Judging the Size of Alaskan Brown Bears

By Dennis Harms

All I could see was alder brush flattening toward us and I told the hunter to get ready to shoot. The hunter whispered, "Is he big enough? Is he big enough? Is he big. . .?" "You're going to have to shoot in a second," I urgently whispered.

The Kodiak bear busted into the open about thirty-five feet away, coming at us. The hunter made a good hit. It was his good fortune that the bear was a large, old boar. It squared 9' 9". I don't believe that the bear knew that we were humans. The wind was in our favor. He may have heard us and thought we were another bear and decided to run us off.

Fortunately, incidents like that rarely happen and one usually gets plenty of time to judge the size of a bear before a stalk is made, but it still isn't easy. Whether squinting through a spotting scope at a bear a mile away and a thousand feet above you, or looking across a grass-covered tidal plain in Southeastern, Alaska; deciding the size of a bear is tough.

First, let's cover cubs. This might sound ridiculous, but more than once I have come across a non-experienced hunter that accidentally shot a cub. It's easier than it might sound. A three-year-old cub is a rolly-polly animal with lots of long hair and if the range is badly misjudged, which is how this tragic mistake is made. The cub's head is almost one-third the body length. The ears are large in relationship to the body. There is frequently a light-colored collar around the neck.

As you can see, cub's length equals about 3 head lengths

The next stage isn't as hard to judge. At about four years old the bear gets rangy. It gets long in the body and legs, but doesn't have the mass to go with it yet. The face is still fairly flat and the ears quite prominent. These bears usually square about seven-foot.

6'-7' bear is about 4 yr. old and its length is roughly equal to 3 1/2 head lengths.

The toughest stage of a bear to judge is the eight-foot or nine-foot size. A bear less than eight foot isn't that impressive, but anything over nine foot makes a really impressive standing mount. An old bear, especially a sow can have many of the characteristics of a nine-foot bear and be eight-foot. It takes careful study of this size range.

An adult bear will measure 8' and be about 4 1/2 heads in length.

There aren't that many ten-foot bears in even the best bear range in Alaska. You may not be able to find a ten footer in ten or fifteen days of hunting and you might he plenty satisfied with an eight and half foot to nine footer. The really huge bear isn't that tough to judge. He has a large hump, swayed back, long neck, dished face, ears almost indistinguishable, very long looking body and he walks very slowly as if he has arthritis. One saying among Alaskan guides is, 'If you have a hard time telling if a bear is large or not, he probably isn't."

An exceptional adult will measure 9' - 10' and will be 5 - 6 heads in length.

If one has time to carefully study a bear, a study of the relationship between the head and the body helps. A six to seven footer has about three and a half to four head lengths in body length. A nine footer has about five head lengths and a ten footer has about six to seven head lengths. So, paradoxically, the smaller the head LOOKS in relation to the body the bigger the bear is. The head of a large bear is larger than the head of a small bear, but not as much so as the body itself. Long front claws that are ivory-tipped indicate an older bear. One of the most reliable indicators is the shape of the skull. As the bear gets older his face becomes more dish-shaped.

Be suspicious of bears with extremely long, silky hair. This is a characteristic of a younger bear. A bear that is running around a lot is also probably a young bear. Older bears more or less plod along. I have used the squared size of the hide as a reference. It is obtained by measuring the fleshed, unsalted hide, laid out flat. The length from nose to tail is added to the width from tip of claws on one front paw to the other front paw. This measurement is divided by two. A typical nine-foot bear measures ten foot wide and eight foot long.

Most hunters are interested only in body size, but both Safari Club International and Boone and Crockett score bears using the length and width of the skull. I have never run into a hunter who would pass up a ten-foot bear because the skull wouldn't make Boone and Crockett. One would want to look for a bear with all the characteristics of a ten-foot bear with a massive head as well.

If one can cross the tracks of the bear you are after, this is another indicator that I find valuable, but as in all other characteristics it is only an indicator and doesn't hold true one hundred percent. Measure the width of the front track in inches, add one inch and change it to feet. An eight-inch-wide track means a nine-foot bear may have made it. I personally like to study the track for other indicators. Length of front claws, mass of toes, width and length between tracks. I once had a hunter with me on a snow-covered mountainside on Kodiak and we came to a huge set of tracks that we could hardly step from one track to another. The sun had also melted the tracks so they were about twice their normal size. I studied the tracks and followed them for a short while and when I turned to the hunter, he had a ghostly white pallor to his face and he mumbled to himself, "What the hell am I doing here?" Once the decision has been made to stalk the bear, the stalk should be planned so that a closer look can be taken before you shoot.

Front Paw width, plus 1 inch equals the squared size of the bear.

When your trophy is down, worrying about the size of the bear is over. Whether he tapes under seven-foot or over nine-foot, he is your trophy and is a link between you and your experience with the wilderness. The Alaskan brown bear is too noble and valuable to depreciate at any size.

Editors Note:     Much confusion exists as to what bear size stands for. Is it the height of the bear? - No.  Is it the length of the bear?  - No.    It's the SQUARE of the bear.  "What the heck is that" you ask?  It's easy..once the hide is off the bear, fleshed and laid flat of the ground, you take the measurement from claw to claw, with no wrinkles in the hide.  Then take the measurement nose to tail, with no wrinkles in the hide.  Add them together and divide by two. There you have the "Squared" size of the bear, that this article talks about.  Every guide wants his bears to square big, so there are different ways to do it.  The easiest is to lie.  Outfitters also like to think everyone else lies, but paint themselves as very pure in their personal measurement. They probably aren't.  One theory says you should lay the hide on the ground and then never tough it when you measure it. Those that don't hunt bears hold to this theory. Another one says that you measure from nose to anis when you measure length. The late Clark Engle, was never at a shortage for colorful words, put it this way. "Hell, the tail is part of the bear, and the hair at the end of the tail is part of the bear, I measure all of the damn thing."  Well put Clark, I do too. I measure the "square of the bear" not the measure of "part of the square of the bear".... smile.   Others claim you can stretch a bear a couple of feet if you put enough guides on each side. Those that claim this usually take only little bears themselves and are trying to degrade outfitters that take big ones by drawing their honesty into question.  You just can't stretch a bear, though we have shot one or two where we wished we could.  Everyone repeats the stretching story, so everyone thinks its probably true,  outfitters included...but it isn't.  I've tried.  With three guides on each leg pulling for all they are worth, you can get about an additional inch or two, max. It's not worth the effort. Some cut across the crotch low on the belly. This leave a flap that extends well beyond the tail when opened. Doing this gives a bear another 6 to 8 inches total, or 3 to 4" on the square.  Cute...but not even Clark would approve of that!

So, how do we measure our bears.  Skin 'um, flesh 'um, split the hide clear up to 1" from the chin. Lay them on the ground. Pull on ONE PAW until the other paw moves, let go and measure from claw tip to claw tip.  Pull on the nose until the tail moves, let go and measure tip of the nose, to tip of the tail. (or tip of the hair on the tail if I think Clark is watching over my shoulder. "Hell Larry, the hair is part of the bear!" Ok, I always measure to the tip of the hair ... go away Clark. Now add those two numbers together, and divide by two.  Presto, the square of the bear.

 Home Page   Photo Galleries
Alaska:  General Information   -  Dall Sheep  -  Brown Bear  -  Grizzly Bear
Alaska:   Openings  -  Prices  -  Book a hunt now  -  Photo Galleries  -  Stories and articles
Alaska:   Equipment lists  -  Hotels  -  License fees  -  Unit map  -  Q&A  -  Sporting goods
Alaska:   Taxidermists

Tajikistan:     Marco Polo
Kazakhstan:  General Info.  -  Ibex  -  Maral Stag - Maral / Ibex combination
Russia:          Russian Brown Bear  -  Snow Sheep

Title: brownbearsize.htm Judging the size of Alaskan Brown Bears.
Description: brownbearsize.htm How to judge the Size of Alaskan Brown Bears. Step by step method to judge and measure the square of the bear. Judging the size of Alaskan Brown Bear is difficult, but there are ways. Also explaining how bears are measured.
Meta keywords:   brownbearsize.htm brown bear,hunting,Brown bear size,Alaska,bear measurements,how to measure bears, how to judge bear size,hunt,judging bear size, square measurement,estimating bear size,Kodiak bear size,Larry Rivers,larryrivers.com