Estimating Bear Weight

L

Lonny

New member
I read an article in "Bear Hunting" magazine the other day about a system for figuring out a bears weight. I have seen other charts that use neck or girth circumference for estimating the weight of a bear. I have always been somewhat skeptical of these "one size fits all" charts. I ran across this article and it uses length and girth measurements to come up with a weight.

The gentleman who wrote the article has recorded the weights of over 500 black bears from all parts of the lower 48 and Alaska to develope this chart. He spent years gathering this information, and then making sense of it for this chart.

Black bears are very hard to judge the weight of. They always look bigger alive and suffer from ground shrinkage. Even when dead, bears can appear to weigh more then they actually do because even small bears are hard to move. Just thought I would let anyone planning on bear hunting this spring or fall know about this chart.
www.bear-hunting.com is the web site for the magazine.
 
Hi Lonny, I also have soo much trouble getting them to hold still for me while I measure them, how about you?? LOL I have taken 5 bears with my bow, two of which got a serious case of ground shrinkage. I have seen one truly MONSTER bear, easy 71/2 footer in Northern Alberta along the Peace River. What a bear! Fred
 
Thanks for the heads up Lonny,saw a copy the other day will pick one up.
Have you read Del Cameron's book Call Of the Hounds,if you have what did you think of it?
 
Rob, I have read Del's book. I thought it was pretty good. He kind of seems to have trouble coming to grips with the way hound hunting has changed since he started. Lots more guys doing it now. I also know that some of the hunts he talks about in the book make his dogs always look a little better than the others he has hunted with. The reason I say this is a good friend of mine has hunted with him and tells some of the stories slightly different. But hey, its his book and maybe thats the way he see's it. He does know his hounds no doubt about that. I thought it was worth reading and I enjoy that type of book. Have you read his book? if so what did you think of it?

The book I liked better was "The Longwalkers" by a Jerry A Lewis out of Darby,MT It was a real good book in my opinion. Have you read that one by chance?
 
My brother took a bear in the Catskill Mountains in NY back in 96. When we met with one of the DEC's Bear biologists for official inspection purposes we asked him, before the actual weigh-in, what he thought the bear might actually weigh.
He guesstimated 280 and he's one of the state pros. The bear weighed in at 385.
 
I shot an Oregon black bear in Oct 2000 that we really figured at about 600 lbs. Turned out to be a 7 footer at a tad over 400 lbs. The 600 we figured was because of the difficulty my dad and I had moving it, and it's large size. Remembering back though he looked just humungous when I shot him and then not nearly as big laying in the bushes.

Posing a question. Do any of you guys have charts or figures on how much gut piles weigh from these animals?
 
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