CLINTON TWP — A hunter for 53 years, Greg Levish never had an interest in hunting bears.

That is, until the bears started coming to him.

“We’ve been seeing more and more of them down this way,” Levish, 65, of Sarver said. “My wife and I hunt only five miles or so down the road.

“We had a bear destroy a bird feeder in our yard a couple of years ago. I’ve never seen as much bear in our area as I see now.”

Levish primarily hunts with a crossbow after developing arthritis in one of his hands. The statewide archery bear season doesn’t open until Nov. 17, but Zone 2-B, near Levish’s home, has its archery bear season from Sept. 20 through Nov. 15.

“With my arthritis, crossbow hunting is the ticket for us,” Levish said.

While out hunting deer recently, Levish’s wife, Susan, came across a bear up close and personal.

She was in the couple’s ground blind in the woods, five miles from their home, when a bear approached the window.

“He wasn’t two feet away from me and I’m afraid of bears,” Mrs. Levish said. “My crossbow was sitting right there, but I didn’t dare shoot it because I didn’t have a bear license.

“The first thing I thought of was, he isn’t very big, maybe 100 or 150 pounds or so, and seemed to be curious, just sniffing around. I had some beef jerky in my back pocket. Maybe he picked up that scent, I don’t know.

“Greg and I saw a mother with two cubs a year or so ago, so I didn’t know if this was one of them, maybe the mother’s lurking around ... Things go through your mind when you’re scared,” she added.

Once Levish cleared her throat, the startled bear ran off.

“With all that fur and such small eyes, he looked kind of cuddly, actually,” she said.

This past Tuesday, Greg Levish decided to go get his first-ever bear license. The next day, he returned to that spot in the woods and bagged a bear.

“Who knows if it’s the same one?,” he said. “It was about 150 pounds, but there’s plenty of bears in those woods. I’m sure there’s more of them around.

“Bagging a bear with a crossbow isn’t something you see every day. Getting one that quickly really surprised me.”

Levish has a trophy buck — an 8-point — mounted in his home. He has a friend who is a taxidermist.

“I’ll probably have a rug made out of the bear skin,” he said.

Deer and turkey hunting have been the extent of Levish’s forays into the woods.

Add bear to that list now.

“Oh, yeah, I’ll be applying for a license next year, too,” he said. “Why not? They’re practically in our backyard.”

The 2013 harvest of 3,510 bears statewide is the fifth-largest in Pennsylvania history. Three of the five largest harvests in the state have occurred within the past five years.

Pennsylvania’s largest bear harvest on record — 4,350 — occurred in 2011.