Black Bear Baits

Another_Haligonian

Another_Haligonian

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Nova Scotia
Just wondering what people who have hunted/baited black bear before have had good success with? Last year I set up with day or two old Timmies donuts and the like mixed with molasses ontop. I've also heard of bannas and aniseed oil?

Thanks,
A.
 
We use out of date bread covered in molasses for the main bait. Out dated chips also seem to work. Donuts are great, but hard to get around here. Deep fryer grease is good to dump around the site to make sent trails. Spreading jello powder and liqui smoke around in the trees seems to work good to. The main thing is once they start coming to always have feed there for them.

We try to stay away from meats as it can spoil quickly and make a real mess. It's much nicer dealing with a bear that hasn been messing around in rotten "stuff"
 
Popcorn popcorn popcorn.....cooked in fryer oil. Oats, fryer oil and popcorn. I have had baits turn off when bread and meat spoils so go for popcorn as its light and the bears have to stay to eat as they dont fill up.
 
I have only baited for 2 years a few years ago. I had several bears in, shot one with the bow on the first night sitting the second year. Always had cameras on the baits to see what action was happening. I am planning to bait again this year, here's the setup I will be using again.
I can't remember where I read about this bait setup, so I can't take credit for it.
Find a steel 45 gallon drum with a removable lid, the kind with a band that holds the lid down, requires a wrench to remove. I can't remember the number of holes mine has, but 6-10 will do, drill 6-10 holes approx 1.25" in diameter randomly around the barrel sides. Put about 5 gallons of the cheapest dog food (and/or popcorn) that you can find, pour molasses or something sweet on the dog food. Fasten the lid down tight. I added an eyelet on the bottom of the barrel so I could secure it in place. This set up works awesome, because a bear will come in and spend hours there. (video footage of many bears staying for great lengths of time) They roll the barrel around and the dog food will trickle out of the small holes in the barrel, they eat it off the ground and roll the barrel again, over and over. They cant just gorge themselves on your bait food and then leave. Therefor the stay for longer, and come back often. Once the baits are being hit, I would take in about 2-3 gallons of dog food every few days and add it to the barrel. The nights I would hunt, I would take in a smoking hot bag of microwave popcorn and dump it around the barrel. They can't resist it.
Its important to tie the barrel down well, and if possible tie it off to 2 trees to hold it centered in your shooting lane, because they roll it around a lot.
 
a dumb non observant berry picker should work, no just kidding, but I do know of such a person, me, when I was a young'n out in rural SK. I was picking blue berries or saskatoons with me Ma and a dog gone black bear came along! I don't recall ever going berry picking ever again after that!
Oh yes I did too, but many many years later in MB on my own property. I kept the quad handy and my 357 under my arm pit and my eyes in the back of my head wide open! I was actually a little spooked and thought I could hear noises!
 
Buddies family ran a camp near Shining Tree.

For the "over-bait" hunters, Ma used to render down big hunks of pork fat and added all the bacon drippings she could muster from the cook house.
Never failed.
 
An anti-hunter, especially a PETA member, is an excellent bait. For best results they should be dipped in or painted with a mixture of molasses and bacon grease, but even un-seasoned ones work well. Some of the more doubtful specimens need to be tied or chained to a tree to prevent them from wandering off, but the best ones are much more devoted to their cause and welcome the opportunity to bond with a cute cuddly bear. These specimens are the finest possible bait and they make no effort to escape. Hearing protection should be worn when using this type of bait...the incessant holier-than-thou monologue these folk normally produce is so grating, and so full of clichés and hackneyed B.S. that most hunters can only stand to listen for a short time.

Hunters should choose their shots carefully and should "use enough gun", ensuring a quick and clean kill. If the bear is dropped quickly, the bait can often be re-used again and again. Using marginal cartridges demands waiting for a perfect broadside shot, giving the bear time to interact with the bait to a greater degree than desired and during this interaction the bait may become soiled and somewhat bedraggled-looking.

It is important to keep in mind that under no circumstances should the bait be released into the wild at the end of the hunt. There are numerous documented cases of introduced invasive species causing serious damage to native ecosystems after such intentional or unintentional introductions; witness the problems created when zebra mussels, spiny water fleas and others established a foothold in the Great Lakes. At the very least, this is a cruel practice. The anti-hunter tends to be a slow and stupid creature, ill-equipped to survive in a natural environment. Typically, he will dash about recklessly, usually crying and mewling in a pitiful manner until eventually wandering onto a highway to be struck by a vehicle, or he may perhaps be killed and devoured by skunks or raccoons. If such a bait is no longer desired, he should be carefully released on a downtown street in any large city, preferably near a Starbucks outlet.
 
Last fall, I had 6000 pics on my trail camera. I had 20 ish bears hitting the bait 24hrs a day. I always start will oats mixed with fryer oil, with caramel concentrate. You can get the concentrate from feed mills, and 1 quart of concentrate will scent 50 gallons of fryer oil. Once they are hitting it hard, I switch to bread and oil. I use a ridiculous amount of oil, but you have never seen bears with a silkier coats! I have had great luck with using scent sticks and products you can buy from bait'em907 (.com) As previosly stated, once they start hitting, dont let it go empty. I have tried popcorn and meat, and dogfood, but i need a ton of bait, and i can get 1200 lbs of oast for $100, and 1200 lbs of bread for $30, oil is free. I know some outfitters who buy commercially made bear ration from feedmills with great success, but a 1000lb tote is $500, I want to try it but just cant justify the expense. Thats what works for me
 
This is my first attempt baiting. So far I've lag bolted a 45gal drum to a tree, filled it half way up with cheap dog food, added about a liter of vanilla extract, a bag of brown sugar, and about a liter or more of molasses. I'm on the fence of whether I'm going to put a camera up yet, but I'll be revisiting the bait site next week to see how it's looking and to add more bait. I haven't put a lid on the barrel, but I'll see if I have to at a later date.
 
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