Recommendations for bear hunt: Starkey or Ukia

tkdguy · Mar 18, 2026

Options 270 Win bolt gun, 30:06 bolt gun, 30-06 semi-auto. All have scopes-- 4 x 12, but the semi is 1-4. Any ideas? The 270 and the 30 06 bolt are accurate to 300 yards at 1 minute of angle. The semi-auto works for 200 yards within 3 inch groups. Thanks.

thorborg · Mar 18, 2026

Just about anything will take the little black bear, elk have tougher hides but the bears fat and fur make it sorta hard to picture where their innards are depending on the position they are in when aiming. if going just for bear, choose your sights by the terrain (open country scope best, or dense forest iron best) (for me) is more important than the gun. I've taken a couple with a 30 30 when i was young. and three with a .270. one with a .243. Two were in the Wallowa's, one near ripple brook in the cascades, two near Ollalie Lake, One in the coast range a few miles south of 26 and close to the trask which was so dense I nearly stepped on him when I came out on an overgrown dead section of logging road. If I hadn't heard him and had the 30-30 cocked and ready I would have missed him as I couldn't see him till I jumped off a little ledge into the small clearing he was in, he jumped too and was half way into the impenetrable salal when I let go without aiming, he was only 15 feet away.
I saw two several years apart I might have been able to taken One I'm not sure was a black bear Maybe brown? He was bretty big for a black bear, or cinnamon? in Mill creak water shed but didn't have tags at the time. Most of them I rather stumbled on, A couple I tracked and pursued but only after also stumbling on really fresh sign, Steaming piles of berry crap, fresh over turned rocks and torn apart down rotted trees. usually I wouldn't have bothered to try track them they can cover some distance in a day, but when hunting deer or elk and having seen no sign of them for a week I sought other amusement and reasons to stay in the woods I love rather than go home and work.

ma96782 · Mar 19, 2026

Bear Hunt?

Aloha, Mark

Tlock · Mar 19, 2026

thorborg said:
Just about anything will take the little black bear, elk have tougher hides but the bears fat and fur make it sorta hard to picture where their innards are depending on the position they are in when aiming. if going just for bear, choose your sights by the terrain (open country scope best, or dense forest iron best) (for me) is more important than the gun. I've taken a couple with a 30 30 when i was young. and three with a .270. one with a .243. Two were in the Wallowa's, one near ripple brook in the cascades, two near Ollalie Lake, One in the coast range a few miles south of 26 and close to the trask which was so dense I nearly stepped on him when I came out on an overgrown dead section of logging road. If I hadn't heard him and had the 30-30 cocked and ready I would have missed him as I couldn't see him till I jumped off a little ledge into the small clearing he was in, he jumped too and was half way into the impenetrable salal when I let go without aiming, he was only 15 feet away.
I saw two several years apart I might have been able to taken One I'm not sure was a black bear Maybe brown? He was bretty big for a black bear, or cinnamon? in Mill creak water shed but didn't have tags at the time. Most of them I rather stumbled on, A couple I tracked and pursued but only after also stumbling on really fresh sign, Steaming piles of berry crap, fresh over turned rocks and torn apart down rotted trees. usually I wouldn't have bothered to try track them they can cover some distance in a day, but when hunting deer or elk and having seen no sign of them for a week I sought other amusement and reasons to stay in the woods I love rather than go home and work.

The little black bear? How big was to big for a black bear?

You do know black bears come in all different colors and sizes right? Just like humans

thorborg · Mar 20, 2026

Tlock said:
The little black bear? How big was to big for a black bear?

You do know black bears come in all different colors and sizes right? Just like humans

Yah, I've seen a few big ones, maybe pushing 4 or 500 pounds but since I've bagged just a few bears in my life, The biggest maybe 300#, worked for the forest service building trails and other improvements in remote areas, totally helped reconstruct Bagby hot springs in 1965, worked a few summers for my uncles logging outfit out of Winston Oregon, backpacked both the pacific crest and skyline trails from central Washington to California Parts of it many times, where it was still accessible public lands before 1970 At the time Pacific crest trail had no modern trail marks indicating its path and what blazes were visible were over 12 feet above the ground on old trees, Notwithstanding nearly every free moment I had in my life was spent in the woods, I think I've seen more bears than most in real life with the majority of the bears I've come across weighed no more than me, at 250 pounds.
After seeing many browns in Canada and Montana...
Yah! little black bears in my opine.