RE: good bear baits
We use this formula: substance, attractant and sweets.
Substance: Oats
Attractant: KFC Grease (Kentucky fried Chicken) - but any restraunt grease will work
Sweet: Mollassis
Here baits must be placed in a sealed drum, we use a 45 gallon drum with lid....cut about 4-5" dia hole in the top, enough for one paw or mouth to get in. We also chain our drums to a large based tree, to prevent them from being rolled off.
To spruce our bait we cut & cube Beavers (yep the little fury tree eaters) But you can add raw meat scrapes as well. Chicken or fish seems to be a favorite here. When spring hunting we never put raw meat out until we are sure they have dropped their plugs, raw meat can cause them to get bunged up with the plug in and be counter productive.
In the past we have used donuts, sweet breads, cookies, etc. Also dog food mixed with grease, mollassis and icing sugar gives you a good combo. One buddy in alberta uses canola oil as his grease base and says it works good as well. But we have found most restraunts will give you their deep fryer vats grease fo nothing and it seems to work better due to being somewhat burnt and fatty.
Additional tactics if legal are bacon or licorice burns.