MuleyMadness Hunting Forums

Hey everybody, me and my dad have been shed hunting in Black Bear country and now that we have been in some close quarters with them I have been wanting to know some info about them. First as we are walking along through the tree's I was smellying something kind of sweet and later in the day I found some fresh bear scat and broke it apart and smelled it, it had a very similiar smell. So could someone please tell me if it was just a plant or was I smelling a bear while I was in the tree's. And we have been seeing a lot sign through out there area that we have been hiking in which is about 7 square miles, so are there just a lot of bears or do the bears that are there just move around quite a bit. Thank you for your response's.

NVhunter, where were you guys shed hunting?

I'm not trying to be an A-hole but its kind of a secret spot for us, we dont want people going in there scouting for bear and scare the resident deer out of the area. sorry

I think I would describe a bear smell as more of a musky or almost stale smell. They tend to eat plants for the first couple of weeks out of hibernation, then back to eating most anything.

yeah thats all we have been seeing in their crap is nothing but grass. Im looking forward to being able to see a bear up there but definantly not in close range. We have bumped a couple of bears recently, we could hear branch's breaking. We also heard one bear popping his jaw and another one doing that whoofing sound while moving towards us. This is a picture of a bear track we found. we measured its width and it came out to 7". A guy that we were with told us that the width of a bears paw is the same as their height but in feet not inch's. Is this true and about how much would a 7ft black bear weigh?

I smell stuff like that in the areas I hunt in Lake Tahoe. Usually its caused by the skunk cabbage. The bears in my area love the stuff and are drawn to it. Maybe thats what you are smelling. Just a thought.