Fall bear season in Arizona is a hunt that I hold more dear than most. I cherish both the August and October seasons and 2024 was a year where I devoted more time than ever to them. 21 days were spent in the field hunting. That doesn’t include any scouting trips I made, which add up to an additional 5 days.
My August hunt was spent with my good buddy Brian. He’s a newer bear hunter and AZ resident. Brian and I made several scouting trips to a new unit for us. In the end we turned up 3 bears pre-season and a whole ton of food and water. We had the bear necessities and even the bears. The plan was to dedicate 8 days to the hunt. In all honesty with what we were seeing, I didn’t think it would take that long to slip an arrow into one of these desert bears. Boy, was I wrong.
Even though we found bears relatively easy during our scouting trips only a few weeks prior, it was as if the bears disappeared once the hunt started. Go figure right? Mother Nature was likely laughing at us in these moments of frustration. We on the other hand were perplexed.
After days of turning up nothing but deer, javelina, and rattlesnakes we moved units. We moved to a “honey hole” of mine thinking all would be good. Again, we were wrong. There were other hunters in the area and the full moon with scorching heat wasn’t doing us any favors either. We did this for a few days and Brian would make his way home from there. I spent a few days solo in another unit. While I got into some decent bear sign, I never turned up a bear. Onto the October hunt.
Pre-season I scouted an area I was familiar with and turned up a jet black boar. It was so exciting to finally lay eyes on a bear. I just hoped that he would stick around until the hunt came.
This hunt would be a bit different than my usual routine. My family would join me for a few days before the season started for some much needed camping time. Once opening day came, they’d head home and it would just be me and my camera guy. Hopes were skyrocketing on this one. I saw a bear pre-season and had a ton of history in the area taking bears home over the years.
Opening day came and it was the same old same old from August. Hunters, heat, and no bears. On top of that, both of us got sick during the hunt. We’d hunt in the morning, sleep during the day, and hunt in the evening. The fevers were flowing and the bears were not. The lions on the other hand? Those were more prevalent than I’ve ever seen.
I’m not going to spend a ton of time talking about the lion situation, as that deserves its own article. What I will say is that we saw 4 lions in 48 hours. One of which came home with me. We were so lucky to see what we saw and I feel so fortunate to have taken my second lion.
After spending a few more days in the field and getting the lion home, I’d go back out for a few 2-3 day stretches. I did end up seeing a bear one of the last evenings out, but I only saw him for a few seconds. It was a jet black bear feeding from right to left, floating across the hillside with nothing stopping it. No shots were fired. I tried to set up on the bear again the following day, but he never showed. That was it. My season was over.
As the sun set on my last day of bear hunting for 2024, a lot of thoughts raced through my head. One, this was the first year in many that a bear didn’t come home with me from the high deserts of Arizona. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t bum me out. With that said, I don’t see the season as a complete loss. The situation at hand forced me out of my comfort zone. It caused me to see a ton of new areas that I had been wondering about for a long while. I even learned about a new species of oak that I didn’t know existed. Growing complacent is a great way to put a halt to growth. This season was a reminder of that what I learned will serve me well on future bear hunts to come. Here’s to 2024 and onto thoughts of 2025.
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