There have been sparse sightings over the past three years in Madison County of a couple of bears, all East of 45, think they want the Beaver Nuggets...

Supposedly one was seen in Orange last week.......

BLACK BEAR SEEN IN ORANGE RESIDENT'S YARD

East Texas black bear, aka moving target.

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Aggie_2463 said:
If you enjoy hunting a feeder you don't want bears - imagine a 400# coon tearing up everything

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ccard257 said:


Yeah that'd be a real shame if "hunting" had to involve actual hunting.

Regale is with your many tales of spot and stalk successes here in Texas sans the use of the golden nugget feed.

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Spot and stalking whitetails in South Texas Brush is a losing proposition.
I grew up hunting without feeders though. Tower blinds, random tree stands, portable tripods, etc.

Many times I set up on the ground with a shooting stick & a piece of burlap tied up for concealment.
You had to watch where deer traveled naturally & pattern them, then set up your stand accordingly with wind in mind.
I'm not saying get rid of corn feeders, but it would make for better hunters along with lower success rates.

Apache said:

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Aggie_2463 said:
If you enjoy hunting a feeder you don't want bears - imagine a 400# coon tearing up everything

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ccard257 said:


Yeah that'd be a real shame if "hunting" had to involve actual hunting.

Regale is with your many tales of spot and stalk successes here in Texas sans the use of the golden nugget feed.

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Spot and stalking whitetails in South Texas Brush is a losing proposition.
I grew up hunting without feeders though. Tower blinds, random tree stands, portable tripods, etc.

Many times I set up on the ground with a shooting stick & a piece of burlap tied up for concealment.
You had to watch where deer traveled naturally & pattern them, then set up your stand accordingly with wind in mind.
I'm not saying get rid of corn feeders, but it would make for better hunters along with lower success rates.

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Reminds me of this quote...

This. Almost impossible to find them unless you step on them and way too many rattlesnakes for me. We would go around the property looking for tracks, trails, and other signs before we decided on a places we felt would have the most traffic.

Would be interesting to see. When the Uvalde bear was caught, it was speculated that dry weather and abundant hogs would lead to further movement east.

Struggle and Strifer said:

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Would be interesting to see. When the Uvalde bear was caught, it was speculated that dry weather and abundant hogs would lead to further movement east.

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Pigs aren't really on the menu right?

I would not really think so with a black bear, but that was the speculation. Maybe it was more about utilizing the same resources.

I know a bear was on a game camera in Sabine County about 15 years ago.

Hey, been awhile. So here goes. The general belief was that circa 2004 that the East Texas population was going to lag several years behind the rapidly growing population in SE Oklahoma. At the time that was the second fastest growing population in the country after NJ. There was a major management plan written (not much has come of it). There has been a major habitat study out of SFA. We have good but not great habitat. Many of our woods are large blocks of even age managed timber stands. Would likely work if we already had a large established population. So while we have large areas, we don't have large areas of diverse plant species. Where we do have large blocks of diverse, riparian habitat......we are building reservoirs.

First oddball. For some odd reason they haven't been able to explain other than the simple fact that sows take over a significant portion of their mother's home range, the sows rarely drop south of a line roughly 15 miles north of the Red River. Basically all the bears in East Texas have been sub-adult males. The same applies to Louisiana, but the sows are even further east (like rarely leave the immediate areas of the Mississippi or Tensas Rivers). What occasionally shows up is again sub-adult males.

If they (TPWD) wanted to expand the population, just follow Arkansas example. Release pregnant sows in clusters, close enough to intermingle, but just far enough to encourage range expansion. But the problem, the political will is not there in East Texas for an intentional reintroduction.

It is fun speculation, but hogs make for terrible prey for bears and lions. They may make an occasional kill, but hogs are a high risk prey item. There are plenty of places with high numbers of hogs, and pretty high bear (and lion) . About the only place large male bears are actively hunting hogs is around Great Smokies NP.

Thanks Ursus.Your posts are always informative.

I welcome our new bear overlords.

Welcome back Ursus!

Anybody know anybody that's shot a bear in east Texas?

Ursus and Log in the same day.

I was aware of Travis' passing, so I was monitoring TA to not miss that post.......and saw bears.

I was aware of Travis' passing, so I was monitoring TA to not miss that post.......and saw bears.

Always good to hear from you Ursus.

https://instagr.am/p/CyoPkuLMWr6

Engagement ceremony outside of Monterrey, Mexico....

Had some black bear tacos tonight. There's no better game meat available. Hope they spread across east Texas in abundance.

Saw this map on IG and snagged it to share

Those bears want no part of deep east Texas.

Which. begs the question whether there were bears during the days of the El Camino Real de los Tejas.

And before that the Caddo Indians.

Could be that the big thicket is just too thick for black bears.

Or black panthers could be to blame.

Great info, ursusguy! Very informative!

aalan94 said:

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Heck, they're making it to West Texas.

Bear seen roaming Uvalde has been captured, relocated

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I thought you said west texas?