Malcolm "Skip" Rogers of Portersville shot this 471-pound black bear on his property near Lake Arthur Nov. 25. The Pennsylvania Game Commission said it was the heaviest bear shot in Butler County this year and the third heaviest in the Nortwest Region of the state.

PORTERSVILLE — If you want the job done, do it yourself.

Malcolm "Skip" Rogers, 63, of Portersville took that approach in getting bears to stop damaging his archery targets.

Rogers owns property on the North Shore of Lake Arthur and has an archery target range set up there.

"Bears came in there and attacked my targets, took bites out of them, dragged some away," Rogers said. "It became a real problem.

"Three years ago, I tried getting the Game Commission to come in here and trap the bears to get them out of here. When that didn't happen, I decided to allow a few guys I know to hunt bear on my land."

Rogers got a bear license himself and did the same. Two hunters he knows bagged bears weighing 100 and 150 pounds on his property.

Rogers never got one himself — until this year. And his patience paid off.

At 4:05 p.m. Nov. 25, Rogers shot a bear weighing about 471 pounds while scouting for deer.

"I hadn't seen any (bears) in two or three months," he said. "I didn't expect to see any that day. My son, Mike, got an 8-point buck earlier in the season, so I thought I'd look around.

"The bear came out of a corn field and was heading for the woods. I had about six seconds to shoot it."

He didn't miss.

"I hit it in the shoulder and it rolled over," Rogers said. "The shot hit the spine, so it couldn't go anywhere."

Pennsylvania Game Commission spokesman Jerry Feaser said the 471-pound bear was the largest harvested in Butler County this year and the third largest in the Northwest Region of the state.

A 532-pound bear was killed in Venango County and a 490-pounder was bagged in Warren County.

"Butler County is on the fringe of bear territory, so to get one that big down there is rare," Feaser said. "We don't know if it's a record for the county, but it has to be up there."

Feaser said there have been 600-pound bears harvested in Pennsylvania.

"His (Rogers) bear's actual weight was 399 pounds field-dressed," Feaser said. "The estimated live weight was 471. We determine actual size by skull measurement and it takes a 60-day period to get that figure."

Rogers said he shot the bear from 157 yards away.

"When I got to it, I was surprised by its size," he said. "I could barely lift its head, it was so big.

"You don't expect to come across a bear that big — not around here."

Feaser said the weight of bears varies from year to year, based on food conditions.

"The lack of food availability can cut the average weight by 100 pounds or more in a given season," he said.