avg bear weights in washington

[Hornseeker]

I had the good fortune of growing up hunting hounds in the late 70's all through the 80's right up to the 96 ban... My dad and a few of his buddies hunted hard, 3+ days a week during any open season, whether it was bakc in the day when there were spring seasons or damage hunts on through the fall. The cool part was, we weighed every bear we killed... there were a few years that only meant 8 or 10.... and there were years that meant 30. I think overall, I looked at about 200 bears hanging on a scales. My dad and his buds probably saw another 200+ with another layer of buds extending that to several hundred more bears on scales. I say that, just because they all talked and shared weights and such... plus the hound clubs had big bear contests... so they usually had a big one weighed with a witness so they could turn it in...

The vast majority of these bears were 130-175 pounds, no guts. There were 60 pounders... and there were 400 pounders. The bears we called "big" seemed to always be about 220-240 pounds and they were rare for sure. I remember a 375 and a 404. There was one bear from Sultan that we, very regrettably, did not weigh... he was undoubtedly over 500#... had 11 inches of fat on his back...

Most of these bears were killed in one of three locations, Stampede, Snoqualmie Tree Farm, or NE around Cusick.....

Anyhow... big is gutted over 200 for me... huge is over 300. anything bigger than that is just awesome... I know a guy in cusick that has a picture of 3 bears hanging from his apple tree... from 2 days of hunting... the biggest was 396, I think one was 358 and the other 348.... That was an unreal couple days.

[wheels]

mentioning heads  wats good size range

[RadSav]

mentioning heads  wats good size range

When shooting heads I like 'em inside 150 yards.  But it sure makes a mess of the skull mount

Oh, size range! Anything over 18" is usually one heck of a nice Washington bear. Or anywhere for that matter!  I see pics every year of 20" bear here in Washington, but they are definitely hard to find.  I've measured well over 100 bear from Oregon, Washington and BC.  I can only remember five that broke 20" and definitely only one over 21". My spring bear last year was one heck of an old bear and only went 17 2/8".  I'd shoot him again any day as he's one fantastic bear!  So nice that he will be full size in the house soon!  My biggest Washington skull was a bear I only shot to put out of his misery.  He was old, almost toothless, wormy and had very little hair on his face or legs.  I bet he didn't weight 150# in October and wouldn't have made it through the winter.  I was surprised when the green tape said over 20"!  Quite the nice reward for a mercy killing.

[Hornseeker]

Im with Rad on heads... those bigger boars we killed... that weighed 225 on up through the low 300's commonly had 17 3/4 to 18 3/4 inch heads. My dad plugged a 375# bear in the NE that had a 20 1/2 inch head... I dont think of all the many hundreds of bears we and our compadres killed and we heard about...not ONE made all time boone (21"). That is a HUGE noggin....

I read a book by Ralph Flowers, but cannot remember the details... he measured a few skulls in his days and I am thinking he didn't have any booners either...

[DOUBLELUNG]

If you go by what folks post online the average is around 400 pounds!    In reality there are more bears killed that are under 200 than any other size.   

yeah and the avg whitetail posted online dressed out at 260 , even the little forked horns

You mean those big, old declining regressors?