Way back in 2006 I harvested my one and only black bear. I had been fortunate enough to hook up with some hound guys and they put me onto a good bear. Since it was my first bear hunt everything was new to me, but I could not have had a better experience. I was amazed at how well the dogs did their job and I marveled at the whole hound chase scene. After that hunt I thought that if I ever bear hunted again, I would like to try it over a bait station.

Since my one and only harvest, the bears have been expanding their range further south and trail cameras confirm that. Bear photos are no longer a rare occurrence but more like an occasional happening. That is the reason I opted to apply for a tag in this area as opposed to heading up north were bears are more abundant. 

I drew a tag for this season and I am waiting for a big boar to finish up on the nuts and berries binge cycle in order to return to the bait station. Before the nuts and berries ripened the bears were pretty regular visitors to the station but now it’s a waiting game. I only have until Oct. 7, to close the bear deal.

A couple of weeks ago a bruiser bear came in several nights in a row. A good guess would be that it weighed well over 300 pounds. The question you are asking is: Why didn’t I go after him? My answer is because I was elk hunting in Colorado.

Waiting for the bears to return has provided me with some time to do a little research and here are some facts about black bears. Wisconsin has a healthy and growing black bear population with the most recent estimates from the Wisconsin DNR putting the number at a little over 24,000.

Wisconsin bear hunter success rates continue to be strong. On average, about one in three bear hunters successfully harvest a bear.

In 2024, Wisconsin hunters harvested 4,285 black bears.  That’s a significant rebound from the 2,922 bears harvested in 2023.

Before 1965 a bear could be hunted without a special bear license by a hunter who held a deer license. In 1965 a fall bear season was established, requiring hunters to have a special bear license.

The largest hunter-killed black bear recorded in Wisconsin weighed 780 pounds and was harvested by Dennis Arndt in 2014. Another contender for the largest was Naiya Iraci, an 11-year-old hunter who shot a 720-pound bear in 2020 that may have weighed over 800 pounds live. 

I will be ready to roll when the time comes but right now it’s a little frustrating that the almost non-stop action at the bait station has now slowed to practically nothing. I surely don’t need a 700 pounder; I just really need a bear that doesn’t love nuts and berries so much.

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