Starting on the 15th of April we can set up our bait stations and with 24 hour hunting light soon to be upon us up here in the interior this is a magical time of the year to hunt. Where else can you legally hunt black and grizzly bears over bait at 11pm on Friday after getting off work? Any way I digress. I'm curious for those of you who also find spring to be another reason in the year to go out to the hunting fields what types of firearms do you plan on taking your bears with? With the heavy brush we have here and possibility of shots between 0-100y I was going to be taking either my M1 Garand (I know go figure right?) or my 9.3x62mm with 3-9x50 Nikon Prostaff and either my 45 colt Blackhawk or .454 Redhawk.

What will you be carrying with you this spring? What are some of the more unusual guns you have killed bears with? Photos would be way cool.

we cant spring bear hunt here but i have done plenty of fall hunting. ive used a few different calibers from .270 , 300 win mag, and most recently 44 mag out of a 4 inch redhawk.
when hunting bears with a handgun, i will only take close head shots. i wont trust a traditional broad side shot with any handgun past 30 yards, especially with a large bear. bigger is usually better when it comes to handgun hunting so i would go with the .454 if you decide to take it. the M1 would be my first choice out of the firearms you listed. good luck with your hunting.

Nice bear! I also have a S&W 460. But our bait is going to be around 100 y from the nearest place I want to set up. The place is so densely wooded many places you cannot fit between the black spruce. Because of that if you want to set up next to the bait where we are hunting you would be literally right next to the bait. The only work around is to find a forest pond and set the bait on the other side to have some stand off. While I practice with all my hunting handguns out to and past 100y I don't feel comfortable taking live game at those distances with a handgun yet.

I have many other rifles I could use from my M1A to my 300H&H and others as well but for 100y or less I want iron sights and I don't know what it is about the M1 even over the M1A but I have an affinity for it and have harvested game with it before.

At 100 yards, you most certainly will wanna run with a rifle of some sorts. Anything bigger then a 270 is good imo unless your going for a large grizzly , then 300 wm would be the min . 300 h&h sounds like a perfect bear round

Shot my first bear over bait and I have to say it felt like cheating. Much prefer spot/stalk either way a bad day hunting beats just about anything else. For blacks 270 is about perfect, 300 wsm and 300 win mag seemed to be a bit much and ive lost a bit of meat shooting those 100 yards and in. 30-06 is about the perfect alaskan caliber

Well spot and stalk doesn't work in super tight forests you can barely move through so luckily we can do this method. I just wonder how well 165gr corlokts will work on a decent size griz or a large black bear if we get one in.

im not a fan of solids for anything above deer, but being so close, it should do the job. i still would go with something 180 or larger, a wounded or even dying bear can run a long ways

True, I just don't know how well my M1 will handle factory 180gr loads with out bending the oprod. I have some though. If my 9.3x62mm is back from the smith in time I will take it. a 250gr Barnes TTSX doing 2500 fps is big medicine for anything in North America.

14.5" AR-10 / .308

That'll do.

I historically hunt bear in Ak with a 7 mag but I built a 458 socom and took this years bear with it.  Didn't take another step.

Since your over bait you should be fairly close.  Though this is good to 100yds no problem and compact.



10.5" 458socom

Early season in the Adirondacks starts in four weeks.  Foliage will be thick, I'm going to try to take one with a Glock 40 MOS.  I have taken plenty of deer with a handgun and would love to take a bear.