Montana fall black bear

[kariutta]

I am starting to put together a rough plan for a fall black bear hunt this fall. Never been hunting in Montana but read lots of articles. Planning to backpack hunt, I'm not looking for hotspots but has anyone hunted bmu 150? Worried it might have to many hikers and/or just have poor bear number. Hard to plan an out of state hunt in an area i've never been.
Thanks!

 

[Straight Shooter]

I am from Montana. What area is bmu 150?

 

[sp6x6]

You'll be deep in bear country, including a high concentration of grizzly.Find a good huckleberry patch and find a bear

 

[Straight Shooter]

I just looked it up. Probably more grizz than black bear. Used to hunt and backpack that area 30 years ago. A lot more grizz there now than there was then.

 

[dogz]

Welcome to the Forum-luck on your hunt

 

[dogz]

So much of hunting is about timing, and for sure bear hunting be it spring or fall that's about the most important thing.

I'd heavily encourage you to plan your hunt as close to the opener as you possibly can. Most of the country I hunt in the fall the berries will begin to dry up around the opener or a week or so later. Good berry crop years in my part of the world happen about one in 4 or 5 years....

Hope that makes sense?

 

[kariutta]

Thanks, and I will be going early october.

 

[Reemty J]

October is too late for berries unless it's kinikinik they will be getting close to switching to pine cone squirrel caches by then, so they are in the timber more and difficult to spot at a distance

 

[dogz]

Reemty has it spot on, come October the bruins will be scattered and moving around with no rhyme or reason to them. Unless you find a elk carcass they'll be extremely hard to catch up to.

Can you come earlier? If I were you and you could make it I'd shoot for the 15th-25th of Sept at the lastest.

But, that's just me

 

[kariutta]

Unfortunately not, the way vacation works at my job early October is the best I can do.

 

[dogz]

best you can do is hope for a warmish fall then so the berries don't freeze up and dry up too soon

One way or another being in the mountains is always a good thing

 

[TopPin]

It truly depends on the weather pattern for fall black bears, if it's a wet summer or the gates of hell open up like they did the last couple years. If it's a hot dry summer most of the high elevation bears actually migrate down closer to main water sources, rivers lakes streams that didn't dry up. 2022 was a prime example of this, pushing most bears down into the river bottoms, trying to chase as much available late season high fat food sources. Your success and where you key in on trying to find bears in the fall is more logical to look at the weather pattern of the summer and moister content in higher elevations. If it's a good spring and a mild summer your chances of harvesting a bear are very high if you understand the availability of foraging feed sources, if it's hot and dry you need to key in on flowing and predominate water, and heavily shaded areas.

 

[TopPin]

Fall bear 2022

 

[dogz]

Yeah that's how they end up in towns and 50 miles or so off the Front. They get in the creeks, rivers etc and just get to wandering and eating. All of a sudden they look up and they're in town or wherever...