Hunting cornfields for bear

I had set up a makeshift blind—burlap on a few stakes—creating a lit­tle wall for me to hide behind, tucked into the standing corn. I was on a corner of the field where a piece of timber meets the corner of the field, and leading to the corn were some absolute bear highways. The ground was trampled, littered with corn stalks, mangled cobs, and copi­ous amounts of creamed corn-looking poop. As the sun got low, a very large bear appeared and quickly had me questioning both my setup and my sanity, as I stared at this block-headed bear at well under ten yards. With a small gap wide enough for a tractor to pass between the corn and the timber, it was very much the defi­nition of up close and personal. But it was fun, and it worked. Bear hunting productivity Ever since this first venture into cornfield bear hunting in the early 2000s, I haven’t looked back. It has become a go-to tactic for bears, one that provides an exciting, highly productive, and unique means of targeting them. I am constantly seeking out alternatives to baiting and have found this to be one of my top strategies for fall bears. See “Into the berry fields” on pg. 46 of the Fall 2021 issue, or “Calling all bears” on pg. 50 of the June 2023 issue for some other exciting, alterna­tive methods. Where I hunt near Thunder Bay, there are sig­nificant agricultural areas with plenty of corn­fields. Come late August and early September, these fields become a huge draw for bears, who come for miles to feed and generally don’t leave. Bears set up shop feasting for weeks on end and wreaking havoc on the crop as they fatten up for winter. Understandably, farmers are usually receptive to allowing access to bear hunters. Finding the right field Some fields are more suitable for setting up than others, and with time, you can start identifying productive locations. I look for cornfields adja­cent to a decent-sized chunk of mature timber, providing the bears somewhere comfortable to bed down when they take a break from the corn. While I have seen many bears in fields far from any significant timber, I prefer to hunt in these areas. The next thing I look for is a habitat edge that will concentrate bears. In large fields where one edge may span 500 metres or more,