I love to hunt steep terrain, either high elevation blueberrie patches around the olympic national park boundary. Or in the tree farms.
The high elevation blue berry patches are pretty self explanatory. Find the berry patches with good vantage point above them to watch.
In the tree farms i find steep draws with clearcuts that have vantage points across a draw. I never ever hunt them from the same side. All of my spots are pretty good distance shots 300 yards to as far as I feel comfortable. Usually 650 yards +/-
I try to Find a 4 to 10 year old clear cut with salal throughout it (salal berries hold for a long time we'll into late October/early November) and other berries. It's easy to find clear cuts in steeper terrain that are still covered in salal...not sure why but the ones I hunt are blanketed with salal. Those berries really bring the bear in during October.
After I find the terrain I'm looking for, and the berry sources I'm looking for.
The 3rd thing and most important in my experience. I look for bear damage. Torn up stumps, rolled over logs, dug up roots, etc etc.
I look for old and recent damage.
It's my experience hunting these clear cuts That I've never seen a bear on a hillside with berries but without there being alot of damage aswell.
I've spent hours watching amazing hillsides with tons of berries and never seen a bear. But just a 1/4 mile away I'll see bear regularly on a hillside with very little berries and a decent amount of damage. (These 2 particular spots are on the same valley, on the same side of the valley, and I sit at the same spot to watch both clear cuts, then move to a shooting location)
As soon as I switched up and started hunting these types of areas I've had multipe opportunities the last 2 seasons. Missed a few short shots I'm not proud of...bought a new scope that was better setup for the terrain and distances I'm hunting. put in the trigger time last spring/summer and connected with my first bear last October with 100% confidence at the distance I shot.
Makes me less proud about those shots I missed the previous year that were half the distance lol