I have just won the Maryland Bear Lottery after entering it for the past 4 years.  I am a new hunter and know a little about hunting deer (went out for the first time last year) and even less about black bear.  The season is in late October, and I am trying to do as much research as possible to increase my odds of having a successful hunt.  I will be hunting public lands.  According to MD DNR, last year hunters with bear permits had an 8.6% success rate.  MD allows the permit holder to bring up to two additional hunters with them(sub-permittees), however we can only take one bear total (if we get so lucky).  I will be using a Tikka T3 CTR chambered in .308 with a Vortex Viper PST 4-16x scope.  I did purchase a tree stand for the deer season this year (Treewalker ProMag).  I assume that this will be useful for bear as well.  I'm spending my time reading up on black bear habitat and what they do during the day.

Any tips/links/advise that you guys could provide me would be awesome.  There is no baiting or catch dogs permitted in  MD.

find natural food sources. seeing a bear in the woods is very tough, even in areas full of them. you need to find where they are feeding and set up near it.