Spring Bear Hunt

[Bowfin]

I wish Minnesota had a spring bear hunt.

*Fall is busy with bow and grouse hunting, fishing and August vacations.

*Not as much going on in spring unless your after turkeys, pannies or crows I guess.

*Not as many people or other hunters in the woods.

*Would be nice baiting and taking care of bear in cooler spring temps instead of hot August/Sept temps.

Only negative I see is increased traffic on woods roads and trails during the spring thaw season would have the potential to tear them up. This is a big negative.

I guess a spring bear hunt would not be possible politically based on the demise of spring hunts north of the border and other places. The anti's have used the argument that spring hunts orphan too many cubs. You could make sows with cubs illegal to shoot. Would be pretty effective since cubs seem to usually run to the bait ahead or with the sow and rarely lag behind (you usually always know when a sow has cubs). Right now, it is legal to shoot a sow with cubs in the fall. I know - lets compromise, give us a spring hunt and make it illegal to shoot sows with cubs. I never had the heart to shoot a sow with cubs anyway.

[tealitup]

How many bear hunters would knowingly shoot a sow with cubs? I doubt very many - after you see those lil buggers playing I would never think about it.

However, I do not think it matters if the sow is killed in the spring or fall cubs will not make it through the winter.

Spring would work for me also. Less foilage - hopefully less bugs, but might interfere with turkey hunting.

[roosterslayer]

spring hunting would be nice, bears would hit more during the day escpecially looking for food right out of the den. I dont think that harvesting a true mature bear would be easier because bears get mature and big for a reason, but i do think it will help lower the population of bears and make then more manageable for the DNR.

[kkahmann]

I ran a Spring hunt for years--before Ontario outlawed it. No biological reason for that--it was purely political.

There's a lot of misnomers about Spring bear hunting. It is not easier to bait in the Spring. Baiting in the Spring is much more weather dependant and the bears do not hit the bait during the daytime anymore than they do in the Fall. Flies in the Spring are worse than in the Fall by a factor of 10!! Bears do move around more in the Spring so if you are hunting with hounds it is a bit easier to find a track the dogs can run. Fat Fall bears in a good berry year are much easier to tree than a spring bear.

Early in the Spring, Sows will tree cubs of the year before coming in to bait, often well out of sight. Its not hard to sex a bear before you shoot but it does require a certain amount of experience. Cubs of the year when orphaned don't survive--yearlings are a different matter--some do survive--as to how many is a matter of some debate amongst biologists.

Now I'm going to say something real controversial--I don't believe hunting ever did have any effect on the bear population in Northwestern Ontario. I don't believe for one minute that we have any more bears now than we did in 1972. I speak with some experience--the first bear I killed in Minnesota I collected a $10 bounty on. Know how long ago that was? I was involved in the gall trade for a number of years when it was still legal. I shipped more galls to led Kong in one year than most bear guides will see in a lifetime.

Iam constantly being asked when they will bring back the Spring Hunt in Ontario--I don't believe that will ever happen, in spite of all the rumors you hear. The rules for Northwestern Ontario are made in Peterbough which is a town slightly south of Detriot.

I know the bear population in Minnesota and Wisconsin as well as Northwestern Ontario has increased dramatically in the last 30 years and I believe that has more to do with habitat than it does with hunting.

[Outfitter17]

They cancelled the spring hunt in ontario in 1998 and just like bowfin mentioned there is really nothing for it to compete against. I know many outfitters that only did spring hunts and not fall hunts, because fall hunts were tough to book, because they competed against all other fall hunting options out there.

I to hear rumors that the spring hunt may come back but I am not holding my breath.

We do however hear more complaints in the last 5 years about nussiance bears in the small towns than in the past when the hunt was going on.

[Bowfin]

My two cents,

Down here in Minnesota, I've "heard" the number of bear hunters and past complaints about "crowding" is having an effect on the number of bear permits available every year - not only the bear population. Through the 1990's, the number of bear hunters increased and also hunter complaints that they were tripping over each other - the number of people applying for bear permits started to decrease. The last couple of years, the DNR has seemed to find the level of bear permits which the woods can handle each year.

Once mid-September hits the throngs of grouse hunters, bow hunters, small game hunters quickly put the skids on the bear season causing bears to become nocturnal and sporatic hitting the baits.

By adding a spring hunt, MN would increase the opportunites for bear hunters by utilizing the resource for a greater part of the year and at a time when there is no competition from other kinds of hunting. It would also bring in some more dollars to the DNR. Again, a spring hunt seems to make scientific and "logical" sense but I've been on this earth long enough to know "logic" and science are not enough when they come against politics.

I've been in the woods of northern Minnesota year round on a weekly basis for many years. You see no one in the woods spring, then in fall everyone is out - there is room for a spring hunt in MN.

[Brownie77]

What about a trapping season for bear. Maine has one, it is the last place in the US you can trap a bear, and that is one of my dreams. Not the big nasty bear traps with teeth, but the foot snares they use to relocate bears, that would be a rush.