"There is good bear hunting success in Cherokee, Clay, Graham and Macon counties at Nantahala National Forest," Jones said. "These counties are some of the state's most rugged terrain counties. However, there are large tracts of forested land and the core areas of these lands are located on the national forest. Bears eat anything they can find. Up there in the high elevations, they depend greatly on mast. That's why they tend to be smaller at the coast. Mast production, and therefore, bear hunting operate on a boom-and-bust cycle. On the coast, it's not like that. In poor mast years in mountains, we have high bear harvests. At the coast, it's pretty consistent hunting. Some states are the opposite. In the mountains, since 95 percent of our bear harvest comes from the national forests, a mast failure forces bears to move around that year and our hound hunters can find them more easily. In states with higher levels of still-hunting, a good mast year allows still-hunters to zero in on areas where there's a high mast crop and they have better success rates. In Virginia, for example, lots of bear harvests by bowhunters occur during the good mast years."

Clubs and family groups typically hunt the same territories year after year. They release hounds on fresh bear tracks or where their dogs strike hot scent. Hunting the same areas allows the hunters to determine which way a bear may be heading and to know the best trails or forest roads for getting near a treed bear or one bayed on the ground or inside a cave.

The use of tracking collars on hounds is universal statewide. This keeps hunters from losing valuable bear hounds, but reduces the number of record-book bears for the state. For a bear to qualify for a Boone and Crockett listing if it is taken by a dog wearing a tracking collar, the receiver must be turned off for the bear to be considered to have been taken in fair chase. The skull measurement is the determining factor for entry, with the length and width added after a drying period to obtain the score.

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