West Virginia’s bear hunting is one of the East’s best kept secrets, yet the word is getting out.

Crossbows have been made legal here during archery seasons, allowing many more Mountain State hunters to be afield… and they haven’t come home empty handed. The Mountain State has lots of public land, including the enormous Monongahela National Forest and Dolly Sods Wilderness, which has a mountain so high that tundra grows there. Learn more in this story from WHCS.

The author took this turkey in the Monongahela National Forest.
The author took this turkey in the Monongahela National Forest.

West Virginia wildlife officials said hunters have bagged nearly 900 black bears and 5,000 white-tailed deer during the early archery and crossbow seasons. The seasons began Sept. 26 and will end of Nov. 21. Chris Ryan, supervisor of game management services for the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, said these numbers are available so early in the season thanks to the DNR’s new electronic game checking system. In the past, game tags had to be collected at the end of the hunting season and counted by hand, a lengthy and labor-intensive process. With electronic game checking that information is available almost instantly… [continued]

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