that talked about that's how he does it
on the East coast. I think he was in Georgia
and just.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Say Georgia or the Carolinas or something like that.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Yeah, pretty consistently taking black bearris. And one of the
things he talked about was going and finding those claw
marks on different trees that are coming off and he
just eases through and tries to catch them up in
the tree. It's before the acres drop or whatever mask up.
And he would go out and he would find where
(19:03):
he's seeing consistent claw marks in different trees, and he
would go into those areas and he would find them
while they were still up in the tree just snacking on.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
I could see that happening, because a bear up a
tree is not a bear climbing up or down a
tree is not quiet. Yeah, I mean you could hear
that one hundred yards away, especially a good sized bear
going up a tree and down a tree. They may
walk quiet in the woods, but when they're climbing up
(19:35):
and down a tree or forging in a tree, they
are not quiet. I mean, you can imagine a three
hundred pounds squirrel running around up in a tree, breaking
limbs and just doing making all kinds of noise. So yeah,
I could see that definitely. And I have a friend
of mine that killed one on public land several years ago,
and I told him an area to go look at,
(19:56):
and I said, it's a good white oak bench. It
was a couple of benches down from the top. And
he got on that bench and he started noticing a
progressive sign going down the bench. You know, he found
some real fresh sign. And he went back a few
days later and that sign was kind of old, the
scat was, but as he went further down the bench,
the sign was newer and newer, And I mean you
(20:18):
could just tell they were undisturbed. It was a great
white oak bench, some big mature trees that were producing,
and it was just you could just follow the sign.
And he got down there and so he anticipated, Okay,
at this rate, by the time the season opens, you know,
next weekend, they should be here. And so that's what
(20:41):
he did. He went down there and he snuck up
in a tree, and sure enough, just like clockwork. I mean,
they were right there in his area, in his wheelhouse,
bowl hunting and that's where they were foraging. So it's
as long as they're undisturbed and everything, I mean, depending
on what it is, it's just as predictable as anything.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
What are your thoughts on keyen In on water sources.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
I think it's really important. You know, these early I'm
going to say early September seasons, we're probably going to have,
you know, just depending on what the lead up to
that time of year is. If it dries a powder
keg out there, man, water is going to be a
real valuable food source, and you will more than likely
(21:28):
be able to see bear trails coming to and from
those water sources. And when I say bear trails, I
don't know if people have if You've talked to people
about this on air before, but a bear trail is
very distinct. You can see their footprints or dish depressions
every step they take coming into that water hole. And
(21:49):
I've been to a lot of waterholes across the National
Forest when we're doing research or whatever else that time
of year, and yeah, it's it's as obvious as a
nose on your face, you know, coming to a water source,
and it's obvious that's a bear trail because they're gonna
come in the same trail, walk in the same steps
(22:12):
every day, and they're gonna come to that water every day.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Now, if you get a two inch train event, you know,
three to four or five days before the season, don't
go hunt your water source because they can get muddy
water out of any mud puddle.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
I did pretty good last year on trail cameras going
and finding remote water sources, and so I would do
things like I would walk a dry creek and find
little like single pulls, just like one spot where it
pulls up and put a camera on that. And then
I would find remote ponds that took a while to
(22:50):
go dry. And the cool thing about that is you
can see their tracks around that. A lot of times
those dry creeks are pretty rocky, but when you get
into that water source, you can see them walking around it.
And then as far as like you're talking about a
bear trail and how you know you have depressions here
and here, and it's real methodical. I went, I went
(23:11):
on a bear hunt up in Maine last year. We
were trying to foot snare a bear. Oh real, And
that in itself was I mean, just going with that
outfitter and learning everything that he did to make it
that successful and how he was selective was very cool.
He was the lead trapper for I think like twelve
(23:34):
years for Maine. He worked with Randy Cross back in
the day, and I mean it was a masterclass on
bear behavior. Like he did have a bait there, and
then he would go and he would close off these
other trails where the bears would come in by just
putting a limb over them. And he was like, a
bear won't walk over something it doesn't like it's belly
(23:55):
being brushed by sticks and limbs. And then he would
take these he take these dry sticks and he would yeah,
and he would make them step where he wanted. He
would he took and kind of like did a half
fist and packed down the everywhere he wanted bear to step,
and where he was put in his trap, he put
(24:15):
a few sticks to make them take just a little
bit longer of a step. And I mean, he was like,
you block off these other ones and just leave this one.
He's like, it'll mess with them for a couple of nights,
but they will come back to this. And even the
difference between a boar and a sow, he said that
once you catch a south it is hard to recapture
(24:38):
a sow. They're so smart, he said. A boar, he's like,
you can catch him often, you know, repeatedly, and to
be selective on the size of bear that he was.
After he would take he would go and look for
a particular diameter of green stick, and after he had
set his foot snare, he would go and put those
(24:58):
those green sticks over the over the mechanism and then
cover it up with you know, like moss and dirt
and everything. And uh, it was one of the coolest things.
I just felt like I learned so much in a
really brief amount of time just watching him and him
explaining things to me.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
Well back in the back in the old days, you know,
when I was when I was first start with Game
of Fish and then undergraduate work in the eighties and
nineties when we were doing so much snaring and everything.
That's the way we did it. I mean, we did
it the old school days using aldridge foot snares that
we put in the ground. And I mean it would
take it would it would take a two or three
(25:39):
man crew forty five minutes or an hour to set
up one snare site. Yeah, and uh, you know, and
it was all evolved around, you know, just what you
talked about. It was the old way of making bear
you know, fences and creating a trail and the illusion
of having a bear trail and making them step with
(25:59):
step in sticks or rocks or whatever you placed in there,
and depressions in it. And oh yeah, it was a
it's a big, long drawn out deal. I mean, but
anymore it takes us five minutes to say, yeah, we
just go to the tree and screw the pipe into
the tree. So but you know, it's it's it's an art. Yeah,
(26:20):
it's definitely an art about it. And bears, you know,
I like to give them credit and think they're the
smartest animal in the world in the woods. But uh,
you know, they're just they're just leery. Yeah, they can
make some really odd choices, but they're very, very habitual.
When they go to a water hole, they walk in
(26:41):
the same prince. I've seen water holes coming up to
some ponds before that have depressions that are four inches
deep because for years and years and years, these bears
have been coming to the same pond the same way,
in the same steps, and it's just crazy, but you
know they were.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Thank you for listening. The Bear Hunting Magazine Hundcast is
recorded by Bear Hunting Magazine and produced by Mountain Gravity Media.
Be sure leave us a five star review on iTunes
and keep guarding the gate.
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