Never had the opportunity to hunt a bear until this year, whats a mature bear?

[burmjohn]

Never had the opportunity to hunt a bear until this year, whats a mature bear? How do you tell? What weight / size is "mature" and how the heck do you know that from the ground looking at them? I just want to make sure before I got into this years hunting season as I have been told there are bear all over on our property.  (No trail cam pics yet though, but neighbors say they are there)  ???

[Fairgame]

Any lone bear should be a legal bear.  maybe not mature ( at least a year and a half old).  I have seen really small bear in the woods and you can tell those are young.  At a year and a half old they are already over 120 pounds.

[CNYlungbuster]

Another way to help "age" a bear is the mickey mouse look.  If a bear has a small face a big ears like mickey he's most likely a younger bear.  If he's got a great big head an small ears he's probably a big bear.  For me any bear that's alone and of decent size would probably get some lead/arrows flying at it lol. 

hope this helps

CNY

[First-light]

Be careful about pulling the trigger too soon. I was in my stand at bow season and had a big bear come in for 5 minutes right under the stand. I watched for a while and decided I would take him.

Just when I was ready to grab the bow out comes a cub. Mama gets a free pass. Also too many cubs get shot during bow season because for this reason. Usually these are the 1.5 year old cubs. You should know what a 75lbs cub looks like and not shoot. Good luck! I will try to post the video I have of the sow and her cub.