Calling bears in the woods - does it work? Tips?

hoytcanon said:
I have taken two nice boars calling... I have to give you a realistic perspective... IMO it is the least reliable/effective method... and I have taken black bears by most methods... I have spent countless hours calling bears... of the two that I harvested, one I had spotted feeding in a cut... it was dry and brittle and there was no conceivable way of getting into bow shot range... so I "cub squalled" him in... very, very quickly... at ten yards the arrow took him at the base of the neck and exited out the hind quarter... he made a mad 80 yard dash past my left shoulder into a spruce swamp and piled up. The other one I shot was while on a moose hunt, I had taken a nice bull in the morning and the calf called in the boar that same evening... again, it came in very fast, but the end was less dramatic... I have called in half a dozen other bears that did not result in getting a shot.... and I have spent hours calling with nothing but red squirrels and chick-a-dees for company. Try combining baiting/calling (from the bait site with a cub squaller) and spotting/calling to up your odds... also call around the edges of food sources... the closer you are to the bear the more likely it will check you out.... berry patches, green-up meadows, sucker spawn runs, poplar (catkin) stands etc... good luck. At the very least you will spend some pleasurable time in the outdoors.
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I have often contemplated doing this while sitting on my bait bored to tears... Never had the nerve as I was always worried it might screw up my bait somehow... I think I'll give it a shot this year.

Thanks
 
I called a bear in once with a deer call will trying to grunt a buck in. I think it was more of a coincidence, it came in pretty fast until it caught wind of me and then held up and sniffed the air a few seconds before taking off into the bush again about as fast as it showed up.
 
doublelung said:
I have often contemplated doing this while sitting on my bait bored to tears... Never had the nerve as I was always worried it might screw up my bait somehow... I think I'll give it a shot this year.

Thanks
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Big boars are often nocturnal... but if you create real or imagined competition on an active bait, you can often get the boss bear in during shooting light... I have sat in stands with as many as eight bears trying to feed, while the boss bear spent the evening driving away the subordinate bears... makes for an exciting time. Using a cub squaller from your stand can attract boars either as predators or as jealous food protectors.
 
hoytcanon said:
Big boars are often nocturnal... but if you create real or imagined competition on an active bait, you can often get the boss bear in during shooting light... I have sat in stands with as many as eight bears trying to feed, while the boss bear spent the evening driving away the subordinate bears... makes for an exciting time. Using a cub squaller from your stand can attract boars either as predators or as jealous food protectors.
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nocturnal: it is really depending on the disturbance they have.
 
I haven't spent a lot of time calling bears but a mouth blown rabbit call is a good way to get bears that are feeding on standing oats to stand up so you can see them. My son and called this guy on a Wildlife Tech this past year. Played cub squalls until I was ready to shoot myself out of boredom, then finally switched to cotton tail and killed a coyote that loped in a couple minutes later. I left it playing for awhile then waved my boy over. About then this guy stood up at the tree-line and got a .270 Weatherby in the chest for his trouble. Good Saskatchewan style calling double.

 
I "accidentally" called one in during an unusually warm spring (end of March) while I was trying to call in some coyotes or wolves (my first time ever using a predator call). Within 2 minutes a fair sized boar came in right behind me to within 25ish yards give or take. Since he wasn't in season I tried to get him moving the other direction, it didn't work, so he got a 22-250 round blasted off just to his left and he took off. It's something I'll try while bear hunting this spring to keep me entertained.
 
I called one in across a beaver dam while cow (moose ) calling in Northern Ontario,,was definitely coming to the call and wasn't very quiet approaching either,,
 
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