Hunting Washington Forum
Big Game Hunting => Bear Hunting => Topic started by: Pete112288 on November 17, 2015, 09:36:40 PM
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I have heard a lot about how much bears love skunk cabbage. I have found a few really nice areas that are situated very near 5-10 year old clear cuts that are full of berries and a scattering of wild cherry trees. It is on a hillside above a good salmon river and within a quarter mile of a main creek that the salmon come up to spawn. about a quarter mile above the main river there is a small bench of an area that an old skid road goes along. The surrounding timber is 15-20ft firs with several alder draws and bigger timber at one end. At one spot there is an old beaver dam on a small spring (where I shot the bear in my avatar, stumbled across it and since then I found out why it was in that area) also there is a big muddy flat next to the skid road that is loaded with skunk cabbage. This is all on a north facing hillside so I figure its perfect for early season when its warm. So to finally get around to my question. Is there a specific time of year that bears tend to gravitate to the skunk cabbage? Or is it just something they will work on all year round. I was thinking of next year setting up in a tree stand above the muddy flat off of it 20 yards or so, so I can see the trails that lead into and out of it.
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In my experience bears only eat skunk cabbage as a spring forage. Skunk cabbage and coltsfoot are usually the first things to come up in the spring in quantity.
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Bears love to eat the first growth of skunk cabbage; the bright yellow sprouts you see in the spring. They may eat it at other times but I've never heard of it.
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First thing out of hibernation they will find it and eat a bunch. Gets their system going again. Also look for areas of clover. They love that in the early spring.
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I see it eaten mostly in the spring, it will actually pop up through the thin layers of snow in the mud. But seems once they've moved up a notch in elevation they don't want to go back down for regrowth. If it is a dry year and warm out, then they seem to eat it through the summer/fall.
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Springtime when the shoots are young and tender, before the leaves take off
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They will dig up and eat the roots. In my experience, they don't like it much and they move on quickly if there is any other food source available. I see most feeding activity from late April to early May on the west side of I5.
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(https://hunting-washington.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hunt101.com%2Fdata%2F500%2Fmedium%2Fskunkcabbage2010.jpg&hash=c79d071b85c5f4f9983dddf8cafdeccb79160ffe)
