Burns for bear hunting

[Schultzy]

I've done allot of burns through out the years and I've had ok luck doing it. I've done the common burns such as bacon, honey, some vanilla mixtures, etc.

What I want to know is what do some of you bear hunters use for burns? Give me details if you can about your mixtures and how you perform them. The reason I'm asking this is up where I bear hunt the hunter numbers are nuts!! Its getting very hard to get these bear to come in to our baits in the light hours, most of the activity is being done at night when no other hunters are out in the woods. It makes sense, less human scent in the woods at night, more bear activity then.

I'm going to focus more on burns this year then anything while baiting and hunting. I'm hoping this might give me an edge over the other hunters/baiter's and the bear themselves. I do all my bear hunting in the fall.

Thanks!

[Elkcrazy8]

Shultzy, I was going to send this in a pm, but I will put this info out for all to see and hopefully benefit from.

I hunt in a heavily hunted public land area. Some issues that you are looking at may be from traffic, however, there may also be, and probably is an underlying issue.

Any bait will work for bears, however the key to success lies solely on how you advertise your bait. This will promote competition in which I will talk about later.

My best friend is grease. And of late I started using gallons of caramel flavoring.

The key is to get a couple of bears feeding to begin with. These bears are brought in by the stink bag I hang on a sappling.As the bears begin to feed they will walk through the ring of grease that I have placed around my bait. The bears get the smell on their feet and will track it in several different directions. More bears will cross this path and follow it to the bait. As time goes on I will have a wagon wheel of scent trails leading to my pile and many bears in the area.

Since there is no bait limit in my state, I will put out around 1200 pounds of baiton my setup. I stay out completely for 12 days. This allows the bears to come and go as they please. If all works properly with my advertisement, I will have several bears feeding and a pecking order will be established.

The large bears own the night. Bears are primarily noctournal feeders. By getting the competition on my bait, the smaller and weaker bears will alter their schedules to stay away from the dominant bears. I will start seeing bears coming in at mid day to avoid confrontation.

On the 12th day this year we killed the dominant bear onour bait. Things were slow during the dayfor a week or so after the first kill, at this point I spread more liquid on the ground for the subordinate bears to advertise my bait some more. The plan worked and I started seeing smaller bears early again. This told me that I had another good bear coming in. These larger bears will stop by from time to time to check on the bait when the competition heats up. Its almost like they know the other bears altered their schedule. Usually they wont feed much when its light, but they will swing in for a look from time to time.

By taking in such a large amount and staying out, the bears do not get conditioned to feeding times, Its hard to stay out as you know bears are on your bait, but patience is the key.

For more information and tips on bear baiting, click on the magazine tab on my website and read an article by Gage Brock. Gage has had several bear hunting articles published in several bowhunting magazines.... he knows his stuff...

[Schultzy]

I agree with everything your saying Elk. I use gallons and gallons of grease also along with some molasses, meat, some bakery goods but these are getting harder and harder to find. Shooting bears through out the years has never really been to much of a problem for myself and our little group. I've been bear hunting for 20 years and have had excellent luck so far. I've been involved with it since I was a youngster being my dad has been bear hunting since the early 70's. I learn something every year hunting these awesome animals. The problem l got is people, just like I stated in my thread. This has never been an issue (night hitting) until everyone and there cousin thought they were all big bear hunters and so now we've got people tramping around trying to play guide (82.00 for a guide license). Heck I've got people 2 and 3 tenths down the road baiting from me. Its getting like that every where in the area I'm hunting in. Its a kick ass area so I'm not about to leave this high pressured state land I'm hunting. My dad and I have been going to this area since the late 70's. We've taking many P&Y bear from this area, a few of which were just under B&C.

But Like I said I want to try something, something thats going to give me the edge against the other baiter's. Something that just might pull these bear in during the day light hours. Thats why I posted this thread about doing burns. Its something I've done some but want to do more of in the future.

I'll probably PM you also and have a one on one conversation too. I do like some of your ideas on baiting. I plan on reading that article you talked about also.

Thanks!