Bear Hunting Ontario Canada

DRIVE IN 7 Day Trophy Hunt, 7 day Trophy Hunt. Transportation to and from your pre-baited sites and accommodations at the Ivanhoe River Inn. A professional guide that will take you to and from your hunting sites and will skin, freeze and package game for transportation home. $1300.00 CDN/hunter. Deposit $300 per hunter / Minimum $600.

• Minimum 2 Hunters for above rates.
• All prices subject to applicable Canadian taxes.
• Hunters orange hats and vests required.
• Extra guests : Drive in non bear hunters $300 per person.

HUNTER NEEDS - Food, fishing and hunting licenses (we sell), first aid kit, fishing tackle and hunting supplies. Hunters must pay all Canadian customs fees for importing firearms and exporting game.

BOAT & MOTOR - To add boat, motor, unlimited fuel and live bait, with a minimum of 2 hunters with your package add $220 per hunter.

Since 2001, Air Ivanhoe has offered a drive in fully guided, fully baited bear hunt as well as our traditional self guided, self baited, fly in bear hunts.  Most of our bear hunters prefer to have the baiting, brush clearing, and tree stand placement done well prior to their trip and select our drive in lodge option.  Our 2012 price of $1300 Canadian per bear hunter covers accommodations, transportation from our lodge to the hunting areas, and guiding services for up to 7 days.  Bear hunting fees for guiding services include pre-arranged baiting, placement of tree stands, assistance in retrieval efforts for bears which have been shot, gutting, skinning, and quartering of all harvested animals.  Bear hunters are responsible for the cost of their hunting licence and government fees, their food, and their personal effects.  Bear hunters should expect to pay between $1500 to $1600 US (depending on the exchange rate at the time of the hunt) when all Air Ivanhoe and government fee’s are taken into account.  Our bear hunters generally focus on fishing once they have filled their bear tag.

We strive to give all of our hunters excellent fair chase hunting opportunities, heavily and frequently baiting for 3 to 4 weeks prior to your arrival and implementing nearly a dozen trail camera’s and another dozen trail timers to determine the best hunting locations.  Our operation utilizes a half dozen permanent platform stands, a half dozen temporary pop up ground blinds where conditions are not suitable for a tree stand, and a dozen double occupancy portable ladder tree stands (called the big buddy double ladder tree stand).  We purchased this type of tree stand for hunter comfort, and to give bear hunters an opportunity to continue hunting (with their buddy) after they had filled their tag.

Non-bear hunting guests can be accommodated with hunting groups for a rate of $300 per week.  If there is adequate seating in our two available 4X4 four door six passenger pickup trucks used for bear hunting, we are happy to provide transportation to non bear-hunting guests into the field to sit with their bear hunting partners on their tree stands.  If vehicle seating is filled with hunters and guides, non-bear hunter guests are welcome to follow behind our guides in their own vehicle.

From our experience, we believe that the largest factor impacting the quantity, size, and overall comfort levels for bears coming to our baited sites when hunters are present is hunter scent control.  As a general rule, hunters who smoke tobacco while wearing their hunting clothing (or worse, while on their tree stands) see fewer and smaller bears, alerting most dominant and mature animals of the hunter’s presence and hence missing their best opportunities at huge bruins.  We have also noticed that hunters failing to use urine capture bottles inevitably end up scaring away bears, even those which have been consistently coming into the bait sites.  We aim to have multiple active bear baits for every hunter, to assist us in connecting hunters with the largest animals in the area and to give us secondary baits to hunt in the event that primary baits become inactive during a hunt, or bears at the primary baits become nocturnal.  Our bear hunting season runs from August 15^th to October 31^st, but Air Ivanhoe believes the best bear hunting opportunities are from August 15^th to September 15^th.  During this period, the natural blueberry, raspberry, and chokecherry bushes still hold their edible berries and as a result individual bears can be more easily targeted because they are more inclined to hold within a smaller section of their territory.  After their primary summer food source is gone, bears begin to wander greater distances and become more difficult to pattern.  Furthermore, September 15^th marks the start of small game season and the forest generally becomes busier and more hectic.

We strongly encourage hunters to refrain from smoking tobacco while in their hunting clothing or while in the field hunting if it is possible.  Smokeless tobacco or nicotine gum or patches are the preferred option if hunters truly cannot last without nicotine for a typical 7 or 8 hour hunting day.  We suggest that all hunters use scent elimination sprays, and keep their hunting clothing in a sealed bag with vegetation from our forests such as jack pine, tamarack, spruce, and cedar.  We suggest hunters refrain from using insect repellents, and rather wear gloves and use a bug mesh on top of their hat.  Any new human scents which bears have not become accustomed to while previously feeding at bait sites can negatively impact hunter’s chances for success.   It is commonly thought that black bears rely on their sense of smell to a greater degree than whitetails, and as such hunter personal scent control is key to success.   Scent control is thought to be the largest single factor in maintaining bear traffic at baits during legal shooting hours.

Bear hunting success rates measured by the combination of hunters spotting a bear of a size the hunter feels right about taking, hunters making an effective kill shot, and hunters with guides finding the shot animal have generally ranged between 75 to 100% during the past decade at the Ivanhoe River Inn.  Rifle hunters who practice good scent control inevitably enjoy the greatest success rates among our groups, but we have seen some excellent archery shots over the years as well.  We recommend that archery hunters also have a backup firearm available with them in their tree stands, in the event that a large bruin climbs their tree, or is wounded and charges at the hunter while being tracked.

Air Ivanhoe’s self guided, self baited, drive in bear hunt remains an excellent and extremely cost effective option for hunters who seek a more remote, but independent hunting experience.   We can offer our self guided, drive in bear hunter groups exclusive access to many portions of our 251,059.07 acres of exclusive bear hunting territory for a rate of $299 per week per hunter.  There is no trophy fee, regardless of the size of bear harvested.  Air Ivanhoe can prepare camping permits and locations for our bear hunters for $99 per week per hunter if they desire to set up a tent or trailer camp within one of our exclusive access bear management areas (BMAs).   Alternatively, self guided drive in bear hunters can choose to stay at our main lodge at our regular overnight lodging pricing of approximately $50 per person per night (with rates and discounts fully discussed in our full length downloadable brochure).  We suggest our self guided, self baited, drive in bear hunters bring along a personal ATV to help them access some of our more remote areas, and to help them retrieve their harvested bears from the woods.

Frequently our fly-in moose hunting guests will also purchase a bear hunting licence in the event that they attract a bear to a baited food scrap site, or just bump into one while in the outdoors.  We frequently see fly in fishing groups with one or two group members also seeking to hunt bear if the opportunity arises to take a shot at a decent bruin.  Pricing for these types of combined fly in fishing / fly in bear hunting trips as well as our fly in moose hunting / fly in bear hunting trips are set at the same level as our fly in fishing or moose hunting rates, with a few additional fees for bear hunting as described below.

Bear hunters seeking to use a firearm will have to pay a $25 government fee to import their firearm into Canada.  There is no import fee on archery equipment.  Successful bear hunters will have to pay a $35 government export fee to export their hide and meat from Canada.  Bear hunters will have to purchase a bear hunting licence, which for non-residents is set at 198.25 for 2011 by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources.  Air Ivanhoe will charge $50 for completing the required paperwork and government forms, making available leased lands for hunting, and the possible handling and extraction of your trophy.  If the floatplane extraction of your harvested animal coincides with your departure from your bush cabin and can be safely accomplished without overloading the aircraft from the additional weight or bulk, you will not be charged for the extraction.  If you require an additional flight on your departure date because of the weight or bulk of the animal, or require an extraction of your animal prior to your scheduled departure date (most likely due to warm weather and spoiling concerns), you will be charged our aircraft charter rate of $420. 

Air Ivanhoe has both block and cube ice available for purchase at our main lodge, called the Ivanhoe River Inn, to keep your trophy cold during your ride home.  We also have large deep freezers available to store the meat and hides for hunters at the Ivanhoe River Inn.  These freezers are also available for fly-in bear hunting guests in the event that they choose to have their trophy flown out of the bush prior to their departure date.

For more information about our bear hunting program, please call, write, or continue to the following web page   http://www.ontariosportsman.com/Bear-Hunting-Packages-2012-AirIvanhoe.pdf

References are available upon request.