Maine Bear Hunting and Trapping

Maine guides can help hunters navigate the area and the bear hunting process, and some offer different levels of assistance. As it pertains to using a guide in Maine, you have three options:

Fully-guided hunt: Guided bear hunts are usually a week long, with the Registered Maine Guide often providing lodging and meals. Guides specialize in hunting bears with dogs, still hunting, trapping, and/or over bait (learn more about the various methods in tip 3). Depending on the method(s) they specialize in, the guide typically maintains active bait site(s) and provides trained bear dogs and nearly all necessary equipment other than firearms. Guides have a wealth of information and offer guidance and tips for a successful hunt or trapping (shot placement, judging size and sex of bear, safety, etc.), provides transportation to and from hunting area, helps retrieve the bear, cares for the meat and hide, and assists hunters in properly registering their bear.

Semi-guided hunt: Some Registered Maine Guides offer semi-guided bear hunts for a reduced rate. In this scenario, the guide may provide a pre-baited site (with a stand or blind) and guidance (proper shot placement, safety, etc.), but the hunter would typically be responsible for maintaining the bait site, getting to and from the site, and harvesting and registering the animal. Guides may provide lodging and/or meals, and may offer meat processing or provide recommendations for a local meat cutter. Semi-guided hunts are often more affordable than fully-guided hunts, but still save you time and give you the benefit of a guide’s expertise.

Do-it-yourself hunt: If you choose not to use a guide, you will be responsible for all aspects of your hunt, including finding areas to hunt bears, obtaining necessary landowner permission, erecting a stand or blind, training dogs if you choose, and (if hunting with bait) obtaining bait and establishing and maintaining a bait site. This option is often more popular with residents due to non-residents’ time and travel restrictions.

To view listings of local guides, visit ww.maineguides.org or www.maineguides.com.

You’ll want to time your hunt prior to bears entering their winter dens. Bears typically enter dens by November 1st, but depending on natural food levels can enter as early as September or as late as December. In addition, female bears and bears in northern Maine typically enter dens earlier than males or bears in central Maine that stay out foraging longer.

Natural food levels play a key role in when bears enter their dens (and in hunters’ success). In a poor natural food year, bears show greater interest in bait and enter their winter dens early to conserve their limited fat reserves (meaning your chances of baiting a bear in the early season are good, but your chances of seeing one while hunting deer in November are not). In a good food year, bears show less interest in bait sites, because they have plenty of natural food already providing less opportunity to hunters using bait. Since they also keep foraging through late fall, November deer hunters gain more bear hunting opportunities. Natural food abundance is often predictable, with a good natural food year typically followed by a poor food year. For the most recent season’s natural food trends, check out the bear section of the most recent MDIFW Research and Management Report.

In Maine, there are four legal ways to take a bear: still hunting, hunting with dogs, baiting, and trapping. The best option for you depends on many factors including your experience level, physical stamina, patience, and more. Below is an overview of each method and some tips on how to make it a success:

Still Hunting

An excellent option for beginners or newer bear hunters, still hunting allows you to scout for bear while simultaneously hunting deer or moose. Because bears are elusive and are generally found in dense forest, still hunting success rates are significantly lower than other methods. When hunting in more open habitats (e.g. oak or beech ridges), hunters often have a limited time to view bears. This reduces shot options and may present a challenging, longer-range shot that could lead to higher wounding losses.

For a successful still hunt, take some time to scout out spots where you can hunt over natural foods or agricultural areas that attract bears. Great areas include beech and oak ridges, grown up cuts with late hanging cherry, riverside with lots of beaked hazelnuts, oat and corn fields, locations with lots of blackberries, bristly sarsaparilla, mountain ash, or wild apple trees.

Hunting with Dogs

Hunting with trained bear dogs is a unique, physically challenging, fast-paced experience that boasts a 25-30% success rate. This rate is even higher among those who hunt with guides (who spend a lot of time training their dogs!). Because of the time and expense involved in training and caring forany pet, let alone active dogs, many people find hiring a guide to be the best way to go for this hunting method.

When a bear is treed, a hunter can identify the size and sex of the animal, and take time to determine if they want to harvest it. This allows hunters to be selective and take a close, clean shot.

Learn about dog training and hunting permit requirements and laws related to hunting with dogs here.

Baiting

In general, hunters that use bait can expect a 25-30% success rate, with higher success rates among those that hire a guide. Baiting allows hunters time to view bears allowing hunters to be selective and take a close, clean shot. That said, it takes a serious time commitment to establish and maintain bait sites. You will need to plan, scout, identify spots to hunt, and obtain landowner permission and permits before even starting the work of maintaining bait sites (all reasons why many hunters use a guide).

Whether you use a guide or not, you’ll still need to have the patience to sit still in your stand for hours each day of hunting (more so during good natural food years). Even the slightest movement can cause a bear to flee.  Be sure to keep wind direction and air currents in mind as there is likely no animal in the woods with a more keen nose than a bear, especially one on the lookout for the presence of a hunter.

The idea is to create a bait and stand or blind setup where the presence of your bait allows some level of comfort for a bear to find and utilize it, but your human presence goes unnoticed.

Trapping:

Trappers experience similar success rates as hunters that hunt over bait or with trained bear dogs. Like those methods, trapping also provides opportunity for a close clean shot. However, trapping bears is challenging, and it takes time and hard work to become experienced enough to harvest a bear. Those less experienced can find it frustrating and less successful since it is difficult to gain experience when limited to one trap set at a time (either a cage-style or a cable-restraint foot trap).  The best place for a new trapper to start is by taking MDIFW’s black bear trapping education course or trapper safety education course. To harvest a bear, you’ll need a trapping license or a big game hunting license and a bear trapping permit.

Keep in mind, when using a cable foot restraint to capture a bear, a stop is required to avoid non-target captures and smaller bears. By law the closing diameter of the cable foot restraint must be no more than 2 ½ inches. This requirement will also minimize captures of most female bears and smaller males. If you are interested in being more selective when trapping a bear, you can employ the same techniques for determining size as you would when observing a bait site for hunting.

It is legal to harvest any bear, including a cub or a female with cubs. In years when natural foods are plentiful, bear cubs can approach 80 pounds and can be difficult to distinguish from other bears. In the fall, bear cubs are nearly a year old, are weaned, and capable of surviving on their own. Still, many hunters would rather not. In that case, take your time to observe if cubs are accompanying the bear before taking your shot.

To identify a smaller, younger bear, look for:

• Disproportionately larger “mickey mouse ears”
• A leggy appearance with lots of space between the bear’s belly and the ground
• Smaller size (use something at the bait site to help judge size such as a barrel, mark on a tree, or noting a certain bush)

Shot Placement

The target area for shot placement on a bear is smaller than on a deer and close to the shoulder.  Bears also have deep muscular shoulders which should be considered when selecting equipment, firearm caliber size, and shot placement.

Credit: Archery Trade Association

Black bears, with their thick coats, can be difficult to track and recover in Maine’s thick forests. After your shot, take notice of the direction the bear travels and listen for signs of how far off it may be. Bears by nature are more vocal animals than cervids and will vocalize often with a well-placed shot. Plus the adipose fat that they store for winter can limit external blood loss, making tracking more difficult. Deciding when to go find an animal after the shot is always difficult and anticipation can often war with patience.  It is important to make judgments based on what you see and hear following the shot but always advisable to wait at least 15 minutes.

Bear also tend to move differently through the woods, leaving fewer tracks – so you’ll want to look for less obvious signs like matted grasses and ferns, newly broken limbs, etc. Unlike deer, they will run the length of downed logs and move through thick, low-to-the-ground areas. Finding them might involve getting on your hands and knees, making a headlamp and flashlight critical. It’s important to keep a compass or GPS on you when tracking down a bear, too, as crawling through thickets and swamps in the dark makes it easy to get turned around. 

For an easier option, many registered Maine guides are skilled at tracking bears and have dogs that are trained and licensed to retrieve game.

Cool your bear ASAP.  The insulation from a bear’s fat layers and thick hide can cause bear meat to spoil more quickly than other large game. To preserve the meat, you need to cool the carcass immediately using blocks of ice in coolers, refrigerated coolers, etc. and get it to the meat processor as quickly as possible. From there, freezing or canning the meat quickly will protect the flavor.

The quickest way to cool the meat is to field dress the bear right away. If you do not have access to a cooler, or if you are hunting in warm temperatures, consider removing the hide and quartering the bear.

Get it out of the woods. With its thick coat and round body, a bear is much more difficult to drag or move than a deer of comparable weight. And bears, on average, also weigh more than deer. With help, you may be able to drag the bear out whole; but you also have the option of quartering it.

If you choose to drag out the bear, field dress it immediately so the body temperature can start to cool. You will likely need another person to help you haul it out of the woods; but don’t wait for them to arrive before you get started. To drag, lift the front (head and shoulders) slightly up and lash to a pole to reduce ground contact. A heavy-duty tarp, stretcher, and/or utility sled can make it easier. Once you reach a road, a winch and ramp can help you load your bear onto your vehicle.

Quartering is much easier than dragging the bear out, and makes a world of difference with meat quality because the meat cools down so much quicker. If you are in an area where it is difficult to get close to a road to retrieve the bear, quartering the bear and packing it out in meat bags is your best option. To make quartering and skinning easier, you may want to bring a rope and pulley.

Prior to registration, all edible meat, the head and evidence of sex must be presented for registration. The viscera, hide, lower legs and rib cage, including the ribs, spine and pelvis, are not required to be presented for registration but must be disposed of where they are not visible to a person traveling on a public or private way. Bear ribs are phenomenal eating so don’t leave those behind. 

How to skin a bear

Though it’s best to consult a taxidermist for instructions prior to harvesting a bear, the following method is generally considered acceptable:

• Extend the center cut used for removing the entrails toward the head to the base of the throat, stopping approximately in line with the ears.
• Beginning at the wrist of each front paw, cut down the inside of each front leg, first toward the elbow and then at an angle toward the armpit, until you reach the center incision. Make sure the arm cuts meet at the same place in the center of the chest.
• For the back legs, begin at the base of the heel and make your cut down the back of each leg, meeting approximately 3 inches above the vent.
• Cut through either the ankle joints or toe joints of each paw to get the skin off the body. Start with the rear paws, then the tail, and work the skin forward toward the head.
• Depending on what you intend to do with your bear hide, you must make a decision regarding the bear’s pads (bottom of paws). Generally, unlike mounted specimens, pads are not required for bearskin rugs. However, prior consultation and planning with a taxidermist is recommended.
• Continue working the hide toward the head until it is stripped up to the neck region.
• It is recommended that at this point you sever the head from the rest of the body allowing it to remain with the hide. Since skinning the head properly can be tedious and time consuming, it is best performed in the comforts of a well-lighted area. Special attention is needed when skinning the ears and nose.
• The next step after skinning is to remove the fat from the carcass. The amount of fat can vary depending on the size of the animal and by the year. During good natural food years, they often don’t fatten up until later in the season. You can render the fat into lard for cooking, and it’s also great for curing cast iron and making leather treatments and cosmetics.
• Once the fat is removed, split the carcass down the center and begin reducing the meat into smaller sizes for storage. It is best to put the meat into an ice chest and not into cold water; but if cold water is your only option, it is better than spoilage.

How to care for the hide

After skinning, take the hide to taxidermist or place it in a refrigerated cooler. If you are not using a taxidermist or will be delayed in reaching one, be sure to remove as much fat and flesh from the hide as possible and salt it heavily (the average bear takes 15-20 lbs. of salt). This will preserve the hide and minimize hair loss. Pour the salt on the flesh side of the hide and spread it about 3/8” deep, taking special care around the face, lips, nose and ears. Once salted, fold the skin flesh to flesh, roll it up, and place it in a breathable paper, burlap, or muslin bag (do not use plastic).

Processing black bear meat

Butchering big game is not a simple task. If you don’t have the know-how, the time or equipment to do it properly yourself, commercial facilities are available. Be sure to contact a butcher prior to your hunt unless you plan to do it yourself. If you are hiring a Registered Maine Guide, they may have contacted a meat processor already. Click here to find a list of bear meat processing facilities.

Cooking Bear Meat

When properly cared for, bear meat is very tasty and is a good source of lean protein providing hunters with another source of healthy food for their families. Bear meat is excellent in soups and chilis, barbecued (pulled bear and BBQ ribs), roasted in the oven, or grilled (backstrap rubbed in spices). Click here for a black bear steak fajita and meatball recipe!

Although bear meat can be a carrier of Trichinella spiralis and Toxoplasma gondii, the parasites that cause the diseases trichinosis and toxoplasmosis in humans, proper cooking techniques can ensure that your bear meat is safe to eat (freezing meat does not always kill these parasites). Like pork, the proper cooking time and temperature for bear meat is 375 degrees F for 20-25 minutes per pound. Internal cooking temperature should reach 160 degrees for 3 minutes or more before consumption. Cook until there is no trace of pink meat or fluid, paying close attention to areas around the joints and close to the bone.

Donating Bear Meat

If you don’t want the meat, you can donate it to Hunters for the Hungry. For more information or to get connected to a Hunters for the Hungry participating meat processor call 207-287-7513.

If you are employing a registered Maine guide, they often will donate your meat for you.