Field Judging Black Bears

Determining whether the bear that just walked into your shooting lane is a shooter or not can be a daunting task. Most bears look big.

One trick to help determine if the bear is an adult male and not a female or young male is to look at the head. Forget about body size for the moment. Imagine a triangle placed on the head of the bear with the base of the triangle between the ears and the other 2 sides pointing towards the nose. On an adult male bear the 3 sides of the triangle will be an equal length. On a female or young male the 2 sides of the triangle pointing towards the nose will be longer than the base of the triangle between the ears. The picture shows an example of an adult male that would be sausage if it walked into my shooting lane....as long as I didn't wet my pants first.