My brother and I are looking for recommendations for black bear outfitters.  He has been to NC previously and already has a large trophy bear.  

The prices for guided hunts in NC have gotten crazy and we are looking for something more affordable.  Mainly because this will be my first bear hunt and I don't have funds for previously mentioned NC huts.  My niece would also be coming with us, as this hunt would be more for her than my brother.

I don't know that we have a preference on what type of hunt we want to do yet, although we'd like to go somewhere with a high success rate even if that means smaller bears.  So hunting over bate is probably fine.

We both live in Indianapolis and were looking for someplace we could drive to within a day or so (16 hourish drive).  Based on that we were looking at Canada or Northern US states, places like Maine are a little outside the range but we'd consider places right now.

I think we are too late to find something for 2020, so we'd probably be looking at going next year.  I was thinking we are willing to spend $3000ish each, not including travel cost and license fees.