bear hunting in the fall

Ok guys I am not a bear hunter, so excuse me for being ignorant on the subject. Here in New Mexico people use dogs to hunt bears in the fall, this really makes it tough for us elk hunters. I know some states do not allow the use of dogs, and some states have a spring season as well. Is there any reason why States like New Mexico only allow bear hunting with dogs while other people are hunting elk? It really makes the national forest congested.

There are only so many months in the year! Fat fall bears are fun to chase with hounds. I've archery hunted elk in Sept for many years in areas that have fall bear chase season, and have never had a conflict with houndsmen.

Most hound hunters run the roads. Further from roads, the less conflict you'll have.

Good luck, try to minimize conflicts, and PLEASE refuse the urge to go to battle with fellow hunters. We must stay united to stay off further limits to our hunting traditions.

a good fall bear will have an excellent coat, hunting in spring means hunting bears when they are rubbing their coat off, you kind of have a deadline to get a bear before the coat is bad, whereas in the fall they can only get better. Also the fall bears have more fat and I have found bear fat to be excellent for grinding in with sausage and rendering for other uses. I have only killed spring bears, one had a thick excellent coat the other had a thinner but still good coat. Neither had much fat on them. My buddy has only killed fall bears and all of his had excellent coats and several inches of good fat covering the body.

My suggestion is to plan for the congestion and hunt areas that see fewer hound hunters or just work with it.

One thing is, be nice to the houndsmen chasing their dogs, let them know how far ahead there dogs are, be polite to them, most the time they know where the elk are, if your a ##### they wont give you the time of day, when we are out in the fall chasing bears, we get both types, can you guess who we tell where the elk are?


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Idelkslayer,

That makes a lot of sense about the coats. Thanks for the reply!

Sorry UGAhunter, did not intend to offend you. I'm trying to move from being frustrated to something more progressive like understanding. IDelkslayer made a good point on why bear hunting is more beneficial in the fall versus in the spring. Your right, sportsmen should not not be confrontational to each other. But we also need to be able to communicate openly without going into defense mode. But thank you for the reply.