Black bear hunting here in Pennsylvania is not easy but we have some of the largest bears in the country. Every year someone takes a 600-700 pounder and quite a few are in the 400-500 range. Those are BIG bears. Gary Alt used to be the states bear biologist until he took over the states deer program a few years ago. He wrote several times about a Pike County bear that he had trapped and tagged several times that was just over 1000 pounds!!!!!!!!!! That is the mother of all bears!! To date, no one has taken this bear.

The bear range has been expanding here in Pennsylvania. Typically they had been concentrated in the more mountainous and remote regions but they have been expanding into more populated counties. They have even been spotted in the Pittsburgh area! When they get that close they are either trapped and taken back to the mountains or they wind up getting hit by cars.

While deer hunting with my 12 year old daughter last weekend we had what I estimate to be a 400 pound blackie feed to within 10 yards of our ground blind and he never know we were there! Pretty exiting...especially for a 12 year old little girl. This was in an area that is not known for bears. I may have to buy a tag and chase that one around in 3 weeks