Aitright1,
I too live in Western NC. In fact I live in a County that has quite a bit of Bear hunting going on. I have been told by a Bear Hunt Club member in the county that back in 2010 there were some 9-10 Bear Hunt clubs just in this one county. I was also told that most clubs that year bagged an average of 10 Bears. Once you do the math you realize that the hunting is pretty good for Bear here.
But the others have already told you the big problem with Bear hunting around here... you almost never walk on level ground. Everything around here is straight up or straight down. Hunting anything is hard around here because of the terrain.
Now for the good news... All the clubs here hunt with Dogs. All trucks in the club have radios and tracking collars they follow on their dogs on their radios. Even if you can't go running up and down every gully chasing after a Bear, you can actually have a lot of fun riding around in on of the club members Pick-ups all day while they chase Bear by tracking their dogs. You don't get to take the shot, but you can still feel like part of the hunt by following all the days happenings on one of their radios. It gives you a feel of being 'on the hunt' without doing all the physical stuff.
It might be worth a try.
David
www.CarolinaCamoCreations.com