A few years ago my dad Jerry and I, in an effort to reduce the skyrocketing bear population on our property decided to offer guided bear hunts. Over the years we have helped a number of hunters on successful hunts. A couple of them taking some bruiser bear.

The permit drawing system in our zone in Wisconsin makes the wait to draw take up to 10 years. With hunters investing all those years in drawings and then with the dilemma of possibly not drawing again for 10 or so years a guided hunt makes the most sense. For some who don't have the time to find bear, travel to bait, not to mention the cost of bait and gas, its better for them to hire a guide to take care of much of the work involved to give them a better chance that the bear will be around when they come in to hunt. We offer semi guided hunts. This year we have baits in 3 different counties in north central Wisconsin, on both private and public lands. We provide the bait, and get the bait sites set-up, keep them baited and then the hunters usually make a couple trips up pre season to see their areas, pick out trees, hang stands and help bait.

Our zone “B” has quite an overpopulation of bear, here are a couple pics from this summer right in my yard.

This year we have 3 hunters, 2 bowhunters and 1 gun hunter. Follow along as I take you through the bear hunting process. The season opens Sept. 3rd, I'll update our progress as we go.

Our hunters are Brian Hallstead owner Brushmaster Painting from West Bend, WI. Brian will be using traditonal archery tackle. His long time friend Brian Nett worked for Presto Products in Appleton, WI for 35 years. He is now retired and enjoying hunting. He will be hunting with an old antique Sharps 45-70 buffalo rifle, and Brians son Leon works for Oshkosh truck and is currently stationed in Texas will be using a Hoyt Katera. All 3 will have friends videoing their hunts this year.

Here the 2 Brians are getting ready to take in bait and stands to our first site. Hallstead on the left Nett on the right.

Black bear will eat just about anything. Per wis. regulations, no meat or animal by-products may be used, and no honey. What we use is mostly outdated food products.

Granola...thats right the concoction used to make the granola bars you eat. If it gets outdated or doesn't pass inspection for human consumption, it gets tossed or sold as bear bait. Bear definitely have a sweet tooth.

We also have chocolate cookies, chocolate drops, candy hearts, etc. And of course it doesn't hurt to coat all these goodies with an assortment of frostings and pie fillings, like apple strudel, and strawberry flavors...mmmmmmmm.

The bait also has to be covered so as to not be accessible to deer and other animals. The bait is usually dumped into a hollow stump and then covered with logs or rocks so other animals can't move the debris to access the bait. For a bear it usually just takes one swat with their paws, or a good push and they can access the goodies.

The stump full of bait, ready to be covered.

Here Brian N pours some apple pie filling over the bait.

Brian H was the designated stand guy. Here he is preparing Leons stand. This spot has been the downfall of 2 good bears in the past few years, one 435# and one right at 300#.

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Here Brian climbs the ladder that Brian N will use as he and my dad hold it in place until secured.

Finally brian hangs his own stand. This spot yielded a 360 # boar the first day last year.

We have had the baits going now for a few weeks. Game cams at each bait let us know what is around and when they are visiting. Obviously with bear, a metal box is necessary to protect the camera.

I think bear like to chew on game cams as much as they do the goodies we give them. With their powerful jaws they can make short work of the destruction of expensive cameras.

There are a couple recognizable bears that are consistently coming in.

We think this is a sow. We saw one with this style throat patch 3 years ago with 3 cubs. The last two years we have seen it by the baits regularly, but it hasn’t had cubs since 3 years ago if it’s the same bear? It is legal to shoot a sow as long as she does not have cubs with her. Bear sows will generally breed every other year.

A couple nice boars…

some sows with cubs….

and numerous smaller bears have been visting.

The bear will tend to “protect” the bait from other bear if they think they are tough enough.

Here you can see the way this smaller bear is trying to intimidate the larger approaching bear with a little posturing. Most likely it didn’t work. I’ve seen smaller bear try everything they can to keep the approaching bear away. Breaking brush, bluff charges, anything to make noise, knowing that once the big bear is in they are done eating for a while. They can sometimes hold off the larger bear for a few minutes or so by making them nervous, but eventually the big one has enough and the little guys head for the hills.

The bear tend to get use to the baits after a while, and they get kind of cocky..

Here is the "bear camp" our hunters will call home for a few days during the hunt.

Our hunters will roll in on Tuesday. I’ll get some more pics of the guys and we’ll decide what time they’ll head out on Weds.

Stay tuned……

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