Hi everyone, Jason Zimmer here with MassWildlife. Today I’m going to be talking about and demonstrating ways in which you can do specific online scouting for hunting black bears in Massachusetts.
If you’re not familiar with online scouting tools like MassMapper and Google Earth, I encourage you to first watch our online scouting basics video, which will give you a more basic tutorial on using these tools to find areas to hunt and how to do some basic online scouting.
First, I want to give you a little background about me. I’m the Southeast District Manager for MassWildlife, and I’ve been hunting for over 35 years. I started black bear hunting in Massachusetts six years ago, and I’ve been fortunate enough to harvest bears in all but one of those years. I’ve also been able to see multiple bears every year hunting right here in Massachusetts.
Some of the tools I’m going to talk about and demonstrate today are a big part of what has made me successful over the years, and I hope it helps all of you have some success as well.
Hunting black bears in Massachusetts is very rewarding and a way in which you can obtain some delicious and healthy wild game meat for your family and friends.
Before I demonstrate the online scouting tools, I want to go over some very basic aspects of black bear biology. These are important to know prior to beginning scouting. As is the case with any game species that you’re going to scout or hunt, effective scouting and hunting relies upon a good understanding of the basic biology and behavior of the species you’re hunting.
Every species out there needs food, water, cover, and space, and the arrangement of those features on the landscape is also very important. When it comes to fall bear hunting, what it really essentially boils down to is knowing what food sources they are keyed in on in the fall, and then locating those foods on the landscape in proximity to good bedding cover and sources of water.
As most people know, bears are omnivores that will eat just about anything, but their primary diet consists of vegetation such as skunk cabbage, succulent grasses, and forbs; soft mast like berries, cherries, and apples; and hard mast like acorns, beech nuts, hickory nuts, hazelnuts, and the like. They’ll also eat a variety of animal products as well, such as insects, larvae, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals. They’ll readily take advantage of carrion, which are dead animals that they find on the landscape.
Bears are also very well known for taking advantage of human-associated food sources such as garbage or compost, beehives, backyard chicken coops, bird seed, pet food, and agricultural crops—particularly silage corn. That’s something I’ll be referring back to fairly regularly during this tutorial.
Just a little bit about fall bear behavior: they are active most of the day, but in our early September season, when you can have temperatures in the 80s and sometimes even 90s, they will bed down and avoid those warmer periods in the middle part of the day. The bedding areas they search for in the early season tend to be cool, moist, shaded areas where they can regulate their body temperature and stay cool.
They will, however, bed very close to food and water sources wherever they feel safe in the fall, because this is the time of year that they’re trying to put on as much fat as possible to make it through the winter. In the later season—November and December—they’re really going to be keyed in on food, because temperatures are cool enough for them to be active pretty much all day long. So bedding cover is not as essential of a component to look for when you’re scouting.
So the key for online scouting really is to identify potential food sources. I’m going to show you a couple of tools and how you can use them to find potential food sources on the landscape. Suitable bedding cover is another thing to look for, but bears will bed down anywhere they feel safe, so unless it’s really warm out, you don’t need to worry too much about that.
Another thing you’re going to look for is travel corridors. Once you find food sources and natural habitat where they could be bedding down, you’re going to look for funnels, wetland or river crossings, or any other feature on the landscape that might dictate where those bears are going to move between where they’re bedded and where they’re feeding.
Alright, so now that I’ve given you a primer on bear biology, I’m going to show you some of the online tools that I’ve used to effectively scout for bears. The key is to locate those food sources on the landscape in reasonable proximity to bedding cover and water sources, and then try to identify those travel corridors that I just talked about.
The free tools I’m going to be going over, available to anyone with internet access, are Google Earth and MassMapper. Again, if you need a more basic tutorial, please watch our online scouting basics video first.
We’re going to start with Google Earth. For the purposes of this tutorial, I’m going to walk you through the same process I’ve used in the past and still use today. Google Earth is usually the first place I start when doing online scouting—not just for bears, but for other species—because it’s easy to zoom in and out and switch between aerial photos from different years.
There are some limitations, like not being able to easily add layers such as wetlands data, topographical contours, or land ownership. That’s where MassMapper comes in, which I’ll demonstrate afterward.
What I like Google Earth most for is finding potential food sources, particularly cornfields. Many hunters in the Northeast focus on cornfields for September bear hunting, so if you seek permission to hunt farms, expect competition and be respectful of others.
From there, I typically define a scouting area within a reasonable driving distance, then zoom in and identify agricultural fields, orchards, timber cuts, and other features. Using the timeline feature, I can compare images from different years to identify things like recent timber harvests—areas that often produce berries, which are key bear foods.
Cornfields are especially important. You can identify them by their distinct row patterns. Even better is finding signs of bear damage—large patches in fields where bears have flattened corn while feeding. These are strong indicators of active bear presence.
Beyond that, I also look for features like power line corridors, which often grow berry-producing plants, and deciduous forests that may produce hard mast like acorns or beech nuts.
Once I’ve identified a promising area with food sources, I switch to MassMapper to refine my scouting. There, I can layer in wetlands, topography, property ownership, and open space data. This helps identify travel corridors, funnels, bedding areas, and land ownership for permission access.
For example, wetlands can create natural pinch points where bears are likely to travel. Contour lines help identify terrain features that influence movement. Property data helps you contact landowners and hunt responsibly.
With all that combined, you can narrow down high-probability hunting spots before ever stepping foot in the field.
That said, there’s no substitute for boots-on-the-ground scouting. You still need to walk the land, look for trails, scat, feeding signs, and confirm what you’ve found digitally. Around cornfields, you might find scat with corn in it or even regurgitated corn—both signs of bear activity.
As the season progresses and corn disappears, bears shift heavily to hard mast like acorns and beech nuts. At that point, hunting them becomes very similar to deer hunting—find the food and hunt active sign nearby.
I hope this helps you become a more successful bear hunter. These tools are free, widely available, and powerful when used correctly. If you’re looking for more information, visit our website or reach out to one of our district managers or wildlife biologists—we’re always happy to help.