WESTERN WASHINGTON
BEAR HUNTS
Cascade Mountain Outfitters has access through a special use permit, to hunt thousands of acres for black bears. We hunt within the Mt Baker / Snoqualmie national forest, and have 2 GMU’s we hunt in. All our hunts on done on Public land and are fair chase spot & stalk type hunting over pre scouted areas. We schedule our hunts during weekdays to avoid weekend hunting traffic. We are the only outfitter in the NF we hunt, so the bears are not overhunted and do not get pushed out of our area.
With the highest bear population in the lower 48, Washington produces great opportunity for black and color phased bears. With the outlaw of baiting and hound hunting in the mid 90’s, our bear opportunities have increased greatly. We have trophy black (& color phased) bears, some squaring over 6’-6”, with most of our bears squaring at 5’-6”+. The bears in our area seem to be shorter in length than bears on the WA Coast, but have big blocky heads, weighing on average 150-275 lbs and have beautiful coats, ranging from black, chocolate and dark blonde colors.
Bears can be patterned just like any other big game animals. Our hunts are done in the middle to end of August when they are out feeding in logged clear cuts on blue berries, huckleberry’s & black berries. We hunt our bears throughout all hunting daylight hours, with our most successful harvests being in the mid-morning & evenings. Our shooting distances range from 100-500 yards. Bears are tough animals with heavy solid bones & thick hides. So, we require rifles of .25 caliber or larger, with heavy, quality bullets.
Our hunts are not very psychically demanding, we use 4WD vehicles to get us into our hunting areas and do a lot of still hunting, glassing or walking older logging roads. We then either hike or drive to our position for a shot once we spot a bear worth shooting.
