Your Guide, Tom David
Tom has been guiding clients for over thirty years. He has personally guided bear hunters to over 300 black bears including numerous Pope and Young and Boone and Crockett monster bears. Tom is a lifelong bowhunter himself, having taken most of the western North American species with a bow, including elk. He is a senior member of Pope and Young and is a Pope and Young measurer, having measured on two of the convention panels.
Accommodations
Summit Guiding and Outfitting provides comfortable lodging and excellent food for hunters. These, together with a courteous, friendly, and professional atmosphere, all combine with the breathtaking landscapes and exhilaration of the hunt to make Tom David’s guided bear hunts truly memorable.
Food: Meals that are not cooked at the campsite grill are prepared by Tom’s wife Maureen. Her dinner menu is extensive, with everything from lasagna and cooked vegetables to BBQ beef tips with potatoes. Every meal for the week is cooked from scratch, sealed and frozen ahead of time. You will be able to choose an entrée of your choice for dinner each evening. Breakfast and lunch are also provided and varies from season to season.
Lodging: All of our hunters are housed in comfortable, modern travel trailers. Our campsite is in the woods near our hunting area and has almost all the comforts of home, plus the scenic beauty that abounds in the White Mountains. Hunters wishing to stay in a motel may do so and will be picked up in the morning for that day’s hunt. The motel is about 30 minutes from our normal campsite in the woods.
Season
The bear hunting season takes place during some of the most beautiful months of the year.
Hunters should enjoy the spring hunts with flowers blooming and the air still crisp from winter.
Dates: Our bear season on the 1.6 million acre White Mountain Apache Reservation is currently from April 1 through August 30.
Since the elevations where we hunt range from 5,500 to 10,000 feet, we take bear with excellent hides even in summer months. The bears are actually in hibernation for four months of the year so check with us for the best time for your bear hunt.
Climate: During hunting season temperatures can range from freezing to the 70’s. There probably won’t be much snow, if any, but wet conditions are sometimes common for several days.
Terrain: Most of our hunting is done from Ponderosa pine elevations up to aspen and spruce/fir type elevations. Logging roads are plentiful, so we use four-wheel-drive vehicles to drive through good bear habitat.
Rates
The fee for our five-day bear hunt is $6,000.00. Hunters may take two bears. The fee for the second bear, taken during the same five-day hunt, is $3,500.00. Longer hunts can be arranged.
In addition to the above fees, the hunter pays $505.00 to the White Mountain Apache Recreational Enterprise for each bear tag.
Non-hunting observers who go everywhere the hunter goes (except sitting on baits) are charged $2,000.00 for the 5-day hunt.
Methods: Our bait hunts cover huge areas to ensure trophy-sized bears are available at any given time. If our entire bait line is run from start to finish, approximately 100 miles of back roads will be covered. In a typical season, we go through 6-8 thousand pounds of bear bait. Unlike many areas that allow baiting, we are not limited in what we can use for bait or what type of containers we can use. Our bait containers are accessible only by bears at all times and can hold up to 100 pounds of goodies. Typically bait containers, once they have been hit by a bear, are a free lunch for any other critter in the woods, including coyotes. Feeding coyotes has never been real high on our to-do list. The containers we use are only accessible to bears no matter how many bear visits have been made.
A powerful attractant scent is one of our secret weapons. Unlike strong smelling decayed material which can develop a “skin” and become less effective, our attractant is active at a very high strength 24 hours a day. Based on our tests, our attractant can continually lure bears from 3-5 miles away. As far as we know no one else uses this attractant.
No horses or ATVs are used on any of our hunts on the White Mountain Apache Reservation. Four-wheel-drive vehicles are used to cruise through the woods.
Since we have trail cameras on all our baits, we know how big the bears are, and what time they come to dinner. We usually spend our mornings putting out bait and the afternoons and evenings sitting on the baits.
Baiting is allowed during the entire bear season. Bear activity is always very high at our baits in the during the season. On a recent three-party spring hunt, this resulted in two 20-inch (skull measurement) bears taken with rifles and one Pope and Young bear taken with a bow in a single five day period.
Legal Weapons: Center-fire rifles, muzzle-loading rifles, and other rifles using black powder or pyrodex.
Center-fire handguns and handguns using black powder or pyrodex.
Shotguns using slugs.
Silencers or suppressors are not allowed on the reservation.
Equipment: Hunters need only bring their choice of weapon, a sleeping bag, appropriate clothing, and personal gear. Everything else is provided.
Regulations: The White Mountain Apache Reservation has now begun requiring proof of Hunter Safety Certificates from any hunters born after January 1, 1960.
Health: Because of an extensive network of logging roads for our four-wheel-drive vehicles, our hunters can get as much or as little physical activity as their condition allows. Most of our hunts only involve walking1/4 to 1/2 of a mile.
Travel
Hunters can drive to our camp in east, central Arizona or they can fly to Albuquerque, New Mexico or Phoenix, Arizona. Then rent a car for the 3 1/2 hour drive to camp (from Phoenix). Any vehicle will be sufficient since the road to camp is very good.