Hunt big black bears near Carrot River, Saskatchewan

This hunt yielded 24 bears for 27 hunters in spring 1 999, including 14 bowhunters. One hunter did not have a good opportunity, and two muzzleloader hunters lost bears. Over the past two fall seasons the outfitter took 14 hunters, who bagged 12 bears. Fall hunts take place in the first 2 weeks of September. Cabin accommodations. This hunt is with an outfitter who has 18 years of bear guiding experience (his first year was 1982). He has three exclusive guiding areas in western Saskatchewan where he has no competition from any other outfitter. Consequently, his hunter success is high, and the trophy size is excellent.

Hunts start on a Monday and end on a Saturday. You can hunt spring (May) and fall (first two weeks of September).

Fall hunters also can combine a bear hunt with an archery hunt for whitetail deer during the first week of September or a muzzleloader deer hunt during the second week of September. The outfitter had one bowhunter in September 1997, and he killed a seven-point buck that scored more than 120 Pope and Young points. He had no muzzleloader hunters in 1997 but had three Europeans with old-fashioned muzzleloaders in September 1996. They killed a buck scoring 158 and a 140-class eight-point. The third hunters had misfires on two 10-pointers, one of them estimated to score in the high 150s. There are no restrictions on modern muzzleloaders in Saskatchewan, and scopes are OK. Deer can be seen in early September feeding in crop fields, and muzzleloaders can be successful in glassing and moving to ambush points, while bowhunters do better from tree stands.

As for size, he has produced some record-class bears, including 21 5/16 and 21 3/16 (skull size) animals in the spring of 1998. The smaller one was taken by a bowhunter; the larger one by the only rifle hunter in spring 1998. Archers also took bears scoring 18 2/16 and 18 4/16 Pope and Young. The nine hunters took eight bears. The archer who did not score saw 15 or 16 bears but was looking for a color-phase pelt or an extra-large bruin. He missed two brown bears and wounded a black one on the last day.

The spring hunt in 1999 started really good and then there were two weeks of cold, wet weather. Still the outfitter produced 24 bears for his 27 hunters in the three areas he huunts. The biggest was a 20-inch brown that weighed 366 pounds. Another was 19 inches. One hunter wounded two bears and lost both of them. Another hunter did not fill his tag after he saw a huge black bear and held out for it with his bow and arrow but did not get a shot. About 25% of the bears in spring '99 were colored, including the two biggest, both chocolate brown.

The fall 1998 hunt produced eight bears for nine hunters, including three Pope and Young candidates. Six were black,, and two were browns. The biggest weighed 312 pounds and scored 19 12/16. Another bear, dark chocolate, had a skull that measured 18 1/16. There were a couple of bears that scored in the high 17s.

In fall 1997, he had 10 hunters take nine bears, including one with a 20-inch skull, a 400-pounder with a skull measuring 19 12/16 inches, an 18-2 and an 18-8. The man who did not score hunted only four days and saw 14 bears but none on his last evening on stand. Hunt BL159.

All the bear hunting is done from tree stands over baits except when bruins are spotted in oat or wheat fields. The outfitter uses a lot of meat in the spring, such as beaver carcasses or butcher scraps, and in the fall he uses grain and grease. He said bears come readily to bait stations in the fall, unlike some areas, and he has found that it's actually easier to bait a bear within range in the fall because the animals are not fighting with each other as much as in the spring, when the bears are setting up their pecking order. They frequent streams and cranberry patches then.