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what is the best time to go hunting. Do you start before sun up or do you wait for the sun. easy question I know but just looking for a little help so im not driving around when there is little hope and with gas prices it would sure help to increase my odds


Thanks

Jim

Well, in CA you can only hunt bear 1 half hour before sunrise, and 1 half hour after sunset. So you can't legally go hunting in the dark. I check to see when sunrise is the day before, and that determines when I go. But usually, I don't turn loose until it's light light, and I can look around and see what's going on. Most of the time we don't even get the dogs out until about 7. I have had better luck starting tracks then. I won't turn loose usually after noon though, cause you're just asking to be out all day and maybe the next. But I've started bears at 2pm and one as late as 7pm right at dusk. So there isn't really a good time to go I don't think. Getting up too early really don't gain much, and you loose sleep!

I think most bears either move late night/early morn or in late morning. If it walked the night before, chances are if it's that old, another hour won't hurt to try it. But I've noticed once season starts and hunters are crawling everywhere at dawn, that the animals seem to start stirring later on in the morning after most have gone through.

Thank you for the insite atleast I won't have to leave so early. I was hopeing that they moved when it would be light just because being my first time out



Thanks
Jim

Bears are most active at night. I'm in Southern California were it can get real dry and hot, so IMO the earlier you start rigging (legal hunting time in the area), and looking for tracks the better chance you have of finding a hot track, with good scenting conditions. We've started tracks at 6:30, and we started them at 1:30, but the later you start the hotter it becomes, and the harder it is for the dogs to figure it out, not that they cant and dont, its just hotter and harder on the dogs the later you start. We normally start Rigging at the legal hunting time until 11:00-12:00 and if we havent found something to run by then we're done for the day.

Most of the bears I have seen without my dogs have been in the late afternoon 4-5 pm.

here in west virginia i start in the evening and hunt till day light and usually have a bear by dark