Ep. 8: Calling All Black Bear with Douglas Boze
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Spring is here, and across the West that means spring bear seasons are opening up. While many people will be out there hunting them spot and stock, you can also be very effective at calling bears in. That's why today I brought on Douglas Bowes, the author of The Ultimate Guide to Black Bear Hunting and the creator of the Ultimate Predator Calls app. He's very well versed on everything black bear hunting, but today I brought him on here to talk specifically about calling bears. Welcome to the show, Doug. Thanks for having me, Jason. It's a pleasure to be here.

Thanks for being here. How's everything going in your life? And then give the listeners the two-minute version to who is Douglas Bowes before we get started. Everything in life is going well, thank you. Just a little bit about myself. I was born and raised in Washington. I started hunting at the age of 12, usually just deer on the weekends. And I didn't get into black bear hunting until my late 20s.

And, you know, my brother kind of got me into it and then I kind of branched out on my own and I'm basically just a middle class family man with a house and a kid and a couple dogs, much like the rest of you. And I just enjoy hunting, enjoy the outdoors and like to share my knowledge with anyone who will listen.

Yeah. Well, we appreciate it. And can you tell us specifically kind of how you got, you know, your, your laser focused on, you know, you do hunt everything, but you kind of became laser focused on black bears and, and you know, specifically black bears. Yeah. So I got my first black bear kind of by chance, the way a lot of people get their black bears that, you know, they'll buy a tag just in case they see one deer hunting. And that's kind of what happened with me is that I, I,

bought a tag and I was out deer hunting and I got dropped off and I was I was walking this ridge line and I happened to see a bear across this gully and I thought oh man you know there's there's a sweet color-phased bear and um I took a shot and I dropped it and ended up killing it so then I called up my pop on the radio and I was like hey I just shot a bear you know come get the truck and let's get this thing out of here thinking it was huge and

So I scurried down there and you'll, as a bear hunter, you'll come to know the term ground shrinkage. And I realized that it wasn't a huge black bear. It was, you know, an average, it was a smaller bear. It was a sow, but it was a color phase with a beautiful coat. Um, and, but that just kind of started the fuel for the fire that is bear hunting for me. Um,

And so that started it. And then as, you know, kind of time progressed, well, let me just back up for just a second. That was really the first bear that I had seen in the wild. I hadn't seen bear before that. And so I wanted to learn more about how to spot bear, how to find them, what to look for and stuff like that. And so that really just kind of fueled that fire. I wanted to know more about them, how to hunt them. They're such a cool animal. They demand such respect.

And so that's really where it started was that first bear. - Gotcha, gotcha.

So we're going to roll right into the questions here, Doug, which we typically do. We'll take a couple of user questions. I'll take a crack at kind of my answer and then see if you have anything to add. And then we'll jump into that discussion where I'm going to kind of ask you all the questions I have for you or kind of can relate to and just see how you do things compared to the way we do things. So the first question, and actually I'm going to back up. I'm going to let you know that if you want to submit your own questions to the podcast, you can email us here at ctd.com.

at phelpsgamecalls.com and we'll scour the emails, try to pick out your good questions and then go ahead and answer them here on the podcast. But for today, the first question is what predator calls do you carry? So for me, it depends on the time of the year, but spring, late spring when the fawns and calves are starting to drop, we'll carry a fawn in distress, we'll carry a calf call or a calf in distress call. And then just kind of your standard

You know, rabbit distress. We'll carry a cottontail. We'll carry a jackrabbit. I haven't got too much into it. We do have some bear cub stuff I've been playing around with, but I've never went out with bear cub and tried to target bears with those. So that's kind of a real quick and dirty answer. Both open read and closed read is what we kind of use. What do you use, Doug, when you're out there? Just in general. And I'm sure we'll get into more bear-specific stuff here in a little bit.

Sure. In general, I prefer closed read. I have open read stuff. I usually have one of those in my pack. The question is kind of similar to what does a fisherman carry? For me, predator calling is almost like an addiction. So if I see a new call that I might not have, especially like a new hand call or something, I usually pick it up just for a different variance of

of calls to have but I usually always have like a call in my pack and a call around my neck and I put the one in my pack in case I forget the one around my neck and generally both of those are closed reads and usually it's like a rabbit squall or just any sort of nasty raspy sound that you can make that would that would pique the interest of the predator so I mean it could be a rabbit it could be a fawn distress the very first time I ever called in a bear was actually with a a calf a

distress kind of call or really just a calf mew i was trying to call in a bull elk and that was all i had on me so that's what i was using um so yeah that i usually just have like a rabbit distress but both of them are closed reads usually gotcha i think we can all agree that bear hunting uh may be easier if you don't try to use a call you may be able to correct me or have different experiences but

you know, if I was going out just trying to kill a bear, I would let my glass do the majority of the, the, you know, walking and I would do more spot and stalk. But the question was, what is the most important thing when it comes to being a successful bear hunter? So let's take maybe calling out of the equation. Like if you just wanted to go out and kill a bear, what would you do? And I would just, you know, first you have to be in the area with bear. So for us around here in industrial Timberlands, or if I'm in the high country is like follow their food source at that time of the year, whether they're pilling trees, whether they're in Jack for patches, whether they've got

you know, berries are on that time of year, whatever it is, is getting the area where those bear like to be, and then just spend a whole bunch of time glassing. If you think you've sat there long enough, sit there for an extra 30 minutes and just let your glassing, you know, do, do the majority of the work because we've, we've been on many, many bears, especially here in Western Washington, where the cover is so thick, you can't see, you know, everything you need to see. And that bear can be sitting there for 20, 30 minutes, you know, peeling a tree,

I'm chewing on the same berry bush, whatever it may be. And so we've just found patients, which I'm not great at. But that's probably the most important thing aside, you know, taking calling out of the mix is just spend a lot of time in the bears area doing a lot of glassing.

And so your answer to that is basically patience and glassing. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. That's what I, if we're not talking about calling. Sure. No. And you kind of stole my, stole one of my tips. So, you know, I wrote down patience and persistence and they kind of go hand in hand. But, you know, like the number one saying that you'll hear, especially for beginning bear hunters is patience.

find the food, you'll find the bears. And yes and no, that's kind of true. And we can get into that more later. But I really encourage people to have patience when they're hunting bears and be persistent in it. And the reason I say that is like, sometimes people, they'll predator call or they'll say, hey, you know, I predator called for 20 minutes and nothing showed up. So I gave up. Or I've predator called for a half an hour, three times and nothing happened. Well,

you're losing patience with yourself. You might not have seen anything come in, but something might have came in. You just didn't see it. And so I just encourage people with patience. And then the persistence aspect is, you know, you will hear somebody, oh, I shot a bear and I lost the blood trail or, you know, there wasn't much blood. And so, you know, I looked for three hours and then I didn't find nothing. Well, I encourage people, especially with bear, to have persistence in tracking.

because the hair and the fat of a bear kind of clog up that entry and exit wound. And it's not uncommon for a bear not to bleed a ton because they have such thick coats on. They're not like a deer elk that have a very form-fitting hide. And so persistence, be persistent with it. Don't give up. ♪

So let's jump into the discussion here, Doug. So we've got a lot of similarities between, you know, the old ways that we used to hunt bears or the old way I used to hunt bear where I would get up on a landing, get up in the high country, sit down on a very, very good, you know, glassing knob and just let your glass do all the work. Whereas if we're going to turn this into we want to go out and specifically target a bear with our calls.

Um, there's going to be a lot of similarities, but there are going to be some differences. And then that's really what I want to dive into here with, with you today during this conversation. So, you know, calling bears, you can, you can do it anywhere from the spring seasons, um, all the way through fall seasons. And one of the things I want to really hit on is knowing where to be at that time. And so in my opinion, um, that is 100% determined by the food sources, um,

Um, so you, can you tell me a little bit about like how you focus on food sources, what you're looking for as far as, you know, like pilled sap trees, um, you know, the berries are on, you know, calving and, and fawn time. Like they switched to a meat diet and then they switched back to a berries. You know, if you're in Eastern Washington, you know, they may be in the onions or the sunflowers, like go into a little bit of how, if you're going to call for a bear, how you start to think about their food sources and how that helps you determine like where you're going to be.

Sure, no problem. So, you know, that kind of goes back to find the food, find the bears. And so in the springtime, let's just start at the beginning of the season. In the springtime, the first thing to kind of come available for them to eat is grassy areas, you know, like old logging roads, potholes.

southern face and slopes, stuff that gets a lot of sun and some water. So I focus on fresh shoots of green grass. And then from there, usually like skunk cabbage will start to show up. And as the month kind of progresses, that sugary sap, the cambium layer in trees, that will start to come up and then the bears will start to peel those. And so in the spring, I'm looking for that early food source.

And a good key to finding those food sources, especially in areas with 5 to 10 to 15-year-old trees, when I say trees that they're peeling,

Make a C out of each of your hands, like the letter C, and then put them together. And that's about the size of the tree that they start to peel. And then you bring that C apart in your hands a couple of inches. You know, it's about that size. They're not huge trees. They're younger trees. And what they do is they'll peel those trees and they eat that cambium layer because it's a sugary substance that is an early food source.

And so in your hikes, say you're shed hunting or fishing, whatever it might be, as you're wandering around the woods, keep an eye out for hillsides that have like dead red trees or dying yellow trees or trees that are obviously peeled. And you can see examples of this online or in my book or wherever it may be, but they peel that right down to the ground. And what that does is

Not every time, but lots of times it will kill that tree. And I've seen bears strip, you know, seven, eight trees within an hour. And so you can imagine the damage that several bear can do to a timber stand through the course of a month or two while they're doing that. But that yellow and that red,

coloration that I'm talking about in the trees, that should be kind of a clue to, Hey, there was a spring bear in here tearing things up, um, you know, the year before or the year prior. So maybe a couple of years back. So that's, that's a point to start. Um, and so in the spring, that's kind of where I start. And then once I kind of find food sources, I'm looking for sign, I'm looking for scat, I'm looking for tracks in the mud. Like anytime I walk by a mud puddle or something like that, I'm looking for tracks.

Uh, and once I find sign and hopefully not a lot of people, because that's another key, lots of times bears don't, you know, they don't like to be around a lot of people. So if I can find areas, it's kind of secluded that was not much hunting pressure. That's, that's what I'm looking for. Um, so yeah, that's, that's kind of how I start to look for it. Now, do you want me to go into fall there real quick too?

Yeah, we can. I'm just going to touch on the jack for a thing that you had mentioned those, you know, those young trees, which, you know, I refer to as like jack for patches there, you know, anywhere from 10 to maybe 20 years old. You know, we do a lot of that when we're, when we're looking at elk rubs, you know, and so if you're looking across a, a jack for, you know,

A grown-up jack for patch, and you've got trees that are dead with no needles. That bear was probably there two years ago. Potentially red needles, you can assume that it was last year or potentially two years ago. Yellow was last year, and then green is obviously still alive. And so you can start to put together a little bit of a pattern like, all right, there have been bears here for obviously more than three years. They're used in the area. It's probably got a high density. It's probably a good spot to focus your time if you're trying to bear hunt spring or fall.

So I just wanted to kind of add to that, like you can put together a pretty good timeline, like, you know, the number of barriers that are in the area, plus if they've been there within the last two or three years.

Yeah, and usually if they're there in one spring, they were there a couple of springs prior or they'll be there a couple of springs after, provided not a whole lot's changed. Because those trees are going to remain that kind of same size for the next several years. And so that can be a good spot to go back to. And I've mentioned it before on another podcast, but there's a lake right by where I live and there's a hill outside the lake. And you can actually see like

Now they're they're completely dead but when I moved here they were yellow and then they turned red but you could almost follow the path of the bear from the bridge line all the way down to the lake where he stripped the trees. It's you know it's just it's interesting to watch but yeah just be aware of that and even when I'm driving man I'm driving around looking if I see red flashes of a dead tree or something on a hillside I'll stop and take notice or I'll get out and check to see if if that's what caused the death of that tree.

Gotcha. Yeah. And then let's, let's dive in a little bit to how the food source changes from that early spring, you know, the, the bright green grasses, the new shoots, the bark of the trees. And then we start to roll into a little bit of, you know, that mid to late spring, early summer where they will, at least the black bears in this area, switch their diet to fawns and calves. And then we'll, we'll roll into like the berries and stuff that we start to focus on huckleberries and, you know, low, low blackberries, blueberries and stuff, you know, moving more into the fall.

Yeah. So, you know, sometimes food sources can change by the month or even by the week and sometimes in the late fall, almost by the day. You know, so as things progress, as things heat up, everything starts to become green and that gets more and more difficult to be able to focus on a food source as to where that bear could be. So when everything is kind of greened up like that, that's where they really kind of focus on

stripping those trees. And so that's where I look for, and they'll do that for like a month, month and a half, maybe even to be stripping those trees for a bit. So that's when I kind of focus on that, especially. And then by then you're also kind of getting into calving season, like you said. And so that's, that's a nice time to, to predator call if you're up to it. And then, you know, shortly after that berries will start to show up. It's not, you know, not long that the salmon berries start to pop in.

uh, huckleberries will start to get ripe shortly thereafter. And so, but, and then, you know, in, in early fall in like August, there's food everywhere and that can make it kind of difficult to focus on, all right, where are the bear hanging out? Because there's brush and there's berries and stuff everywhere. And then as, as August progresses, you know, different type of berries come in. And so I almost relate it lots of times to, um, like, like a,

like a half pipe for a skateboard. At the very bottom, you've got food that's starting to grow. And then as things progress, more and more food comes out. And then as fall gets later and later into winter, then that food just kind of drops back down. With early fall, you definitely want to focus on berries, on cooler areas because the temperature is going to be warmer, the bear are getting warm. They're going to want to be in those cool creek draws.

Um, and, and, and I usually focus my hunts, my hunt times in the, in the mornings and in the evenings. Um, but you know, as, as, as fall progresses, um, things can fade away. So salmon berries, they kind of die out first. The huckleberries will kind of leave eventually. And then real brushy blackberries, they'll come in. So you, you really need to spend time and it changes per area, it changes per region. So you spend time out in the woods, wherever you live and, and figure out,

what's ripe and when it's ripe, because that will dictate where you should be hunting bears. Because I might not be hunting bears in spring peel damage tree stands in the summer because there might not be

necessarily a ton of berries in that specific area. I might be in a completely different area. So the bear, you know, they, they roam where the food is and that's what you need to do. Don't get stuck focusing on, well, they were here in the spring. They got to be here now. That's not necessarily true. Or they're here in the fall and they got to be here now. That's not necessarily true either.

Yeah, yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't agree more with that. You know, it's, it's super cliche and it, you know, it sounds oversimplified, but you can't kill a bear if you're not hunting where the bears are at at that time. So, you know, you got to find that, find fresh sign, fresh scat tracks, you know, lay eyes on them and then, you know, get to that level or that area or that food source really.

So with that said, you kind of already alluded to my next question for you is that bears become full or satiated differently at different times of the year. And with that in mind, are there better times to call bears versus times that it's going to be very difficult to call bears based on what their fuel gauge is telling them and how much they're able to eat? I like to call bears when there's less food around. So in early spring,

And then in later fall, but that doesn't mean it won't work when there's plenty of food around. For example, I've, I've predator called bears before where I had one coming in, you know, like on a string. And then he ran into a big pile of huckleberries and he could care less about me or my squalling whatsoever. He just sat there eating huckleberries like the rest of the time. And I was like, all right, whatever. That's, that's cool.

um yeah but then again last year i was predator calling in mid-august and there was blackberries all over the place and i had a bear come in right at 45 minutes at 20 yards and that's the bear i took that year so in general if there's less food around they're more likely to come to a call in my opinion now that can change you know i think as as you hunt bear you'll realize that bear

I wouldn't say are individuals, but they have their own kind of personality or individualistic traits, I guess. Some bear will come running into a call. Some will sneak. You know, some are more aggressive than others. And so that really just kind of depends. You know, and I always say, if you're in an area that looks bearish, whether it be in the spring or the fall or whatever it may be, and when I say bearish,

I mean, it looks like it holds bear. You know, as a deer hunter, you can look at a valley or something and be like, man, that looks like that holds some deer in there. Or a bass fisherman, you know, if you see a submerged log in a lake, you're like, yeah, there's probably a bass under that log.

If a place looks bearish to you, those are the type of places I like to predator call. Even if you're not seeing something. A lot of the areas that we hunt, it's super brushy. Like, you know, it's 20 feet tall of brush. You can't really see what's going on. Predator calling allows you to knock things loose and hopefully see something come in. The chance to have a shot. And so that's why I enjoy predator calling because you never know.

What's going to come in could be a coyote, bobcat, cougar, bear, anything. Yep. Yep. And, and we have did the majority of our spring hunting on the East side, more specifically in the blues, um, where they've got such, such an, you know, uh, an overabundance of food there in the blues, you know, when spring hits. And so we've always wondered, we have tried some sets and we always carry our predator calls, but you know, it's, it's really set up for spot and stock. But I wonder, you know, in those situations where they have so much grass, um,

and so much to eat early in spring as they follow that snow lineup. Like I'd be curious to go back with an intent to call on a bear. Like if you could actually even get them to pull off of the, the wild onions and, and you know, the, the sunflowers and whatnot, that they're just, they, they can never run out. They don't need to go chase or waste any energy chasing a deer or a calf around, you know?

Um, and so in those situations we hit, we've just, you know, like the, with the intent to kill a bear, we just have not picked up the call or, or, or, you know, we've tried to maybe get one out, you know, a bore, a bore we wanted to kill out of like a thick brush patch. But the majority of the time, I think even early spring in those situations, they're just, they're not super interested. I would agree that, you know, the, the food might keep them locked down. How long are you calling for? You know, I, I grew up on the days where like it was the Wayne Carlton calling all bears, you

you know, VHS tape, we would, we would pop it in and that. And so he just said, sit for a long time. And when you think you're done calling, sit for another 30 minutes, you know? So I would say our normal sets are, you know, an hour plus with a half hour away at the end before we get up and move. Um,

You know, and I just, maybe we can't see it steep. It's real broken country. I don't know if maybe stuff has come in. We haven't seen it. All of my calling successes actually came in the fall when I'm trying to call elk in and these, you know, these black bears are looking for an easy meal. So I've just always wondered that, you know, like,

the food obviously affects it you're not gonna i don't think you're gonna call a a bear that's you know stuffed to the gills into your feet but at the same time like you said they are temperamental and i was just kind of curious on you know early green you know in certain areas at the springtime like it still may be difficult to call i think i think it is difficult i mean it's difficult to call even when there's not a lot of food around but it's it's it can still be productive um

And so like for me, and especially over in the blues or an area that is very large and broken, but fairly open, like you can see quite a ways in the blues compared to, for example, Western Washington. For me, I will let the sound do the walking for me. Um, you know, similar to what you're doing with glassing, I will predator call down into a, uh, a draw or a Rocky cavern, you know, uh, uh,

Rocky Valley, anything like that, where that sound can carry out and just see if I can break anything loose and then put glass on it. If I'm not seeing nothing, if it looks like it holds bare for me. And I'll do the same for Western Washington. Now it might not always break something loose, but again, it's you're, you want to just peak their predator interest. And so when, when people first start calling, you know,

really quick, this kind of pertains to that. It doesn't have to sound perfect. Like with elk, elk kind of know, you know, you want to sound real natural with elk. I think you would probably tend to agree with that. And with bear, you're just trying to spark that predator interest. Like what is making that noise and can I kill and eat it? And so a lot of new callers, they'll come to me and be like, you know what? I sound horrible. I don't sound good. You know, I don't sound anything like a rabbit. Well, hey man,

Don't worry about it. Like I predator called in there in Alaska using a, you know, a jackrabbit call and there's not a jackrabbit within a thousand miles of there. So yeah, the point is, is to pique their interest. And you know, it's, it's a nice way to break up,

the possibility of being unsuccessful. So if you're sitting there and you're watching a Canyon in your glass and in glass, and you're not seeing nothing and you're thinking about packing up and leave, and we'll spend an hour there and then predator call and see if something's not hidden down in those crevices and whatnot, because they, they can be hidden down in, you know, the easiest of spots that you would never think a bear was. Um, yeah.

For example, I was bear hunting in the fall and I hopped up in this power line cut. You know, there was blackberries all over the place. And I thought, well, I'll just predator call into this tree line. And so I started predator calling. And within five minutes, there was a color phase bear within like 40 yards of me. I had no idea that thing was even there. And if I wouldn't have called, the wind could have shifted. It could have smelled me. You know, I might not have ever known that bear was even there. So it can be very handy just to predator call.

Yeah, we were over in the Dayton, had a big dark brown boar, probably at 1,000, 1,100 yards. And we really didn't have a little bit too far out of shooting distance for sure. And we didn't have many options. There was no way to get closer, basically a solid wall, a timber canyon between us. And I hit just a calf call that I had on my bino harness and that bear looked like

we did another series and that thing literally came like bolting straight at us and we picked him up a couple more times in the timber as he approached

We did sit there for another 45 minutes. The bear never showed, but at least it gave us hope, right? Because at that point you had no other option during that, that spot and stock hunt. But by having the predator call, we watched that bear break and literally sprint, you know, at least the first 400 yards directly at us. And then, you know, ultimately he didn't show up. He got distracted somewhere across in the Canyon, but it was just, you know, the ability to add to our spot and stock where there was really no other option to be successful anyways. Yeah.

It's a handy tool. You know, for me, like if I'm not seeing something, if I'm getting bored, I'll definitely just break out the predator call. I don't really care where I am. I'll break it out and just see what comes in. Yeah. O'Reilly Auto Parts are in the business of keeping your car on the road. I love O'Reilly. In fact, the other day, I'm not kidding you. The other day, I went into an O'Reilly Auto Parts looking for a part. I needed a different thing that wasn't really in there, you know, only like tangentially related to what they carry.

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Let's talk about the setup specifically. So we figured out the area. We know there's bears in the area. Like, what are you looking for as far as like where you're going to sit down and where you're going to, you know, start your calling? I'm going to have to assume, you know, similar to any other calling you want good vantage, uh,

You want to be able to shoot in multiple directions with a steady rest. But are you looking for this bear to come in 30, 40 yards bow range? Are you, depending on the season and the weapon, are you just trying to make sure that you have a really good shot when he comes in? What does your setup look like? And then do you base the way that bears tend to come in? Do they have a tendency to come in certain ways? And are you trying to account for that in your setup? Yeah, so...

It depends on the territory. So, for example, if I'm if I'm over in eastern Washington and I'm elk hunting, that's a fairly open ish type of area.

I can see a lot longer distance. And so my shot might be, you know, further than in Western Washington. But for me, I want vantage. So I want like a good rocky outcropping or I want a brush pile in Western Washington, usually like a stump pile I can climb up on and then tuck myself into. And that kind of serves as twofold. One, you can see a little bit further throughout the brush. And two, if you're on a stump pile with brush and whatnot, you're going to hear if something's coming up behind you.

And so it serves as kind of a protection as well. Although I've never been jumped, but I've had bear and cougar close enough. So I want to be elevated. I want the wind, Ashley, so...

Some people may think this is counterintuitive, but I would prefer no wind or very little wind or a crosswind. But if the wind is blowing to my back, I want my shot lanes in that direction. I don't necessarily want the wind in my face. And the reason I say that, especially with calling, is that predators, they'll circle to try to get your wind. So if there's a predator in front of you and the wind's blowing in your face, it might circle behind you. You might never even see it.

Yep. Lots of times predators, they'll get that downwind. So you want your shooting lanes to be downwind. And I get that information from the late great, well, he's not late, but Mr. Randy Anderson from Calling All Coyotes, Primos. That's what he suggested. And that's kind of how I started off

predator calling. So you want those shooting lanes downwind. If you have a shooting partner, kick them off to your side, left or right. But, you know, for safety reasons, know where they're at. Another guy available if you're predator calling is very handy because it's another set of eyes. And there's been numerous situations where

where I have been predator calling and totally thought I didn't call anything in. And the guy to my left or right spotted it coming in because the bear was smart enough to stay hidden from me making my noise. And I've taken bear that way. My brother killed a bear up in the snow. I called two bear in and one came right behind me, like 15 yards. I never saw it.

And then another one up on a tree line further up behind me, my brother ended up taking that one. But both of those bears, I would have had no idea that I called them in if I didn't have a second shooter there. So, yeah, so you want a vantage point, shooting lanes. And most of the time when I shoot a bear, it's well under 100 yards, usually under 50. A lot of my shots are 20 yards or less, and that's not necessarily...

On purpose, it's just kind of what happens. A lot of the areas I call into are brushy. I like to call into that stuff because the bear are hidden, but you have to call them in close to get a shot. Just last summer, I was predator calling with my son, and he was in front of me. I was on this stump that was like 12 feet in the air. So I was sitting on that thing calling. The boy was in front of me, but we were in a brushier area to where we only had a couple of shooting lanes, not a lot.

and i actually wanted to kick him off to my left um but i wanted to keep an eye on him because he's still a new hunter and i want to make sure everything went good um so i i really just put him out in front of me anyway i predator called and this this bear came in to about 20 yards almost just to our left and started shaking a tree and getting all aggressive and stuff but we unfortunately we couldn't get a shot just because there wasn't a shooting lane that way um

But, you know, lots of times predator calling for me, they'll come in under 100 yards easy, sometimes 50, sometimes closer. You know, last year I had several bear under 20 yards. Gotcha. Gotcha. So let's get into the, my favorite part of it is what calls are you going to use and then calling your cadence and then we touched on it a little bit, but how long do you sit? How long do you call for? And then how long do you wait from your last call before you change sits? So,

Like you, I kind of followed Mr. Wayne Carlton, and that's what I've stuck with. There's a DVD out there called They Come to Eat, and he talks about Predator Calling Bear and Cougar and stuff. And so I like to call for about an hour, and then I'll sit there for another 20 minutes or so, depending on if my butt's completely asleep and if my knees want to work. Yep. So the cadence, we'll start off with that.

I got this from Randy Anderson. He always said, build a scenario in your head. And so, you know, with a cadence...

I'll start out kind of quiet. And so that means that your sound isn't going super far, but it's going out a little ways. And you don't want to necessarily start off like your full lung power because you might blow animals out. But if you start off kind of quiet, that's pushing that sound out and that might draw them in. And then just as time progresses, you increase the

the distress or the frequency or the crying and the volume of that. So as time goes on, you increase that volume and the distress. And then right before you're going to stop, I will either trail off like I'm dying real slow. And so I'll go back to being very, very quiet. And then I'll just be quiet the rest of the time. Or I'll just completely drop it off like I've died.

So there's a couple of different scenarios. Sometimes I will, I will do like a fawn distress, rabbit distress, whatever it may be. And I'll throw in a coyote yip or a coyote howl or a coyote distress with it. I've had animals hang up with just a standard, you know, rabbit call. And then I throw in that coyote distress and, you know, the bear just comes barreling in because maybe he's heard standard rabbit calls before and got educated. But, but that,

coyote whimper put him at ease and he wanted to come in and see what was going on so switch it up a little bit um sit there for an hour do that do that cadence like i was saying and and as far as what calls i'm bringing um you know i relate this to when car alarms first came out and this kind of puts my age you know ages me or whatever but when car alarms first came out

When you heard one in a parking lot, you'd be like, oh man, there's a car alarm. Like someone's car is getting broken into. And then six months later, no one cared because everyone's car alarms were going off and everyone had already heard it. So if everyone in the world is blowing a rabbit distress or a cottondale distress, lots of predators are probably educated to that.

So switch it up. Try, you know, I actually went and bought just a couple of days ago a coon squalor. So I'm going to try to do some coon squalor for bear. Try different things. Try, you know, a pig squeal, anything, goat distress, whatever you can think of that's different. That is a nasty sound that might get a predator coming in.

Use that. I mean, I use rabbit calls. Don't get me wrong. But, you know, like I said at the beginning, the first time I called a bear in, it was with a calf call.

And that was just kind of a, you know, just kind of a lonely call, but it got that bear coming in. Um, so switch it up. Don't, don't be shy about trying something new as far as predator calls go. Yeah. And like I said, the majority of all of the bears that, you know, myself or all my buddies have called in and killed have just came in during elk season to a calf call or a cow call, you know, or, or, uh,

me, me blowing both of those calls. And, you know, they usually come in very slow. They're, they're picking the ground apart. And, you know, the only reason I, I'm able to spot them, if I wasn't paying attention, it'd be very, very tough to spot. But, you know, they're coming in cautiously, but I'm looking for an elk to come in because usually if I'm actively calling, you know, but those bears are coming in, you know, typically, you know,

Very slow, very cautious. I don't know. I try to figure it out in my head why. If there's a calf there, is something already there? Is there already a more dominant predator there? Are they sneaking in to just assess the situation before they fully commit? Yeah.

Yeah, all of our bears that we've killed behind a call have come from, you know, calf specifically. And that's because we're out there doing a different activity. The bears are just kind of a byproduct of calling for elk. And sitting after that you've called. So say you call for an hour and you're done calling. It is important to sit there for another 10, 15, 20 minutes if you can.

Um, and I, I give this information, but sometimes I don't follow it. And the last time I didn't follow it, I was elk hunting, but I wasn't having much luck with elk. So I went predator called. And then I'd been there for like an hour. I was calling down into this rocky ravine. Um, and nothing came in. I'm like, all right, I'm going to hike back. You know, it's like 10, 15 minutes to my truck. And it was kind of shaped like a U I had to go around this little gully. So by the time I get to my truck and I start driving down the road,

I can see a color phase bear barreling down like right toward where I had just called. And I think if I would have just sat there another 10 minutes, cause I didn't, I didn't sit around. I just called for an hour and then I left. If I would have just stayed there for that 10, 15 minutes, I could have had a shot at that bear. And one other quick tip too, I forgot to mention, like when I first sit down and I'm, I'm getting ready to predator call, I will take five, 10 minutes to let things kind of settle down around me. If I made a bunch of noise going in,

And I will take the time to memorize as best I can features around me, stumps, brush, things like that. So I know if it changes, you know, sometimes a bear will crawl up on top of a stump and look at you. And, you know, in your mind, you're looking for a bear on the ground. You might miss a bear standing on a stump. Another really good tip that I tell people too is,

If you're predator calling and you hear birds or squirrels going nuts, like a couple hundred yards out, and then a few minutes later into your call, more squirrels are going crazy, like closer, you know, maybe 50, 70 yards closer and then closer and then closer.

Pay attention to that. Focus your viewing in that direction because squirrels, like every deer hunter knows, sound alarms as you walk through the woods. And they'll do that with bear. They'll do that with predators. And there's been numerous times where squirrels and birds have tipped me off like, hey, that squirrel 300 yards out, he's not yelling at me. He's yelling at something that's right within his eyesight. And now a 200-yard squirrel is barking.

It's cueing you into that thing walking in. So pay attention to that. And that bear that I called in with my son that was shaking the tree at 20 yards, there were magpies and stuff going absolutely nuts at the tree line prior to that bear coming in. And I said, hey, Hayden.

There's something coming in. Those birds are tipping us off. And sure enough, that thing came right in and those birds gave us the hint. So pay attention to that. That's an important tip. Yeah, that's a great tip. Specifically on calls, have you used Bear Cub very much or tried it? And I've always thought it could potentially, if done right or in the right area, would work really well because I think you could pull in both

and the sows, but I was just kind of curious because a bear cub in distress, those boars are out there trying to kill those cubs so that the sow will come back in that year versus the sows having the motherly instinct to come and check it out even if it maybe isn't their cub. Have you ever had any success using bear cub squalls

Or is that kind of a noise you kind of stay away from and just stick to the rabbit and the other sounds? Wait, are you telling me that dad bears and mom bears and baby cubs don't live together in a nice little family unit? We'll save that conversation for a different day. But yeah, I think a lot of people want us to think that that's how bear families are. But no, we're going to stick to the fact that the bear dad wants to kill the bear baby so that...

he can procreate with the bear mom. Oh, okay. I was just clarifying. I had no idea that that's really what happened. I have a bear cub squall. I don't really use it. Not to say that I'm against it. I just haven't. I think I bought it last year or the year before. And so, you know, a lot of the calls I have, they're custom calls from like custom call makers. Like they're made out of elk horn or antler. They're honed or whatever, different tunes to them.

I'm not against it. I just haven't used it. But I really think they sound very similar to a lot of the calls I'm using. They might be a little more deeper, a little more throaty, like the Cub Squall kind of is. But yeah, I just haven't used it.

Gotcha. And I've watched tons and tons of YouTube videos of bear cub distress, and I'm fully convinced that with most of my jackrabbit tunes and voices that I can make the same thing just by changing the length of it. You stretch that bear cub squall out a little bit, and you're not so quick like the jackrabbit. Yeah.

Just something I was curious if anybody's been using Bear Cub very successfully. It just seems like some of the YouTube videos I've watched where you have both the boars and the sows coming in. A lot of times it's around bait.

So you're able to like see all these bears interact to each other in very close proximity. But usually when that cub starts to, to squall, you know, the every, every bear in earshot comes, you know, relatively close. So it seems, seems like in theory it would work. I just, I've never went out there specifically and tried it. A couple of other things that popped in my head too, that I want to share with the audience is, you know, rabbit lungs are very small compared to a human set.

And so if you're wailing on a call, I always tell people to try to make it, you know, sound realistic as best you can. But, you know, it's really just to pique their interest. But, you know, so do it. Do a short little, you know, squall with it. Don't go, you know.

Don't use all that lung power because a rabbit's not going to have that. And the other thing, too, is put heart into it. And when I say that, you know, make it sound hurt and lonely. Don't just blow on the thing with no sort of passion to it. Put a little quivering into your voice, into your throat when you're doing that. So you know what I mean? Yeah. And then.

One other key thing, too, is like people are like, man, you call for an hour straight. Well, yeah, I'm sitting there for an hour, but I might call for, you know, a minute or two very steadily or pretty steady. And then I'll pause for 30 seconds to a minute. Now, listen, because most of the time I hear bear long before I see him. And so I'll listen for for anything crack in.

you know, branches break in any of that stuff. So it's not, you're not blowing on that thing straight for an hour. There are pauses in it. Don't feel like you have to run yourself out of breath. Um, predator, call and bear.

Yeah. Um, and then, you know, most States, well, I don't want to say most, some States you can bait in. And one thing that we've always found, even last year, I got to hunt behind, um, some dogs and the, the guy we hunted with didn't run baits, but he had mentioned like a lot of, uh,

Guys that are running paid clients all the time, they're using baits to kind of concentrate the bears. And then they're running their dogs by the baits on the road to get those started. That's also another tip. If you're in an area where you can bait, it won't hurt to get the bears concentrated if you, in fact, want to go out there.

Um, and call one in, but it may be just as easy, especially if they're on a bait, just to sit, sit over your bait. If your goal is just to kill a bear, you're probably going to have better odds, you know, sitting the bait and, and those bears are typically going to be pretty full with, you know, sugars and breads and whatever else they're getting. No, absolutely.

Um, last thing, last point I wanted to touch on is, um, how often do you glass bears and then move into column or are you not that picky? Is it not that important that you call in a barrier? If you, if you glass them and can shoot them like your work's done, or how many times have you glass bears went over to their hillside or made the move and then tried to call them in? And then what can you say as far as like,

People that are going to go out there and try it, what is their success going to be doing that? Where they go and glass a bear, they know one's in the area. It's obviously got to help their odds in calling in a bear, but what are the chances that that goes in their favor when they go over there to call it in? Last summer, last bear season, last fall, I had a particularly good call ratio. I was about 40%, 30% to 40% of me sitting down calling, I would call bears in.

And normally I'm around 20% that I see, that I see bears. Now, lots of times you might be predator calling. You might not see something that comes in or might hang up that type of thing. But those are my percentages. As far as me visually seeing a bear,

Depending on where it is, like if it's across the canyon or something, I might predator call to it to see if I can't get it closer just because I don't want to have to hike it across the canyon. You know, if I can get closer to where it's an easier pack out, I'm definitely going to try that. Lots of times if I see a bear, I will try to put a stalk on it if it's open enough, like if it's in eastern Washington. If it's in western Washington, usually the brush is so thick where I'm

where I'm at that I might see a bear in a, in a pocket across the gully, but you know, there's so many downfall or down logs and brush and everything else. It would be just counterintuitive to try to get down to it. So I'll try to predator call to it. That can be successful. The last couple of years, I have been very choosy about the bears. I would take, I have, I prior to last year,

I hadn't killed a bear in a couple of years. I'd been involved in it. I, my son got one and et cetera and so forth, but I'm specifically looking for a certain color. Um, and I took the one last year because the, the area I was in had so many freaking predators in it. There was, all I had was bear and cougar all over my trail camera. I had a couple of deer. Um, but so I decided if I see a bear in here, I'm taking it just to, just to ease predators. Um, and,

But, you know, you get better at things the more you try it. And so if a guy is predator calling and is not having a lot of luck, just keep plugging away at it. You'll get better. You'll learn more. I would say, personally, if you're a beginning bear hunter and you see a bear and it's in a stockable position, I would try to stock it first.

Um, if it is a lot of brush or a lot of, uh, stuff in the way that you think you're going to spook the bear or, or whatnot, hop on that predator call. And like you said, that bear that broke loose at how a thousand yards or whatever it was and came barreling toward you guys. That's a prime example of that call worked. Um, now you, you might not have got a shot, but who's to say, you know, if, if it was you and your buddy, uh,

You could be like, Hey, I'm going to stay here and predator call. You head down to that tree line and hopefully he'll get into that tree line. Try to come up to me. You know, you can, you can formulate a plot against that, that bear and try to get a shot. For sure. I would just encourage, yeah. People just to carry one with them. It just, it's just an added tool that is very, very useful in certain situations. I'm going to end it here with one last question to you, Doug. Let us hear your, your number one tip for new hunters out there.

For new hunters, find food, find the bears. And for predator calling, give yourself time. So you got to think, if you're predator calling down into a valley, you got to think how long it's going to take for that bear. Say it's on the far side of the valley. How long it's going to take that bear to get from point A to you to point B. And I forgot to mention this earlier, but it's a very important tip when calling. So when you're playing with a kitty,

a kitty cat and you are, you know, using the string and the cat's all interested while the string's moving and batting it around.

And then you stop playing with that string and you just put it down. The cat loses interest. Bear are very, very similar with the sound. That's why you want to keep the sound going as much as possible during the call set, because I have noted that bear really only walk or move lots of times, not every time, but lots of times they will be moving while you're making that sound. And then when you stop blowing on the call, it will sit down or it will pause.

And so think in your head, hey, every time I'm calling, maybe that bear that's across the valley is walking toward me. You have to give it enough time to get to you. So that keys into the patience, I guess. But I guess number one is find food, find bears, and be patient when calling.

Yeah. Perfect. Perfect. Well, thank you very much for coming on the podcast, Doug, and, uh, good luck this, uh, spring and fall on, on your bear hunts and, uh, look forward to see how you do. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Oh, and just real quick, I just wanted to thank MeatEater as well for, uh, taking the time to put in that petition for spring bear for Washington hunters. I know that, uh, they didn't have to do that, but they did. And so I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. It was, uh,

Yeah, it was crazy times, but hopefully we can get that spring bear season back. I don't even, I've been so busy lately. I haven't kept track, but by time this podcast comes out, I guess we'll know whether we have a spring bear season or not. Yes. Well, thanks a lot, Doug, for joining us today. Really appreciate all your knowledge on everything black bear hunting, especially when it comes to calling and good luck out there this spring and fall bear hunting.

Thank you, Jason. I appreciate the invite and I wish the best for all new Predator callers. Good luck. Yeah. Thank you. Have a good one.

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