Hungry Black Bears

As summer goes into fall, wildlife starts to get active. Some are getting ready for the rut and others are trying to fatten up for a long winter. The temperatures are starting to cool. It's a great time to get out on a ridge or high point and see what's out there.

Glassing Black Bears

Late summer and fall are always a great time to glass for bears. Every year around this time they kick into an intense eating phase called hyperphagia, which is basically their version of bulking  up and packing on as much fat as possible before winter hibernation. It's one of the best times of year to catch your local black bears in action.

It's especially fun if a couple of cubs are tagging along with mama. Cubs are playful and clumsy, and watching them wrestle and stumble around through a pair of binoculars or a spotting scope makes for a fun glassing session.

This year though, the severe drought across the West has left a lot less food out there to gorge on. As a result, bears are particularly active in towns and neighborhoods, hunting down whatever they can find. While that's leading to plenty of unwanted run-ins with people and their pets, it's also making bears surprisingly easy to spot. At a certain point you might find yourself putting the binos down entirely because there could be one strolling through the neighbor's yard or cutting through the parking lot.

Seeing how thin the bears are this year is a little disheartening, but it's been providing some genuinely amazing wildlife viewing up close. At the end of the day, all we really want right now is some rain, some berries, and a bunch of fat, happy bears we can watch from a safe distance through our spotters, way out of town where they belong.

What We're Seeing

September Mule Deer
7500 feet
Swarovski, NL Pure 14x52

Pre Rut Elk
11,200 feet
Athlon, Ares G2 UHD 15-45x65

Featured Gear

PEAX Glassing Pad 
Sitting on cold ground sucks. Sitting on sharp rocks sucks worse. And a few seconds off of the glass is all it takes to miss the chance you’ve been waiting on all day. The PEAX Glassing Pad solves that—no fluff, no gimmicks. Just a low-profile pad made from closed-cell foam, wrapped in a bombproof Cordura cover.