bear baiting

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brybenn

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Hey guys just curious as to how much bait you put out and how much at each bait site? I was talking with my bear hunting partner and he thinks we are putting out to much bait. I use a 1-2lb piece of carp a few handfulls of dog kibble a few handfulls of popcorn and a cup or 2 of used deep fryer grease. When hit the bear eats it all its rebaited and usually hit again a day or 2 later. This fall I'm planning to add oats to the mix. My bait sites are no where near each other. His idea is to bait very small amounts every half km or so and hope he picks the lucky bait. From experience what has worked for you. Also as a side note how far do you set up from the bait. I like to be 30-50 yards he's thinking its best to be 100+ yards away
 
I'd keep baits at least 1 mile apart, 1/2 KM is way too close. Are you putting the bait into anything? Leaving it laying around will let anything eat it; birds, small critters like skunk,marten,fisher,coon,etc. plus how do you know when a bear has taken it?
Your best bet is to get a 45 gallon drum, about 8 ft or so of chain, chain the drum to a tree, fill 1/2 full with oats and 1-2 pails of old fryer grease. Only a bear will knock it over and nothing else will get at your bait, plus you'll know when it's hit, they'll roll the drum around a lot to get at the bait. Fill through the large opening on top, but leave that cap in after. Only leave the small bung hole open.
You can throw some fish around the baited drum, also when you plan to sit there, but keep the chunks small, like a golfball size, otherwise they always run off to eat under cover.
The further you can be from the bait, the better, but in reality 80 yards is about perfect,IMO. Set up your stand so that you're facing the prevailing wind but not directly looking into the setting sun, pick a spot where the bait has dense cover immediately behind it, but try to leave the treestand in a relatively open area to prevent the bear from approaching the bait from behind when the wind should be perfect(in your face).
Shoot me a PM if you'd like more details.
 
my stand is 45 yards from my bait. Only because I use a rifle (will move closer to 20 yards if I plan on using my bow someday)


I only use corn and molassas mix, oats, dog food and as many apples as I can find. About 150lbs everytime I bait which is every week to two weeks. I also throw some fish or anything I can find dead in a tree to let the smell get out there.


dump a ton of fryer grease around the site as well. I keep all my bait in a barrel with a 8" hole that they can only stick their arm in. The little ones can stick their heads in but they dont eat too much.
 
We were hanging bait bags in trees about 6' high on some stations (new locations) the older stations had wheel hubs with rocks placed on top. The trail cams proved it was bear hitting the bait. One station I hunted over the biggest wolf I've ever seen came in and walked out broadside 25 yards. He also had a pack of buddies with him. It was 1 day before the season opener on wolf. This year after I hopefully take my bear I'm going to hunt a wolf think I can only get one tag. Anyway thanks for the tips. As this year I'm using a double rifle I'm going to be about 50 yards if the terrain allows. Open irons on a black target I want to be close.


Has anyone ever tried calling a black bear in?
 
Baits should be at least a kilometer apart. More is better. If they are too close you will be baiting the same bear at different sites.
We use 45 gallon drums and put at least 300 lbs of bait at each site when we bait once a week. When we hunt over the baits we cut the bait down to half a 5 gallon pail every night.
 
brybenn said:
Hey guys just curious as to how much bait you put out and how much at each bait site? I was talking with my bear hunting partner and he thinks we are putting out to much bait. I use a 1-2lb piece of carp a few handfulls of dog kibble a few handfulls of popcorn and a cup or 2 of used deep fryer grease. When hit the bear eats it all its rebaited and usually hit again a day or 2 later. This fall I'm planning to add oats to the mix. My bait sites are no where near each other. His idea is to bait very small amounts every half km or so and hope he picks the lucky bait. From experience what has worked for you. Also as a side note how far do you set up from the bait. I like to be 30-50 yards he's thinking its best to be 100+ yards away
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When it comes to fryer grease, I found a HUGE difference between Chinese cooking grease, and the same found at burger and fries restaurants. The bears were attracted so much more to the chinese cooking grease that I could litterally not compare the two it was that big a difference. It was also superior to all the other baits we used for black bear, eventually it was all we went hunting with. Go to a few Chinese/Asian restaurants in your neighborhood and ask the owner if you can grab a few pails from their recycling grease bin out back. I used to get all I wanted for free ( me and my partner would eat like pigs and spend lots-o-dough in their restaurant ), but wouldn't hurt to offer them a few bucks. Give it a try, you'll be thanking me for it. Good luck!
 
We found that we were over baiting....we were using meat scraps, oats, grease, molasses and bread. They were getting full and coming in less often. We cut it down to popcorn, small amounts of meat and chcoclate. Without a doubt the popcorn is the winner. When we have had the best results, we use the least amount of bait and the bears have been coming in before we finish baiting as it serves as something like the dinner bell as you're working at the bait. We also lost a pile to ravens until we made alterations to the barrels to limit access even further.
 
If you can, get your hands on a beaver or 2 and hang them from a nearby tree. The scent is a huge attractant, a friend and I were baiting and after we hung the beavers we were drawing bears off of another guys bait well over a mile away.
 
We try and keep our baits at least 2 miles apart, and at least 4-5 from anyone else's bait setup. And we put out as mch bait as is legal, which out here is limited to 100 kgs at a time on Crown land. Our stands are generally 15-20 yards from the bait, but I only hunt bears with a longbow.
 
Maybe a dumb question but have you found that water is any for of barrier - we're hunting near water and were curious about whether they would think twice about migrating to other baits as there is a waterbody - albeit a small one - in the way????
 
One time when I was in Michigan deer hunting I found some bear baits - I talked to the guy and he had cut up some pretty good sized logs - about 1 foot diameter maybe bigger into 4-5 foot lengths and made a log crib. Then he put the bait in the middle and covered it up with the logs. No skunks were moving these logs. It was pretty easy to see the next day when the logs were rolled away that it had been a bear.
 
i usually put out 2-3 buckets(5 gallon) a day.i have any where between 7 and 12/15 bears hitting my site.i only set up one.tried setting up as many as 4 at one time but it is hard to keep them all filled all the timeand putting them to close together you are just feeding the same bears at all the sites.better to do a good job baiting one than a half a--ed job on 3-4.been bear hunting/baiting for 6 years and have tagged out 4 of 6.could have harvested bears every year but i am getting a little fussy in my old age.i also use logs to cover the bait,cutting them into 5 foot lenghts makes for a good size comparison on bears.around here any bear over 5 feet is a respectable bear and good eating as well.had one bear at my site a couple of years ago that was at least 7-10 taller than a 45 gallon barrel standing up while the bear was on all four feet.brother had one that would sit on his butt and put front paws on the rim of barrel,sticks its head in top of barrel and eat.never saw it in shooting light.the more items you can put in your bait mix the better.if you use fish/meat keep it seperate from the other bait and down wind of stand site.
 
2233 my last bear hunt I was on I had a big bear come every night and sniff and stand up across a 30 yard bay. It would not come over but would hit my bait during the night. Several times I saw it but as I was only a km from a small local dump I didn't shoot in case it was the sow wit triplets. It refused to cross whether or not it was just that bear I don't know. I have a buddy that baits on a small island and the bears swim to the rock island and shot from the adjacent mainland. During the summer months I see them crossing lakes and rivers. I think they would swim if they were hungry
 
The amount of bait you put out also depends on how often you are baiting. I like to make sure I have enough bait in my barrel until the next time I go out, letting a bait go cold can kill it. Since my baits are 1 1/2 hours away it gets expensive driving back and forth unnecessarily.
 
I used to see a sign on Hwy 7 near Smiths Falls that warned passersby (and trespassers) that there were "active bear baits" on some guy's property. I never bothered to test whether it was true or not, but chances of having the set disrupted would seem less likely.
 
My buddy operates 2 bear management areas (BMA's) and has 28 bait stations. His bait stations are metal drums, with a the lids set on loosely and a big rock or 2 on the lids to prevent coons from getting in. Early on- pre hunting season- he baits weekly and fills the drums up to ensure that there is enough bait to keep bears around and checking the station until the next fill up. Once the hunting season opens he is baiting every day or 2 as the baits are being hit almost every night. He only puts out about 10-15 lbs of bait per station- enough to keep them checking every night. He also drizzles some molasses on top of the barrel lid and rock, and sprays some liquid smoke on a few nearby trees. His bait stations are typically a km or so apart from each other.
 
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