PA Hunter Bags Biggest Bear Of The Year

MONROE COUNTY, PA — When Scott Price shot and killed a nearly 800-pound black bear last month in Monroe County wilderness, the task ahead of him was nearly as enormous as the creature he had just felled: Getting it back to his truck.

"My brother ended up measuring the distance. We were 670 yards away," Price said. "Thankfully, I had the gang with me and eight of us dragged it back. That wasn't even the hardest part, though. The hardest part was getting it into the truck."

Price, 34, of Lackawanna County, has the distinction of bagging the biggest bear thus far during the 2024-25 hunting license year, according to the Pennsylvania Game Commission's list of largest bears shot. The bear weighed 774 pounds at the check station.

According to the game commission, the heaviest bear ever taken in Pennsylvania was an 875-pounder harvested in 2010 in Pike County. Since 1992, seven black bears weighing at least 800 pounds have been harvested in Pennsylvania hunting seasons.

Price's bear was the fourth he has felled and obviously the largest.

"Personally, my biggest one until now weighed in the mid-200s," he said.

Price and his entourage had little luck for the first two days of the four-day regular firearms season for bears that began Nov. 23. They failed to fell a bear, which Price and the group found disappointing but not overly surprising.

"There's never a guarantee," Price said. "That's part of why I enjoy hunting - the challenge."

On the third day, a group member killed a bear before Price encountered his gigantic one shortly before dusk.

"It was pure luck getting one that size," he said. "I don't think I'll ever top it."

The group members each got meat from the skinned bear. Price said he has a large freezer to store his supply, which is being processed into bologna and sausages and will be used in stews and other dishes during the winter.

Price said he is considering several different poses for the life-size mount he is planning for the bear, whose body currently is frozen.

Does he know a good taxidermist?

"Yes," Price said. "My brother is a taxidermist."