Quick question. If a black bear has been showing up at your bow stand regularly, will the deer still come around? Or has anyone noticed that whitetail are spooked by bear? Here in Arkansas. Im curious if i need to relocate my stand.
I had this same problem at one of my spots in Western NC. Black bears will kill and eat whitetail. The few deer I did see were very on edge. I personally would move the stand.
That's what i thought. This bear seems to roam a large area though. We cant set anything up without him messing with it. Even the game cameras. I have a pic of his eyeball because he was messing with the camera. Nuisances.
I had 2 trail cams that the last pic they ever took was the inside of a bears mouth ! We were going thru 200lbs of corn every 4 days. I had one that would not leave for me to get out of my stand, until I hit it on the head with a soda bottle. I would not go in to bow hunt without my .45 with me. Me and my bud finally gave up on it. Had a blind shredded up too. Really did not want to shoot one, I don't care for bear meat.
I have deer and bears on my cameras in PA all the time. Sometimes the bears are more consistent Never had a concern about it and I have seen bear and deer in the same areas on the same day. The day I arrowed my biggest buck, I saw 3 bears, 30ish minutes before the shot.
Adult deer pay almost zero mind towards bear. I've had deer come into my bear baits . and eat. 2 of the biggest bucks I've past up were on bear baits. One was a true blue 150ish 4x4, the other a 165ish 6x5. Both were within a few yards of the bait but I did not have permission for deer. I would not worry one bit!!!
The place I hunt whitetail has lots of bears, I frequently get both on my cams. I've never felt like a bear caused me to miss out on a chance at a deer. If I had one cruising my stand every single day, then I'd probably just shoot it. Providing it's open and I have a tag of course. Bear is open for a lot of deer season here. While I agree with you that bear isn't that good of eating, making it into summer sausage makes it very good (can be $expensive$ to have a meat cutter do this). Or find someone that does like it, or somewhere that will accept wild game meat donations. Might not be that hard to find a taker right now, what with all the covid stuff.
I've had black bear and deer on my cameras on the same day. Even had a doe and fawn show up a couple hours after a mature boar sighting. Ideally, you don't want any predators regularly visiting your deer stand...however, my 2 cents are you'll be fine so long as it's not on top of a bear den.
