Bears devoured my entire cornfield
Contributors to this thread:Bears
From: Pat Lefemine
04-Sep-24
100% gone
100% gone
From: Pete In Fairbanks
04-Sep-24
That is serious and impressive crop damage...
Pete
From: Ned mobile
04-Sep-24
Waste of a good corn field
From: SteveB
04-Sep-24
Wow!
From: DanaC
04-Sep-24
Not to turn this into a gun thread, but you might wanna invest in a good 45-70.
From: Live2Hunt
04-Sep-24
Wholly S@#$, that there is something to come up on!!! Funny, but not. You could apply for crop damage!!!
From: M & C farms
04-Sep-24
That’s terrible but I can relate. Deer ate 25 acres of no till beans this year. Can barely tell they were planted. Farmer is considering pulling out.
From: Will
04-Sep-24
Wow - that's some impressive feasting... And likely some impressively fat bears!
From: Pat Lefemine
04-Sep-24
One of the culprits. Bear archery season starts next week. Seems like they are still in pretty thick.
From: Grey Ghost
04-Sep-24
Which property is this, Pat?
From: Pat Lefemine
04-Sep-24
New York
From: WV Mountaineer
04-Sep-24
Bears love tearing stuff up. Throw food into the mix while they are doing it and it’s total bliss for them.
That’s some serious crop damage.
From: Ace
04-Sep-24
I know that the Early NY Bear season starts 9/8, do you have that up in the Northern tier as well, or just a Bow season which starts early? I was thinking that it may be a good idea to sit in a blind with options for both bow and rifle for a longer range shot.
From: sureshot
04-Sep-24
I see a couple nice rugs in Pat's future....
From: Pat Lefemine
04-Sep-24
Ace, north zone early bowhunting starts 9/14. I have ten days to go.
From: Norseman
04-Sep-24
Holy crap Pat! I thought coons were bad….
From: olddogrib
04-Sep-24
I would've gotten a depredation permit a long time ago, if your state has them! Bears have taken over everywhere.
From: Grey Ghost
04-Sep-24
Was this corn intended to be harvested, or left standing for the deer? Either way, what a shame. Electric fence, perhaps?
From: Buskill
04-Sep-24
In Va we can get kill permits to prevent this.
From: Fran
04-Sep-24
That’s crazy! Hopefully they don’t get to many of your small deer!
From: Rut-Nut
04-Sep-24
In parts of Pa and Northern NJ the bears do WAY more crop damage than the deer............................especially on the corn!
Looks like you either need a BIGGER food plot or smaller bears Pat! ;-)
From: Stoneman
04-Sep-24
Corn fed bear meat is probably pretty tasty… how many can you take? Or can you get some help thinning them out?
From: Smtn10PT
04-Sep-24
I have a corn field I hunt that looks like that along the edges. I'm anxiously waiting for Oct 1st. I whacked a good one on the edge of a nearby field last fall, hoping to repeat this year.
From: Rut-Nut
04-Sep-24
How 'bout a BOWSITE LIVE BEAR HUNT?! ;-)
From: Corax_latrans
04-Sep-24
so everything left standing is Not Corn???
That’s THOROUGH. Though in fairness, I guess not unexpected. Kinda What Bears Do.
From: JTreeman
04-Sep-24
Please don’t jump to conclusions, no need to blame bears for everything . It very well could just be alien crop circles or sasquatches…
—Jim
From: MA-PAdeerslayer
04-Sep-24
Bears got ours too Pat….my brothers hoping to catch him the first few days of the season with his new Mathew’s in his hand….
From: spike78
04-Sep-24
You may want to have your sons hunt them as well looks like you have quite a few to thin out.
From: jons
04-Sep-24
4 yrs ago I was ear hunting up in northern Mn., the cameras were showing bears hitting the bait allover the area. Several days before the season the corn came in to milk and it was like the salmon run, the nearest corn field was 9 mis away and the farmer lost over 40+ acres of corn and we had very little bear action going on, spent 6 days in a blind and no action. The farmer sent drone pics of his field and it looked like Pat's but bigger.
From: Boomer
04-Sep-24
Here in North Carolina (Northampton County) they did similar damage to a beautiful field of Cow Peas (Clay Peas). Then they tore apart my feeders, and even climbed into and tore up a tower stand. They're a nuisance, ripping stuff up and biting game cameras!
From: Matte
04-Sep-24
Looks like corn planted for wildlife use and it worked to good.
From: Lewis
04-Sep-24
That’s why I can’t grow corn on our property in Tn.Lewis
From: Groundhunter
04-Sep-24
A few at my placr
A few at my placr
From: drycreek
04-Sep-24
Not much different than crimping my food plot. Maybe I just need some bears !
From: scentman
04-Sep-24
Had a bear eating corn here in wny, don't get many bear but he mowed down rows of corn and left piles of poop you thought would have been canned cream corn!
scentman
From: t-roy
05-Sep-24
Looks like you should’ve planted 120 day corn ;-) Definitely been a rough food plot year for you :-(
I’m betting you get your planting date timing down pat, next spring, Pat!
From: Tradman & Huntress
05-Sep-24
That's a pretty impressive swath of destruction! I bet that will be some mighty fine table fare, being corn fed and all.
From: Julius Koenig
05-Sep-24
Get them!
From: Charlie Rehor
05-Sep-24
Good luck..
From: Hunts_with_stick
06-Sep-24
Pat, does no one hunt them? Or do they not harvest enough of them to keep them in control? Or are they hard to hunt?
From: Pat Lefemine
06-Sep-24
Hunts_with_Stick, all of the above.
They go to hibernation early up there. By the time gun season starts in October they are pretty much completely nocturnal or already denned up.
All of the deer are mostly gone there now, I hardly hunt deer any longer on my NY property. I didn't even plant a food plot for deer this year. I am only hunting bears, coyotes and turkeys. The predators are thick as hell at my NY property.
From: Brijake
06-Sep-24
That's crazy. Will Game and Fish do anything to compensate or depredation tags?
From: Wildan2
06-Sep-24
That is probably why the deer population is down also.
From: TGbow
06-Sep-24
Dang
From: APauls
06-Sep-24
In MB Conservation flies over and sees 60-80 in a corn field. They're a mess on corn. Farmers hate em. But the ribs are delicious!
From: VAMtns
06-Sep-24
Dang things are pigs for sure , Boars and Sows . Big corn fields in SE Coastal VA and NC grow some of the biggest Black Bears in the world fat on corn .
From: jdbbowhunter
06-Sep-24
Trapper could help thin out coyotes.
From: Owl
06-Sep-24
I honestly do not know how farmers make money on corn around the Dismal Swamp (VA & NC). They will get in a cornfield and gorge themselves like a welfare queen on a bag of Fudge' Rounds. NC has some of the highest bodyweights harvested in the entire country.
From: walking buffalo
07-Sep-24
walking buffalo's Link
Bears and corn crop damage made the news tonight in Canada..... Manitoba farmer comes home to Seven bears up the tree in the yard, then shows the damage they do to the cornfield....
From: Hunts_with_stick
07-Sep-24
Crazy!
From: Slate
07-Sep-24
Good luck hope you kill a bear
From: Mad Trapper
07-Sep-24
How big was the field? I don’t know if e fence would work. Maybe. The bears still get through my e fences here in PA when they want to.
From: LUNG$HOT
07-Sep-24
Looks like a retribution bear hunt is in order! Good luck.
From: MA-PAdeerslayer
07-Sep-24
Never realized how big NC bears will till I moved down here and have seen a couple… there’s so big suckers and they sure love the corn
From: Thornton
07-Sep-24
Wish we had that problem where my places are.
From: Pat Lefemine
07-Sep-24
Tom, the field was 1.5 acres so pretty small. It took me 12 years to figure out how to kill a bear at my NY place. Killed my first two years ago with my bow.
The only thing that works for me is to plant a 1-2 acre cornfield and hunt entrance trails coming out of a swamp. I used 96 day corn and timed the planting to be mature 2 weeks after opening day. The bears hit it a month early this year so I have to rethink my strategy.
I got a pic last night so there’s still a chance, one week from today. This apple tree is starting to drop and it’s 23 yards from one of my stands!
From: MA-PAdeerslayer
07-Sep-24
That looks like a good bear. Good luck Pat!
From: spike78
07-Sep-24
Pat, the bears at my cornfield spot are hammering acorns along with the corn. That apple tree looks promising do you also have acorns?
From: spike78
07-Sep-24
Pat in regards to hibernation bears don’t go into hibernation due to cold weather but when food runs out. As long as you have food there they will eat. I’ve seen plenty of bear tracks in the snow.
From: Huntiam
08-Sep-24
Pat if bear wants them apples it don’t matter if they are dropping or not .
From: Hunts_with_stick
10-Sep-24
How does bear compare to venison?
From: VAMtns
10-Sep-24
Both really good , properly butchered and cared for in the field Bear is really good , more beefy and less dense if that makes sense . Not at all alike .
From: WV Mountaineer
10-Sep-24
Yep. As long as there is food for a bear to eat, it’ll stay out. It might lay down and snooze for a while. But, it will not fully hibernate until weather pushes it in for a spell. No food and they are out by mid-late november here. Earlier there for certain.
Around here bears change about this time every year. Because natural food is starting to ripen. When they lock up on acorns, everything else is supplemental. If you aren’t hunting the right area it can be a long wait.
From: WhattheFOC
10-Sep-24
Yes - what wvm said. A couple years ago I had a bear camp out on a deer bait until I closed the candy store in mid November. He wouldn’t come in when anyone was in the stand, and he wouldn’t leave the rest of the time. He would literally sleep on top of my bait pile 24-7 to keep deer off.
From: spike78
10-Sep-24
Hunts I usually describe it as a cross between venison and beef with very mild gamey flavor. I like it better than deer personally.
