REGIONAL— Bear hunters took advantage of a well-timed Labor Day weekend to tally the strongest first-week harvest in the past seven years. The hunt got underway on Thursday, allowing many hunters to take full advantage of an extended Labor Day weekend, and it paid off for many as hunters registered 1,664 bears as of Tuesday.

“It was a perfect scenario for bear hunters with the Thursday start,” said Tom Rusch, Tower Area Wildlife Manager for the Department of Natural Resources. “It made a difference in the harvest.”

Indeed, the opening week’s tally, which always includes registrations from non-quota zones, already topped the season total in 2014, and marks a 33-percent success rate among quota hunters against the 3,850 bear permits issued by the DNR. “That’s high,” said Rusch. “That’s very high for the first week.”

The long weekend certainly paid off for hunters in the Greaney area, according to Dennis Udovich, a longtime guide in the area. “It was probably one of the best years we’ve ever had,” said Udovich, who said all of the eleven hunters he guided saw bears, and ten were able to bag one. “Our largest was a 308-pound male,” said Udovich.

While Minnesota law allows hunters to shoot female bears with cubs, that’s not allowed at Udovich’s camp, which means the hunt for his clients is limited to males or lone females. Rusch, a wildlife biologist, said that’s a good thing given the DNR’s current goal of growing the bear population. “We want to protect the females at this point,” he said.

The relative abundance of wild foods didn’t pose a problem for hunters, said Udovich, since he put his baits near existing wild food sources, where bears were already feeding. He said most of his clients saw multiple bears during their hunt, adding to the experience.

One young hunter guided by Udovich, a 15-year-old, took a 260-pound male, his first bear ever. “That put quite a smile on his face,” said Udovich.

Statewide, hunters saw the best success west and south of the DNR’s work area, said Rusch. Where the northern forest begins to merge with farmland, the habitat is particularly productive, according to Rusch, which helps to maintain relatively high bear numbers. Even so, hunters registered over 460 bears in the three permit areas that overlap the Tower work area.

The bear season typically gets off to a relatively fast start, with about two-thirds of the harvest occurring over the Labor Day weekend. This year’s first week tally could be a bit higher than that, which could mean hunters won’t register as many additional bears as the season continues. Even so, hunters appear poised to have their best bear season in at least five years. Hunters tallied 2,598 bears in 2012, which was the highest since 2010.