By Mike Marsh

Billy Rose hunted white-tailed deer for years. He knew the odds for taking a record-book deer in North Carolina were extremely low, but he had not even considered the possibility that he would have chance at a record-book black bear.

"I only hunt bears a couple of times a year," Rose said. "A friend who plants corn for deer and waterfowl each year in Camden County invited me to hunt. His family killed bears in the past, but had lost interest. I decided to give it a try."

Rose spotted four bears feeding in fields as he drove the farm at night. He hunted from tree stands fruitlessly two mornings and afternoons.

"The next morning I decided to stalk the bear," Rose said. "I used cover along ditches to sneak to the field. I shot the bear with a .270 at 175 yards."

The bear weighed 635 pounds. After drying, the skull scored 21, making the All-Time Boone and Crockett record book.

"The bear was a short distance from Dismal Swamp Refuge," Rose said. "That may have helped him get so big."

Rose's storybook hunt is not unusual. North Carolina's black bear hunting is the best on the planet.

Bears continue to expand their range. The state has the highest number of acres in bear sanctuaries in the lower 48 states, giving a boost to bear numbers and bear sizes.

"Last year, there were several bears harvested by hunters that weighed over 400 pounds and a couple of bears that weighed over 500 pounds," said Chris Henline, a North Carolina Wildlife Commission crew leader in mountainous District 8. "I weighed one that was 400 pounds on my scales and I have confidence the weight was accurate."

The bear Henline weighed was taken in McDowell County near the Blue Ridge Parkway. The parkway itself acts as a sanctuary with its right of way off-limits to hunters where it winds through the high mountains. But the bear was taken from Pisgah National Forest, one of the large tracts of public land through which the parkway slices.

"We have lots of other sanctuaries in the region," Henline said. "The Asheville watershed is a big area where no hunting is allowed. Mount Mitchell State Park and the Mount Mitchell Bear Sanctuary on our game lands also have lots of bears. The biggest bears taken by hunters usually come from areas near the sanctuaries. Last year, there were more big bears taken by hunters than usual because of a poor mast year."

Multiple bears taken in a single hunt are possible in the central and upper coastal regions. These three bears were taken during a hunt in Jones County. The hunters were Jeff Henderson (185-pound bear), Brad Owens (230-pound bear) and Leonard Meads (600-pound bear). Photo by Mike Marsh

McDowell, Yancey, Mitchell, Madison and Buncombe counties provide some of the best mountain bear habitat. The rugged mountainous areas are covered with native vegetation. The mountain national forest lands and the private lands are heavily hunted. Bears soon learn where they are safe.

"The hunters know where the cut-offs are," Henline said. "They check for bear sign where bears have left the sanctuaries. They let out their hounds and the bears will head back to the sanctuaries when the hounds start chasing them. Most of the sanctuaries' boundaries are roads and the hunters try to head the bears off at the roads before they can get back inside. Dogs can't read signs and they will follow the bears back in. But it seems the bears can. They know right where to go to escape. Hunters have to leave their guns behind when they enter a sanctuary to catch their dogs. The majority of the time, the bear gets away."

Poor mast years equal good bear hunting in the mountains. Mountain bears must expand their travel range to find adequate food. While bears on the Coastal Plain may be able to switch to a number of agricultural crops without moving much, mountain bears have a more limited number of options.

"We don't have many big bears like the coastal region," Henline said. "This is rugged country and it's natural habitat. But there are enough big ones to make hunting interesting. A big bear can't climb a tree and backs up to a hole to make a stand and fight the dogs. When he does, a hunter can lose some dogs. If the dogs are good enough to keep the bear from heading into a sanctuary, a hunter might get a shot."

The top 10 counties in the mountain region in terms of total bears harvested by hunters were Haywood (78), McDowell (67), Graham (66), Macon (65), Cherokee (61), Madison (57), Yancey (51), Clay (32), Buncombe (31) and Caldwell (26).

The total harvest in the mountain region was 717 bears, of which 405 were taken from game lands and 312 taken from private lands. The percentage of bears taken from private lands has been increasing over the past several seasons.

"Bears are expanding their range onto private lands in the mountains," said commission bear biologist Mark Jones. "They are moving off the national forest lands and sanctuaries and offering hunters new opportunities."

As good as the mountain hunting can be, hunters kill more bears in the coastal region, and bear weights are also heavier. The 2003 coastal harvest was 1,042 bears. Most of the bears on the coast are taken from private lands. Just 5 percent of coastal bears came from pubic hunting lands during the 2003 season; 56 percent of the bears in the mountain region came from public hunting lands.

The top 10 bear harvest counties in the coastal region were Hyde (187), Beaufort (154), Tyrrell (94), Jones (83), Camden (66), Washington (63), Bladen (56), Craven (54), Pender (43) and Bertie (38).

David Rowe is the commission's District 1 wildlife biologist. Some of the biggest bears in the state are taken in District 1.

"Hyde County is where bigger bears have come from in most years," Rowe said. "There are lots of national wildlife refuges in the northeastern counties. The refuges allow bears to grow older and larger. The area around the 100,000-acre Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge has a lot of bears and hunting territory. In Washington and Tyrrell counties, the area around Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge has lots of big bears."

Big bears are male bears. Since males have bigger territories than females, they wander more and are therefore more likely to be encountered by hunters outside the refuges.

"A male bear has a territory of around 12,000 acres and a female around 6,000 acres," Rowe said. "But home range decreases in fall when the blackgum berries are ripe. Blackgum berries are a staple for bears in northeastern swamps. Chowan Swamp Game Land is an area where still-hunters hunt bears by waiting over trails leading through the blackgum swamps. It's so big and dense that hound hunters can lose their dogs for several days, so they hunt bears without dogs. Some hunters killed a big bear at Chowan Swamp last year and it took eight hours for them to get it out. It's a tough place to hunt. There's mud up to your waist."

The coastal region has produced numerous record-book bears over the last decade. Billy Rose's record-book bear is a prime example. The large number of bears in tiny Camden County can be traced to the mixture of river drainages, agricultural fields and the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge. The native habitat is hard enough to penetrate, so many bears escape from hunters to grow large.

Another 635-pound bear was taken in Hyde County by Billy Parish on Nov. 10. Kimberly McCargo, a wildlife technician in District 1, weighed the bear.

"The bear came out of the Pungo Refuge into a field," McCargo said. "Parish was still-hunting in the morning. He called it in on the Bear Hotline and we went to examine the bear. It was the biggest bear I have seen."

Dale Davis is a wildlife technician in District 1. He said dealing with large bears is a fact of life in the district.

"Lake Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge and the other refuges hold lots of big bears that spill off onto the surrounding farms," Davis said. "The farms lease hunting rights to groups. They kill bears at all of the farms."

Bear vs. vehicle collisions have been on the upswing as well. Last year, Davis had to deal with a bear injured in a vehicle collision.

"I estimated the bear weighed 550 pounds," Davis said. "He totaled the car. I had to drug the bear and use a hoist to swing it into the truck. There was no way else to move it because it was so big. There are between 30 and 50 bears hit with vehicles each year in the 13 counties in District 1 and that's only the ones we know about."

The commission is acquiring more game lands in the region that have good bear hunting opportunities. Van Swamp Game Land in Washington and Beaufort counties and Buckridge Game Land in Tyrrell County are recent acquisitions.