we used dogs the first 2 weekends. treed a bear once but couldn't get to it. Then 4/22/2013 me and my brother went for a walk looking for tracks. We ended up spotting him 750 yards away. We watched him for 4 hours before we decided to shoot him. We walked up pn him and noticed he was way bigger than we thought. We are way happy. The taxidermist said he would be about 21 inches. No dogs, just more of a spot and stalk. It was a blast!