Colorado holds one of the strongest black bear populations in the West — roughly 17,000 to 20,000 bears spread through the oak brush, aspen and dark timber of the state’s mountains and foothills. Right around Steamboat, our bears are fat and photogenic by September, working aspen berries, chokecherries and, when they can get it, oak mast. Here’s what you need to know to hunt them legally, ethically, and well.
2026 Bear Season At a Glance
All of Colorado’s bears are American black bears — the state has no grizzlies. Don’t let the name fool you: our black bears show up in color phases from jet black to cinnamon, chocolate, blonde and everything between. A big Colorado boar will push 300 pounds live weight; sows run smaller.
Bears live where the food lives. In Northwest Colorado that means oak brush ridges and aspen bottoms in September, sage and creek edges shoulder-season, and higher elevations following seasonal food sources. Water — and the trail leading to it — is always a good place to start.
Bear licenses are limited in most GMUs, allocated through the primary draw in early April with a secondary draw and leftover round to follow. A handful of plains and private-land-only bear licenses are sold over-the-counter. The 2026 rule set added new bear licenses in a variety of GMUs and moved bear tags through the new Secondary Draw structure with 100% youth preference in that round.
The limit is one bear per license, either sex — and in certain designated and private-land-only units the regulations allow an additional license, so read the brochure for your unit rather than assuming one tag is the ceiling. You may not take a sow with cubs at side, cubs of any size, or any bear in its den. Baiting is prohibited in Colorado, as is the use of dogs to pursue bear. Bows, muzzleloaders and centerfire rifles are all legal depending on the season structure.
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Bears are tough. Anatomy matters: aim for the heart-lung window low and just behind the shoulder, not the middle of the “body”. For rifle hunters, a .270, 7mm, .308 or .30-06 with a good controlled-expansion bullet does the job cleanly; archery hunters lean on heavy fixed-blade broadheads and shot restraint. If in doubt, don’t shoot — a bear moving through timber is a much harder target than an elk, and a bad shot on a bear turns into an ugly track job.
Colorado Manner-of-Take Minimums — 2 CCR 406-2-203.A.1
The regulation is the authority — check the current CPW big game brochure before you hunt.
A dependable bolt-action in .270 through .30-06, topped with a variable 3-9x or 2.5-10x scope, covers the vast majority of Colorado bear shots. Get it in early for scope mounting and boresighting.
Browse the categories our bear hunters lean on:
Rifles
Bolt-action bear medicine
Riflescopes
3-9x, 2.5-10x variables
Ammunition
Controlled-expansion bullets
Sidearms
Backup in bear country
Knives
Break down & cape out
Packs & Bags
Heavy pack-out ready
The rules that draw the sharpest lines in Colorado bear regs come down to respect. You are required to prepare all edible meat for human consumption from your bear — the meat, not just the hide and skull. Rendered bear fat is legendary in a pie crust. If you can’t process a whole bear yourself, know a butcher who will.
Even if you never see a bear on your license, you might see one in camp. Store food in a bear-resistant container or hang it a full 100 yards downwind from your tent, cook away from where you sleep, and keep the “sleep clothes” free of cooking odors. Bear encounters in camp are almost always about garbage discipline, not bad luck.
Hunting elk, deer or turkey too? See our 2026 Big Game Hunting Guide and our Fall Turkey Guide.
Bear season dates and regulations are subject to change. Manner-of-take minimums quoted from 2 CCR 406-2-203. Always verify against your printed license and the official CPW Bear Hunting page before hunting.
The date under the headline is the last time we checked this page against its sources — not the day it was first written. Rulebooks get amended, regulations change and season dates move, so we review these guides on a regular cycle and re-stamp the date whenever we revise one. If you find something here that has changed before we caught it, email [email protected] or tell us at the counter; we will verify it against the source and correct it.
We write these because people ask us at the counter. Everything in them we either sell, service, or shoot ourselves — and if you'd rather talk it through than read about it, come in.
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