Anyone familiar with black bear hunting in northern PA? Mckean and Potter county specifically unless there are other areas I should be looking at?

I thinking I am going to make the trip down there for for both archery and regular season in the fall and I'm looking for any advice for WMUs 3A, 2G, or 2H.

I'm a PA resident and occasional bear hunter (when vacation days allow). PA doesn't allow baiting, and archery season doesn't coincide with archery deer. This means archery is a rather low-odds endeavor.

I hunt in Jefferson County (100 miles south and west of your intended area). The hunting strategies are similar. The best odds are by driving the nastiest rhododendron, laurel, and grape vine thickets (especially if those are under an oak canopy in a good acorn year). I shot my bear in 2001 in a 4-person group doing drives in that type of terrain. Larger groups (up to 25 by state law) tend to have the most success because they can cover the most terrain. It's usually very hilly and physically demanding.

The best odds as a solo hunter would probably be from a treestand near a food source (acorns, beech nuts, or standing corn) and thick cover.

Thanks for the info. I'm thinking of heading down a few times this summer to do some scouting and see if I can locate some food source areas for this fall.

Wishing you luck in your hunting here in PA. There is a very good population of black bears in several of the counties in north central PA. Potter and Tioga counties have more bears than they ever have had. Pike County in the northeastern corner of the state is always good. Here is a link for a news article that may have some useful information for you:

http://www.outdoorhub.com/news...fth-largest-history/

The archery bear season, statewide, is November 17-21, followed by the rifle bear season November 22-26. Unfortunately we have not yet entered the 21st century in PA and hunting for bears is not legal on Sundays. Perhaps someday?
In several of our management areas, bears will be legal game during December's rifle deer season. You can check how this applies to any part of the state at this webpage:
http://www.portal.state.pa.us/...release__028_14.html

While it is not a frequent occurance for a PA archery hunter to take a bear, it does happen, and I happen to have been one of the lucky ones a couple of years ago. No, it isn't a monster. We do have some huge black bears in PA though.

Biggest bear in Pike Co was 900 lbs IIRC !!
The number of bears from a sow used to be 2 but now they are up to as many as 5 ! The ones we checked out were 4 very healthy cubs.

OT -Kahr Arms apparently thinks PA is a good place as they are moving into an industrial park in Pike Co.They are inviting other gun type companies to join them .

A few bear photos for you, all from Somerset County in southwestern PA.

This first one is from the porch of our cabin:


Also from the porch of our cabin, this boar chasing a sow last summer:


As usual, some of the best photo opportunities have happened when I was not carrying a camera or couldn't get to it in time. I have seen sow bears with as many as five cubs. Three years ago, I passed up a shot at a sow with four cubs of the year during our November rifle bear season. Perhaps I should have taken the shot since another hunter killed the same bear a few hundred yards from me. The bear population in the area of our camp has grown so much that the extended season during rifle deer season will occur in our wildlife management unit this year.

Some years ago, a former student of mine worked as a volunteer with Gary Alt during his bear studies. In this photo she holds two cubs that were removed from a den during winter in Pike County.

Some information sources you may find helpful:
1. A detailed public use map for the Susquehannock State Forest in Potter County. One area to check out would be the Hammersley wilderness area near Cross Fork.
http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/cs...ocument/D_000880.pdf

2. DCNR website where you can find maps of all of the state forests in PA.
http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/fo...teforests/index.aspx

Bears can be big there and since drives are the only realistic option for one I'd get in shape and pack a heavier rifle than one would ordinarily use for black bears. And be prepared for a shot at the rear end of a rapidly departing bear, it is the most likely shot you are going to get. Good luck

quote:

Originally posted by Mikelravy:
Bears can be big there and since drives are the only realistic option for one I'd get in shape and pack a heavier rifle than one would ordinarily use for black bears. And be prepared for a shot at the rear end of a rapidly departing bear, it is the most likely shot you are going to get. Good luck

Are drives the only way to hunt them?

If I go solo during rifle and archery season am I going to run into countless groups of guys?

Driving is usually done during rifle season, not archery season. You will probably not run into large groups driving during the bow season, but you may in rifle season. The trick to archery hunting is to pattern a bear and ambush him during his daily routine travels. Some prefer a stand close to a crop field. From my experience, bears are similar to other game animals in that they tend to travel the same paths on a daily basis. One of the problems I have run into during archery season is that many of the larger bears become nocturnal and do their feeding after dark.

If you can get with a gang that drives during rifle season that is the most productive method of hunting them. If not, don't pass up the season as many bears are taken by stand hunters who happen to be in the right place at the right time. Luck sometimes trumps skill. Good luck to you.

Right I have taken two bears in the vicinity of organized drives. Also drives frequently end up pushing the bears into the thickest patches of mountain laurel, grapevine aand stuff. They come out eventually and if you are lucky you might get a shot. I'm not a bow hunter, but it seems like a pretty low percentage deal. Rifle hunting in PA is a long way fronm a sure thing. I'm 3 out of almost 50 years in getting a shot.

Pretty much my results, Mike. However, I have had shots three out of the past five years and not one before that. Perhaps it is due to the huge increase in the number of bears we have now over what we had when I started hunting them in Potter County in the 1960s. For many years we thought it was a pretty good bear season when we took 500 bears. Now 3000 is considered a poor showing. We never had bears in the southern part of the state until the 1990s. At another camp in south central PA we saw our first bear in 1992. All of a sudden we have them out the gazoo. Our camp in Somerset county never has put on drives, but we have had shots at bears nearly every year. We do a lot of scouting all year long, so maybe that has something to do with it.
We also have the best success from stands along the edges of the thick and nasty stuff. Big patches of mountain laurel are our favorite locations.