"There is good bear hunting success in Cherokee, Clay, Graham and Macon counties at Nantahala National Forest," Jones said. "These counties are some of the state's most rugged terrain counties. However, there are large tracts of forested land and the core areas of these lands are located on the national forest. Bears eat anything they can find. Up there in the high elevations, they depend greatly on mast. That's why they tend to be smaller at the coast. Mast production, and therefore, bear hunting operate on a boom-and-bust cycle. On the coast, it's not like that. In poor mast years in mountains, we have high bear harvests. At the coast, it's pretty consistent hunting. Some states are the opposite. In the mountains, since 95 percent of our bear harvest comes from the national forests, a mast failure forces bears to move around that year and our hound hunters can find them more easily. In states with higher levels of still-hunting, a good mast year allows still-hunters to zero in on areas where there's a high mast crop and they have better success rates. In Virginia, for example, lots of bear harvests by bowhunters occur during the good mast years."

Clubs and family groups typically hunt the same territories year after year. They release hounds on fresh bear tracks or where their dogs strike hot scent. Hunting the same areas allows the hunters to determine which way a bear may be heading and to know the best trails or forest roads for getting near a treed bear or one bayed on the ground or inside a cave.

The use of tracking collars on hounds is universal statewide. This keeps hunters from losing valuable bear hounds, but reduces the number of record-book bears for the state. For a bear to qualify for a Boone and Crockett listing if it is taken by a dog wearing a tracking collar, the receiver must be turned off for the bear to be considered to have been taken in fair chase. The skull measurement is the determining factor for entry, with the length and width added after a drying period to obtain the score.

For this and other reasons, including the availability of commission personnel with scales of adequate weight capacity, North Carolina hunters consider the trophy quality of a bear to be determined at the scales. Any bear in the mountains weighing 300 pounds or more is considered a good bear in the mountains. At the coast, it takes a 500-pound bear to reach "trophy of a lifetime" status among hunters. Few bears are skinned before being weighed if they are large bears. It takes many hunters to get such heavyweight bears out of the thickets of the eastern areas and rugged terrain of the western regions. Nevertheless, that's part of the fun of a bear hunt -- using combined strengths of the hunting party not only to bag the bear but also to haul it out.

Hunters harvested 1,800 bears in 2006, with 1,075 at the coast and 725 in the mountains.

For hunters who use public lands, some 2006 bear harvests from commission game lands can give them clues on the best places to hunt.

Along the coast, Brunswick County had two bears harvested from game lands, with Brunswick County Game Land the only game land open for hunting bears. In Bladen County, four bears were taken from Bladen Lakes Game Land. In Carteret County, seven bears were taken from game lands; in Craven County, four bears were taken from game lands, and in Jones County, nine bears were taken (the 20 bears from these three counties likely all came from Croatan Game Land). In Gates County, 10 bears came from Chowan Swamp Game Land. In Pender County, six bears were taken from Holly Shelter and Angola Bay game lands. In Washington County, most or all of the seven bears were harvested at Van Swamp Game Land. In Tyrrell County, Buckridge, Lantern Acres likely produced the eight bears taken on game lands.

In the mountains, 51.9 percent bears came from the vast acreages of public game lands. Top among these counties in the Pisgah National Forest and Nantahala National Forest counties were Avery County, with eight bears harvested, Buncombe, four; Burke, 13; Caldwell, 10; Cherokee, 41; Clay, 30; Graham, 51; Haywood, 38; Jackson, 24; Macon, 72; Madison, 31; McDowell, 18; Mitchell, five; Swain, 22; Transylvania, six and Yancey, three.