Of the 56 record book bucks I've taken, two weeks dominate my successful times hunting. The week from Nov 2 to Nov 9 I've taken 27 or just under half of my total bucks. The average score during that week on Kodiak Island has been 86.5 inches.
During the first week of August on POW Island, I've taken 10 bucks with an average score of 97.98 inches.
The balance of the bucks were taken either during the month of October or a few after the 9th of November. By far the most productive time to hunt is the week from Nov 2 through the 9th. The first week of August in, my opinion, is the second best time. But my success then may simply be because that's when I hunt in the summer. But I have hunted other times on POW Island, I've just never killed anything other than the first week of August.
Hope this info helps some decide when to plan their hunt.
Although bucks will respond somewhat positively to being decoyed using a decoy hat the last week of the month, decoying is much more spotty. November 3rd the rut kicks in big time. Bucks are far more aggressive regarding everything. They become far more obvious in their environment due to activity associated with the rut.
I don't think my harvest of black bears is near as definitive regarding timing. For the most part, I kill them when they come to baits. In the early years of hunting POW I only did spot and stalk on the beach for the first ten days of May. When bear numbers dropped, I switched to baiting and began staying at the cabin longer through the end of May into June. Now I stay for 6 weeks.
In general, I think you shoot a big bear when you see him. The last week of May boars will start leaving a bait they had been hitting for either seeking out fawns or sows. Not sure which it actually is, both tend to happen about the same time. But boars do start to leave some baits the last week of May. On the other side of the coin, if you have a bait with a bunch of sows hitting it, you are apt to see a new big boar at that bait.
In recent years, I've switched to trying to getting any big boars killed before they leave.
The first week of May, 1 bear (I thought it would have been more) average size 20.06 inches. Second week of May, 4 bears average size 20.03 inches. Third week of May, none? Fourth week of May, 5 bears average size 19.54 inches. First week of June, 7 bears average size 19.24 inches. Second week of June, 3 bears average size 19.44 inches.
Looks like I've killed most of the bears when I said it was hardest to kill them at a bait. I think a lot of those bears were taken at my Lava Bay bait when they came in after sows.
