By Walt Young

sports@altoonamirror.com

Pennsylvania’s four-day statewide firearms bear season begins this weekend on Saturday and continues through Tuesday

More than 206,000 hunters bought a bear license in 2023, and the Pennsylvania Game Commission expects a similar turnout for the several bear-hunting opportunities scheduled for 2024. A special archery season for several Wildlife Management Units in southeastern Pennsylvania bear season began on Sept. 21 and continues through Nov. 29.

A statewide muzzleloader season and a special firearms season for junior and senior license holders, mentored permit holders, active-duty military and certain disabled persons was held on Oct. 24-26. And several selected WMUs will have an extended bear season that runs concurrently with the statewide firearms deer season beginning on Nov. 30.

Annual bear harvests have consistently been more than 3,000 bears most years during the past 20 years, with the all-time record harvest of 4,657 occurring in 2019. Pennsylvania hunters harvested 2,920 black bears in 2023. That total was down somewhat from the 3,170 bears that were taken in the 2023 seasons.

In 2023, the statewide firearms bear season accounted for 1,086 bears, while 695 bears were taken during the statewide archery bear season. Hunters bagged 591 bears during the extended season, 424 during the muzzleloader season, 117 during the special firearms season and seven during the early archery season.

Bear hunting opportunities are available in just about every area of Pennsylvania. In 2023, hunters bagged at least one bear in 58 of the state’s 67 counties and 20 of the state’s 22 WMUs. Tioga County is always one of the top counties each year in bear harvest and led the state in 2022 with a total of 176 bears. Hunters also took bears in all of the counties in our region during 2023. Those totals were: Bedford, 34; Huntingdon, 25; Blair, 11; Clearfield, 72; Centre, 71; and Cambria, 5.

Bear check stations became mandatory in Pennsylvania in 1973, so all successful bear hunters are required to take their bear to be checked by Game Commission personnel with 24 hours of the kill. At the check station, the animal is weighed, and a tooth is extracted to determine its age. Wildlife managers use the data obtained from the check stations to monitor the composition of Pennsylvania’s bear population.

All of the information that has been gained at the bear check stations over the past 50 years provides solid proof that Pennsylvania consistently produces world-class trophy black bears. While the average weight of bears checked in by hunters is typically about 150 pounds for females and 200 pounds for males, much bigger bears are usually harvested each year.

Since 1992, seven bears weighing more than 800 pounds were taken in Pennsylvania, including an 875-pound monster from Pike County in 2010. The largest bear harvested in 2023 was a 691-pounder from Pike County during the extended rifle season. Five other bears weighing more than 600 pounds were also taken in 2023.

Even though only a small percentage of Pennsylvania bear hunters will be successful each season, the thrill of bagging a black bear and possibly even an amazing trophy-class bear draws upwards of 200,000 hunters to go bear hunting currently. I can attest to the thrill of taking a bear in Pennsylvania as I was fortunate enough to get a bear while hunting alone back in 1998.

After that, I generally was satisfied that one bear was enough for my hunting career and considered myself a retired bear hunter. But in 2005, a good friend coaxed me into going bear hunting with a gang of other hunters in southern Huntingdon County. That decision led to what would be the most eventful day of bear hunting I would ever experience.

We met well before dawn that morning with the strategy of putting on as many bear drives as possible that day with a full complement of 25 hunters to execute that plan. I anchored the right flank of our line of watchers on the first drive and waited in the dark for the drive to start. When dawn arrived, the divers began their march with each man giving an occasional shout to help keep the maneuver in line.

As the drivers got close, I began to think this effort would come up empty. Then two quick shots erupted just to my left, and a few minutes later, another behind where I sat.

When the drivers came through, everyone headed toward the source of the shots. We soon encountered one of our crew who reported he had indeed killed a bear. He had fired twice and hit it as it came toward him from the drive. Then he followed the blood trail after the bear ran past him and found the animal down a short distance away.

Soon the whole gang was huddled wide-eyed around the dead bear. Everyone laughed when the shooter told us the bear was still alive when he approached and had scratched and bit him before he could deliver the finishing shot. The laughing stopped when he opened his shirt revealing a nasty set of claw marks across his stomach and wet blood on his thigh.

One of our party happened to be a first responder and volunteered to take the injured hunter to the emergency room to have his wounds treated. The rest of us loaded the dead bear in someone’s truck and continued hunting. We managed to kill two more bears before lunch that day.

Meanwhile at the ER, because the injury involved a wild animal bite, medical protocol required the Game Commission to take tissue samples of the bear in order to test for rabies.

And later that week, the Game Commission also sent out a press release regarding the incident, citing it was the first time on record that a hunter in Pennsylvania was attacked while attempting to recover a black bear. As I said, it was a most eventful day.