Anyone hunt bear in Arkansas?

[DanielB89]

A friend and I were wanting to hunt some bear in AA as LA does not have a season...yet.

Let me know if you have any info for me.

Daniel

[DarkTimber]

Daniel,

I hunt bear every year in AR on both public and private ground.   As you probably know you can only bait on private land.  There are some very good spots on public land but since you can't bait it requires extensive scouting to find food sources that they are frequenting and it can change very quickly.  There are guys that are conistently successful on public land but they put their time in.  Baiting on private land can be very productive but I've found as soon as the acorns drop they pretty much abandon the bait overnight. Unfortunately that has happend right around opening day the last couple years.  It's still a fun hunt though. Good luck!

[PowDuck]

Not successfully.

Only experience I have (very little) is on private land. Cousin ArkyBob puts in all the time and work with feeders, cameras, etc. then I show up and climb into the stand.

[Dave Lay]

my self and a couple friends have taken bears with trad gear and all over acorns,  Aaron ( dark timber)is right on with what he said, it takes a lot of scouting to find where they are feeding , Baiting is allowed on private land and its how most bears are killed here, its just not how I wanted to hunt em. I have hunted only in the Ozarks but the ouchita mts. around Mt ida/ mena  also hold a good population and would be a lot closer to you, but are have different topography with very few benches and rockier terrain than I am used to in the Ozarks, there are a few bear outfitters here but I have no knowledge of them... you might check with Clay Newcomb probably get him through this link.. he is the founder and publisher of this magazine..
   http://arbear.org/abbj    Clay has a lot of good info on this site as well....

[DanielB89]

thank you for all the replies, fellas.  A friend(Archer 2) and I are hoping to try it out this year.  I am not sure how much we would be able to get up there and scout before hand, I know we could make it up there a couple weekends to scout before the season, but if the bear are like you say they are, that wouldn't be very productive.  

We have quite a few bear on certain reserves here, it is a shame we can't hunt them a little closer to home.  

I know if may be a cop-out, but we were hoping to find a little private land to hunt.  Maybe someone who doesn't hunt, but them we wouldn't really have a way to get in contact with anyone who had land.