In my experience (on the west side) if you find a spot that has a bear that you've seen atleast twice, there are more bears in there and if you watch it long enough you will see them. I have a dead end road I watch. It is a patch of reprod. It has lots of shooting lanes and is loaded with cascara. One thing I've learned is if the area has cascara berries, they don't even bother with the blackberries. Around here they eat an insane amount of cascara berries. My road dead ends about 300 yards from where I sit. The wind typically blows in my face when I sit there. If the wind is going the other direction I will sit at the far end of the road. How I found this place is a buddy and I were headed out to shoot our pistols in June 3 years ago. We got out of the truck and started slamming doors and dragging out a big steel swinging target. A large boar walked out 80 yards away and just stared at us, then walked away. Then that September a different buddy and I were elk hunting and when we were walking out I was telling him about the bear. As i"m talking about it, the same bear walks out. Same exact spot. We ranged him at 117 yards and ran up the road to try to get a shot. We couldn't make it happen. So after that I decided that bear habitually visits that place. So from then on I sat in the road every chance I could get. I would leave work early almost every day during the season to sit in the road. I had some crazy experiences. I saw the boar several times but could never get a shot. I finally shot a 150lb bear that year and turned down another 150lb bear a week later. I went back the next season and saw the top of it's back one time. But that was it for the season. I had a small bear about 50 lbs walk out of the brush ten feet away and I took some cool pics and videos of it. Finally last year I wasn't hunting the road much. But, I messed up my foot and couldn't walk much so I decided to sit in the road after work friday night. I could hear the bear off the road feeding but couldn't see it. I walked into the reprod trying to get a shot. It was borderline too dark and I couldn't see the bear but I could hear it breathing. I came back out the next morning and at about 11am or so I heard some branches popping. I saw a chunk of cascara get pulled over about 80 yards out. I slowly walked up the road and found the bear feeding 20 yards away and dropped him. So long story short, if you have a good area, I would definitely try a tree stand. It will take a lot of patience but if you can have the self discipline to sit long enough it will happen. I would recommend leaving the stand in there for a while before you start hunting to take care of the scent.
That’s funny, the wife and o were shooting rifles last summer a couple weeks before opening day. After firing a dozen rounds or so casually. A large bear walks out about 50 yards away and slowly walks across the clear cut in front of us. Bear sure don’t mind gun shots or most human activities as far as I can tell.
