2025
Spring Bear Gear List
Pursuing spring bear in northern latitudes requires a gear list inclusive of multiple contingencies: unpredictable weather, hyper-active ticks, and roaring creek crossings fueled by spring runoff, to name a few.
Jake's Full Spring Bear Gear List
A few quick mentions about the full gear list provided here:
- I do not include a shelter/sleep system checklist on this particular gear list. The reason? I’ve never once backpack-style hunted black bear. Should that stop you from doing so yourself? Not necessarily. In my experience, spring bear hunts are best during that 5-9pm window in late May; because of this, I never really hunt the mornings. Instead, I’ll sleep in and usually work most of the morning/afternoon before heading out to my destination. With this in mind, I most often opt to stay with friends or sleep in my truck, rather than backpacking anywhere. My personal preference.
- You’ll also notice that my gear list does not include a lot of warm weather gear. If you choose to hunt towards the beginning of the spring bear season, you may want to add some additional merino base layers or opt to wear a warmer pant, such as Stone Glacier’s Praxis pant, designed specifically for archery hunters and warmer than the 206. Because I prefer to hunt black bears later in the season, more often than not my problem is that I’m getting too hot, rather than too cold.
- Lastly, you’ll notice that my long-range glassing setup is pretty heavy, compared to what we have available at Gear Fool. The reason? I haven’t purchased anything lighter yet; I’ll call out what I would bring farther down this page.
Jake's Gear List
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Growing up, I didn't always love hunting.
It took well into my high school and early college years for me to truly appreciate everything that makes hunting such a big part of my and my family’s life today. That being said, I still remember the first hunt where I took a deep, fresh breath in and thought to myself, “I love this.” It was a spring bear hunt in Montana outside my hometown during my junior year of high school. I was hurtling down an old logging road on a $15 bicycle, with a heavy pack, squinting to make out the rocks as they were flashing into the view of my dim headlamp. Behind me, you could see the faint glow of town a thousand feet below, and ahead of me was my dad, somewhere, moving at about Mach 10. (It’s also the first time I remember thinking, “Dang, my old man’s still got it.”)
That night is burned into my memory...
...and typifies my favorite method of hunting black bears: after work, with a bow, and on a bike. The greatest thing about hunting spring black bear is that the days are getting longer, the snow is melting away, and you’re yearning to get outside by the time the season rolls around. And if you’re lucky enough to live in a small town in Western Montana, then you can pretty easily put a hunt together right after work, considering the best bear hunting, especially late in the season, takes place well after 5pm. Add on the fact that black bears have notoriously terrible night vision, and you have an incredibly high chance of closing the distance with your bow in the last hour of daylight on some logging road in Montana or Idaho (my preferred time is late May, as higher elevations become more accessible with the snowmelt).
To clarify, I'm not Genghis Khan...
...and I’m not physically riding the bike while shooting these bears, but I would definitely recommend adding a bike to your gear list for a black bear hunt where you know there are going to be a lot of logging roads. A cheap pedal bike can help you punch a lot deeper past a Forest Service gate than you could on foot, and the ride back out can be really, really fun (if you’re going downhill, anyways). Outside of that unique exception, my gear list for spring bear always includes quickly accessible rain gear, due to the unpredictability of May-June weather, and then a good pair of gaiters, primarily for mitigating ticks. Ticks are, unfortunately, the only downside to my absolute favorite hunt of the year; however, specific gear like SITKA’s Equinox line (designed to keep out bugs) can help combat the persistent critters. (Although nothing will ever be quite as effective, or as comical, as standing in the entryway of your own home, in your skivvies, calling for someone to come search you for bloodsucking parasites.)
