Never knew they existed till last fall when I found not one but two of them about 1/2 mile apart. I think they were from the same bear, saw lots of sign between the two. Had a nice bear coming toward me feeding on acorns not far from the second one; he was headed my way across the ridge and I thought for sure he was coming through the funnel I set up on but he turned and fed the other way.
Late last September while stillhunting I found the fist bed at the beginning of a long steep ridge, near the top. I thought it was a den till I got closer and found no opening, but there were bear tracks and scat around the depression in the ground; looked like this one saw lots of use.
A couple weeks later I found the next one, had been seeing lots of scat piles (great acorn crop last year) and stumbled on this one while stillhunting again. Didn't look like this one was used as much, but the ground was definitely packed down into a depression and scat piles were all around again. The bed was right at the base off a large pine and from what I found out this is pretty common.
The bear I saw was good sized, much bigger than the 2 I have taken around here. From what I understand, once a black bear gets over 300 pounds or so, they are no longer able to climb trees and start bedding on the ground. Will be setting up a trail camera on the first bed soon to see if he is still around, no reports of him being taken last Fall.