Piedmont Bear Season

lasttombstone

lasttombstone

Kinder, Gentler LTS
The other thread about bear hunting got me to thinking. A bear season was started for Granville Co. in 2014. There were 4 taken that year. The next year 1 and last year there were 3. I have been living here in Granville for over 20 years now and have never seen any bear sign on my place. I guess it was about 10 years now I got some pictures of one when he found my corn feeder but he was gone in 2 days and never saw him again. There have been sightings here for a number of years but hardly what anyone would call a huntable population. And only 8 killed in 3 seasons, I tend to believe they were targets of opportunity, "Oh, a bear. I can shoot it." Hardly what I call hunting ( casting no aspersions if one of the successful hunters is on here).

So, are there so many bears in the rest of the Central Region that the whole region gets lumped together for a bear season or are the populous areas feeling so threatened when a wandering bear ends up a tree and therefore on the 6 o'clock news that people feel threatened and want them eradicated before they take over?

Personally, if I see a bear up here when it is in season I know I won't shoot it. With the outlook of a once in a 20 year encounter, I'll just enjoy experience.

What are other's feelings on having a season on such a limited resource.
 

hog&deerhunter

Ten Pointer
The season isn't in place because the rest of central NC has a lot of bears. It is there to keep bears from spreading into central NC and keep them from being a nuisance since it is more populated. I don't agree with it either.
 
ScottyB

ScottyB

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
So if it is legal to shoot and a hunter has the rare opportunity to take a bear...in the central season....you do not call that hunting? Then what exactly is it? I'm a little confused on that point.
 
ScottyB

ScottyB

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
I don't think the Bears are a problem in your area and ya'll could handle a managed population up that way. It's a little different with the big population areas. They need to split it up better
 

hog&deerhunter

Ten Pointer
I think the OP IS saying that you can't really say you are bear hunting or specifically say you are a bear hunter when you haven't had one in your neck of the woods for 20 years.
 

Muzzleodor

Eight Pointer
I hunt deer and small game. I buy a bear tag every year for two reasons, if I got the rare opportunity to take one while deer hunting and felt like taking that particular one I could do it. Second reason is in case I am hunting or just outdoors and encounter a bear that wants to get himself shot I can do it without any legal hassle etc.
 
ScottyB

ScottyB

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
Muzzleodor said:
I hunt deer and small game. I buy a bear tag every year for two reasons, if I got the rare opportunity to take one while deer hunting and felt like taking that particular one I could do it. Second reason is in case I am hunting or just outdoors and encounter a bear that wants to get himself shot I can do it without any legal hassle etc.
Click to expand...

Kind of my thinking too. I am not coyote hunting when sitting in the deer stand but I will bust ones :donk:donk:donk if given the chance!
 
lasttombstone

lasttombstone

Kinder, Gentler LTS
ScottyB said:
So if it is legal to shoot and a hunter has the rare opportunity to take a bear...in the central season....you do not call that hunting? Then what exactly is it? I'm a little confused on that point.
Click to expand...

Maybe I should have stated, "applied to myself", prior to that statement. For myself, I have a target. My goal is to use my skills and knowledge, and probably a lot of luck these days, to find and take that target. I don't go into the woods just to shoot whatever I see. For me, that would be shooting and not hunting. Others can do that as legal and it is fine with me, it's just not me. I can sit at my bench and shoot paper and steel all day and be fine. I'm not rich but I'm not so impoverished that I have to kill something all the time to feel successful. It took me about 30 years to learn that but I'm good with the way I look at hunting now.

So I apologize if I offended and intimated that anyone who shot something just cause it was legal and presented itself wasn't hunting.
There, did I get it straight that time?
 
lasttombstone

lasttombstone

Kinder, Gentler LTS
Well, I guess I got longwinded again and added something that distracted from my original intend so I'll just drop this one and ask for the thread to be deleted before it gets to be another one of "those threads".
 
ScottyB

ScottyB

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
You didn't offend me at all.......I would love to take a bear, but I am not interested in dogs being involved....just not my thing. So I would love to have a nice one slide by my stand....it would be a one and done for me!
 
NCST8GUY

NCST8GUY

Frozen H20 Guy
Our GW where we hunt in Caswell discussed this the year it came out. Clearly opening up a bear season in counties that CLEARLY have few or even 0 bears, served one purpose. His explanation was "Greensboro doesn't want bears tearing through neighborhood trash cans every night". He said Greensboro in jest, he meant pretty much every large town in the Piedmont. The ncwrc did NOT want bear problems like "New Jersey" has had.

That made a lot of sense to me. Bottom line, Peidmont will never see a huntable bear population.

If you are lucky enough to see one, you probably won't see two lol.
 
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QuietButDeadly

QuietButDeadly

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
High density bear population and high density human population to not mesh well together. With high bear density in the eastern part and western part of the state, it is reasonable to assume that the two populations would be expanding toward the piedmont, especially if the overall population was increasing.

The opening of the central counties to allow the take of bear during the deer gun season was done to help keep the bear from getting established in the more densely human populated piedmont. We occasionally have a bear wander through our area but usually in the spring as evidenced by some killed on the highways. But in all my years, I have never seen one during deer season. I am not a bear hunter but I have a stamp and if I get the opportunity for an incidental kill, I will probably take it.
 
QBD2

QBD2

Old Mossy Horns
They established the season to keep from having bears, not because we have a huntable population.

The establishment of a central bear season wasn't for resident bears, it was for the wanderers.
 
woodmoose

woodmoose

Administrator
Staff member
Contributor
I bear hunt from oct thru dec,,,,,,every once in a while I shoot a pesky deer eating my bear corn,,,,,,,
 
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RJ1

Ten Pointer
As stated by several the NCWRC does not want bears in the Piedmont section of N.C.but I think in the years to come certain counties will have a huntable population and sightings will increase in other areas of the Piedmont for two reasons if the food sources are there the bear will eventually get there much like the deer have,2nd reason is I don't think you can control the population growth by just still hunting them.
 
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jug

jug

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
The NCWRC is worried that bears will become a Nuisance. If that happens they are scared of what will happen. Last year up near Murfreesboro, an old woman was eaten by bears . She had been feeding the bears and it got out of hand. I work for the mother of the wildlife biologist who investigated the incident . She said nothing was told about it to the news media because of the fear that might start up and the pressure that may come down onto the NCWRC.
 
caswelltrophyhunter

caswelltrophyhunter

Ten Pointer
Lee I can honestly say I would have agreed with you probably 4 yrs ago , but now since I've hunted and now own a property that has bear on it that live there, they are not moving on and pics of bear in other places pretty regular now I can say that we need a bear season to kinda keep them in check so to speak ...you are just fortunate that they haven't camped on you yet but in a few more years I'd bet you will be seeing Yogi alot more ....
 
dpc

dpc

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
RJ1 said:
As stated by several the NCWRC does not want bears in the Piedmont section of N.C.but I think in the years to come certain counties will have a huntable population and sightings will increase in other areas of the Piedmont for two reasons if the food sources are there the bear will eventually get there much like the deer have,2nd reason is I don't think you can control the population growth by just still hunting them.I have already passed thru some areas on the way to hunt either the mountains or the at the coast with a load of hounds and had them strike a scent just outside some very large cities and my hound don't lie.
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Have you followed the Asheville Urban bear study? Some of the bears went as far as Tennesee and returned. Others never left the city limits. Was pretty interesting.
 
Eric Revo

Eric Revo

Old Mossy Horns
Contributor
I personally have no desire to kill a bear, but have no problem with anyone taking a legal animal as long as it is utilized or necessary.
My wife would love for me to kill a bear, as she likes the meat and wants a bearskin rug.
 
bowhuntingrook

bowhuntingrook

Old Mossy Horns
There are quite a few bears in Granville county and more in Northern Granville in the reports I've seen and heard. I have pics but I've seen others pics as well as I work EMS and hear of roadkill as well as sightings officers get called too. They've called EMS before to get us to help load a roadkill bear into the truck just north of Oxford within past year. I've heard more and more each year. I think it's a very wide gap in how many are killed/actually reported and how many we have.
 
bowhuntingrook

bowhuntingrook

Old Mossy Horns
Let's put it this way, only times I've got my own bear on camera was when my dad spills the whole bag of corn in one spot, and first day I put out a mineral. Usually corn is spread out, this is in 6 years of corning so they are around, and that nose tells them what's worth there time and what's not, throw out some "buck" jam or something, heard that may work.
 
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RJ1

Ten Pointer
dpc said:
Have you followed the Asheville Urban bear study? Some of the bears went as far as Tennesee and returned. Others never left the city limits. Was pretty interesting.
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Yes I have good information.
 

RJ1

Ten Pointer
jug said:
The NCWRC is worried that bears will become a Nuisance. If that happens they are scared of what will happen. Last year up near Murfreesboro, an old woman was eaten by bears . She had been feeding the bears and it got out of hand. I work for the mother of the wildlife biologist who investigated the incident . She said nothing was told about it to the news media because of the fear that might start up and the pressure that may come down onto the NCWRC.
Click to expand...

Feeding bear is one thing I have a feeding station with a live feed camera set up on it on our farm that I use to get the bear sent in my young hounds nose no hunting of any kind is allowed near it,but forgetting that they are wild animals not pets is what gets people in trouble.
 
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Ldsoldier

Ldsoldier

Old Mossy Horns
RJ1 said:
As stated by several the NCWRC does not want bears in the Piedmont section of N.C.but I think in the years to come certain counties will have a huntable population and sightings will increase in other areas of the Piedmont for two reasons if the food sources are there the bear will eventually get there much like the deer have,2nd reason is I don't think you can control the population growth by just still hunting them.
Click to expand...

You're right. The goal is more to slow the spread than to stop it. It's not realistic to assume that hunters will hold them off indefinitely, but if they kill a significant number of females they can slow the growth. Not sure how many of ya'll have looked at the projected population growth in the piedmont (especially the I-40 corridor) in the next 10-20 years, but it's not good. Explosion doesn't begin to describe it. If I remember right the triangle, triad, and Charlotte are all supposed to basically double in size. Throw bears in there and it's a disaster waiting to happen. And don't think you can have them in Franklin county but not Wake. It don't work that way.
 
stiab

stiab

Twelve Pointer
Contributor
hog&deerhunter said:
The season isn't in place because the rest of central NC has a lot of bears. It is there to keep bears from spreading into central NC and keep them from being a nuisance since it is more populated. I don't agree with it either.
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^^^^This. The NCWRC does not want human/bear interactions in the Piedmont. Poor management, in my opinion.

Edited to add: poor management because Vance County has very little in common with the population centers of the real Piedmont.
 
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GSOHunter

Twelve Pointer
Contributor
They are expanding rapidly in Martinsville. Only a matter of time before Rockingham and Caswell get a bunch. Every few years a bear gets really lost and wanders in to Greensboro. The schools go on lockdown and people start freaking out.
 
stiab

stiab

Twelve Pointer
Contributor
Vance County bear...

407179311.jpg
 
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