Most focus in the hunting world gets put onto all things ungulate. That being deer, elk, moose, caribou, etc. Basically, all of things with antlers or horns. Rightfully so! All of those species are magnificent animals with a ton of opportunity behind them for the blue collar hunter to take advantage of. Arizona is no exception in that right. We have a massive amount of attention put on our huge bull elk and tons of opportunity for mule deer and coues deer, especially for the bowhunter. Those are some of my favorite hunts of the year, but they are not my absolute favorite. For me, that title rests in the paws of our Arizona black bear. Yes, we do in fact have bears here in our hot and desolate desert believe it or not. Let me tell you why they are my favorite animal to hunt here and the best hunt you’ve probably never heard of.
A lot of folks have to do a double take when I tell them, not only are there bears here in Arizona, but also hunting opportunity for them. I’m not talking a short little 10 day season either. You can realistically hunt bears here 9 months out of the year. Our first spring season(OTC) opens late March and will carry into early May. From there, our spring draw hunt will open and that will end in late July. A few OTC(over the counter) units will also carry into late July as well. After that, our first fall hunt will open in early August, followed up by another in late August, which will end around the middle of September. Lastly, we have another fall hunt that will open first week of October and run through the end of the year. So, you see? There is no shortage of opportunity here to hunt bears. This is all pending sow quota limits of course. Arizona is broken up into units and each unit that allows bear hunting operates off of a sow(female) quota limit. Once that limit is met, that unit will close the following Wednesday at sundown.
You might be wondering how the Game and Fish keeps track of all of this? In Arizona you are required to present the hide(with proof of sex) and skull of your bear no more than 10 days after your harvest. You are also required to call in your harvest within 48 hours of the kill. They will gather some data on this, take a tooth from your bear, and in about a year you will get an age card back that will actually tell you how old your bear was. Pretty cool.
Through my early years of stumbling around trying to locate bears here in Arizona, two things became apparent to me. One, this stuff is hard as heck and I’ve got a lot to learn. Two, I was finding more spots for deer and elk than I ever had before. The bears kept me moving around and trying to find good spots for them. In the whole process, I had been accumulating sweet deer and elk spots that I could use later on. It was like killing 3 birds with one stone. For every good bear spot I’d find, there was 4 good deer spots. When you are looking for them for almost the whole year, you tend to cover a lot of country, in a wide variety of conditions. By doing so, my scouting was minimal when deer or elk season would come.
The more I dove into bear hunting here in Arizona, the more I realized that this was no easy walk in the park hunt. Not that any hunt is, but this one especially pushed my limits physically and mentally. Physically, because the terrain that these bears call home is no joke. It’s steep, rugged, and sometimes downright dangerous. Sometimes, I laugh when I see where a bear is hanging out and the lengths they will go to get to a certain bush to snack on. I remember watch a bear slide on its belly down a steep rock slide bluff, just to get to a shrub that had acorns on it. Another time I watched a bear climb to the top of a tree in order to feed on the flowers that were blooming on the top. He ended up falling out of the tree and acting as if nothing happened.
The mental part came from the lack of bear sightings one will experience. There aren’t exactly herds of bears walking around the hills. You will see way more deer and elk out there than bears. Many times I found myself thinking, “what am I doing here? This seems impossible.” Then I would gain a glimmer of hope in the form of a track or scat. Something that would let me know that I was indeed on the right track and that the Arizona Black Bear did exist. You might go 5 days without seeing a bear, but then on that 6th day, you might see 8 of them. Stay with it, and you will find them.
After all of the hard work, dedication, and boot leather burnt, I was left with something that has become an obsession of mine. When you actually put the pieces together and things work out in your favor, that is an intoxicating feeling. For me, it was when I killed my first Arizona Black Bear, which you can read about in a post called Canyon Bruins. Before that hunt in the month of October, I had been scouring our Arizona bear country since June with little to nothing to show for it but sore muscles. I had seen one bear in early August, a few days before the season started. That was it. On this day in October, I ended up seeing 8-10 bears in one morning. Oh, how things can change at the drop of a hat. After the adventure of the pack out and getting that bear back to my truck I knew I was done for. This would be something I would pursue for as long as I physically could. The end of a chapter and the beginning of a new one. One that I still salivate over.
Arizona black bear hunting is definitely not for everyone and comes with it’s fair share of adversity. From scalding hot and muggy temperatures, to days so slow you can’t think straight. For the ones that stick with it though and are willing to put in the time and energy, this hunt should be on your radar. Long seasons, beautiful country, and the possibility of wrapping your tag on one of our special Arizona black bears. They come in a wide variety of colors down here, which is unique to our area. I’ve seen some that look like they got in a fight with a paint can. On top of that, if you have never tried bear meat, you are missing out. It is some of the finest table fare out there when it comes to wild game. So, if you’ve never heard about our Arizona bears, now you know. If you have, you know all too well what I speak of.
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