Poor years for wild huckleberry crops often lead to bears looking for the wrong kinds of food in populated areas.
“It's been relatively quiet this year, and that tends to happen when we have good natural foods out there,” Tim Manley said.
“And those are just the ones that I saw,” Manley said. “Others that I located were in huckleberry-type areas.”
Manley said he has spotted plenty of healthy huckleberry patches, mostly along the Whitefish Range. He said his colleagues report seeing “really good berries” in the South Fork Flathead River drainage.
People who deal in huckleberries professionally also say it looks to be a good year.
“As far as I can tell, it's been a really good crop and it came early this year,” said Laurie Carpy, manager at
the Huckleberry Patch in Hungry Horse.
Carpy buys huckleberries from pickers who are telling her this year's crop easily exceeds last year's.
On just one day last week, Carpy bought 505 gallons of huckleberries, which translates to about 2,500 pounds of the delectable treats that are used to make everything from milkshakes to pancake syrups to fudge and other candies.
“We get that much about once a week,” Carpy said. “But we get anywhere from 100 to 200 gallons just from locals on a regular day.”
Ed Springman, who operates Huckleberry Haven in Evergreen, agrees with the positive assessment of this year's crop.
He said strong crops are attracting plenty of pickers. Springman said he's buying berries from across western Montana, as far away as the Bitterroot Valley and the Kootenai National Forest.
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