Black bear in The Felicianas

[sgt_zim]

I've been hunting our family place probably since I was 5 or so, so about 45 or 46 years. I've never heard of black bear in our part of the state. Heck, there are feral hogs all around our area, but not actually in our area.

My cousins (live on an adjoining property to ours) caught this on their game cam this past Friday night, 20 Dec 19.

I reckon it can't weigh more than 100-150#, so I figure momma just kicked him/her out. But that means there are a momma and daddy in the area, too.

For those that know the area, the place is near the intersection of highways 965 and 966, about halfway between St. Francisville and Jackson.

 

[Shootist43]

Nice, look at it positively, maybe it will thin out the feral hog problem a bit. A steady supply of groceries is mighty enticing.

 

[sgt_zim]

Nice, look at it positively, maybe it will thin out the feral hog problem a bit. A steady supply of groceries is mighty enticing.

I'm actually quite excited about it, feral hogs or no. I don't believe there'll be a huntable population of them in my lifetime, but my grandson will be 1 year old next month, so maybe by the time he's my age, give or take a little.

 

[Pheroze]

Only downside is that they will make it harder to feed/bait the deer, if that is allowed in your area. They move in to the munchies and can displace the deer. Seeing as this fellow is on your cousin's lot, could mean good things for you!

 

[sgt_zim]

Only downside is that they will make it harder to feed/bait the deer, if that is allowed in your area. They move in to the munchies and can displace the deer. Seeing as this fellow is on your cousin's lot, could mean good things for you!

That feeder on the right is for the deer. And he was only about 300-400 yards from our property line, maybe a bit less than that.

Was deer hunting since last Saturday. No bear tracks, but bobcats, deer, coyote, and all sorts of varmints.

 

[Shootist43]

Not being a bear hunter, I don't know much about their habits. What I do know that on my 80 acres I have had as many as 6 trail cams out and 5 of them had photos of bear on them. This was over a course of 5 months. So to me it seemed as though the bear were just passing through. My only gripe is that we have planted 19 Apple trees in locations near bow stands and put wire fence around them to keep deer from eating the leaves. One of the trees was beginning to bare apples. For each of the past two years a bear had destroyed the wire fence and broken the tree to get the apples. This year I took photos of the claw marks several feet above the point where the tree broke from being bent over.

 

[crs]

+1 on bears liking deer feeders.
I have seen photos of large capacity metal box feeders turned over by bears. Also bears tear down fences around deer feeders that were put up to keep out hogs. This was in southeast OK where bear hunting is over managed, and no modern firearms are allowed. Only archery and black powder rifles. Too many black bears can be worse than no black bears. The hunters, farmers, ranchers ,etc are trying to get the OK game management to allow modern rifles as this will increase the number of hunters and the effectiveness of the hunters and reduce the number of bears to a more manageable number. Lots of Texas gun hunters would drive up to OK for bear hunting whereas only a comparatively few archery hunters will.