Good luck Terry.  

I've been emailed a bit since killing my bear this fall...and I thought I'd TTT this one.

Once again I'll reinstated the most important thing you can do is hunt over fresh sign....meaning fresh scat...so fresh it has flies on it...or like my bear this year, so fresh it doesn't even have flies on it yet.

If you aren't on fresh sign....KEEP WALKING!!!  You will have better luck bumping into a bear by walking and looking for fresh sign than just hunting an area that 'looks good' with a bit of old sign.

Also learned this year....when you have a lot of rain all summer, the acorns will hold onto the trees longer....we never heard it 'raining acorns' this year.  I usually run bears out of trees the 1st two weeks of the season...but I killed my bear this year the last day of the season in a tree.  So, pay attention to whether they are dropping or holding while scouting/hunting.

Next year wont come soon enough!!!

TTT for LongStick64

Up for Chriss Shelton...

Wow that is a wealth of knowledge!!!  Thanks again terry!

This is really good stuff, we don't have many food plots and can't bait or use dogs but we have alot of black bears.

Acorns, acorns, acorns.....enough said. Simple. Well maybe a few more words. Persimmons are good too. If I remember GA law right...you could hunt over a gut pile of a legally harvested deer. I've seen them come to in to salt licks too. Fresh green growth seems to get their interest too.

kinda hard to add to Terrys advise..... I had a long term goal of killing a bear without bait, I think Arkansas and the mtns of Ga. are alot alike, put down the boot leather, bears will climb white oaks before they start dropping acorns, this leaves scars on the trees, not real noticeable but you can see when a bear has been climbing, find some of this along with the fresh scat Terry was talkin about, then look for heavy cover adjecent to it, maybe a old grown up burn or clear cut or just a rugged rocky hill side with heavy growth, look for the padded out trails between food and cover. when the acorns start dropping its pretty noticable where they feed, a ideal spot I have found is a old grown up field, with a pond surrounded by white oaks in a 15,000 acre wilderness area, the bears will also have broken all the devils walking stick to get to the berries..and rolled rocks are another good sign, you can tell when they are freshly rolled..its a real challenge but nothing beats putting the pcs. together, just be ready for work when ya do kill one back in a ways...

Also, look up. I have seen quite a few bears climb oak trees to get at acorns. The bite and break off branches and then clean them out back on the ground.

I haven't read all the posts here so I might be repeating something, but here's what has worked for me.  #1 Find a spot that has a lot of sign-droppings, rocks flipped over for bugs, etc. #2 Call with a fawn bleat or a dying rabbit call until the bear comes to about 3 yds. from you. #3 Shoot him.  Hope this helps!  :^)

3yds? Someone likes to take long shots!  

Yeah, it was a little bit beyond my effective range, but I used a rangefinder and was very confident in my long range shooting  

Doug....I'd rather leave the picture up.    

And what Dave said about the boot leather.  Don't hunt if you aint on sign...keep walking.  They HAVE to eat...so you GOTTA find the food.