Originally Posted by
Schultzy
Fair enough question MJR10. Better then the thread title!!
As for myself I hunt bears In northern Minnesota In big woods thick cover. Your lucky If you can see 20 yards ahead In most spots we bear hunt In. Using bait Is about the only way possible to be successful In getting a bear In the terrain I hunt In. I can gaurantee you that If we could not use bait the bear numbers In Minnesota would be so over populated that there would be
nuisance bear problems everywhere. It would be Impossible to do a spot and stock and there Is by no means close to enough bear to have success with calling them using predator calls. I've been Involved with bear hunting/baiting all my life (35 years) and have been bear hunting since 1989. I've shot 9 bear In 20 years of hunting them with a bow. It's not nearly as easy as allot of people think, at least not In Minnesota. I've been out west elk hunting 6 different years and I always buy a bear tag when I'm out there. Every year I've been there I've been successful In doing a spot and stalk on a bear but so far none have been shooters for me. Honestly my odds have been better doing spot and stalks then hunting over bait. Terrain Is the key thing here on what tactics one needs to use to be successful.
I think this is a fair and accurate post. The only alternative I see is for bait hunting to be banned, then wildlife officals kill off access bears, which is not a viable option. I think one has to understand that in certain areas bating is the only option available to keep populations under control. I accept the argument that we live in a different world than 100 years ago, and the 'natural' balance of nature is hard to achieve when artificial food is readily available due to modern agricultural practices, and in many instances, livestock for predators. I also think that threads of this nature are valuable and more discussion needs to be had and pondered on the current treads in hunting and the future of the sport. We have more than enough "is this gun big enough" threads. Time for some serious discussion within the hunting ranks about the direction hunting is going.