MB.prostaff.bgcalls

Hey Everyone, Just wondering what your guys opinion is, on the easist ways to bait in black bear. I just Attach a 5 gallon bucket to a tree and lay heavy logs on top, what do you guys do?

Hiawatha

I get a 45 gallon barrel and cut a small hole in the side of it. Just enough for a bear to get a paw in. Then i make a small hole at the bottom of the barrel and run a chain through it then chain the barrel to a large tree. Make sure the lid is on tight and your good to go. I also hang some beavers up in trees, check out the best bait in my book post alot more info there.

billythekidrock

If it were only that easy. Have you been successful?

game4lunch

Here in Wyoming we are regulated by the G&F so our options are limited. We can use a bucket/barrel up to 50 gal, has to be attached to tree, cannot be closer than 200 yards from water, roads, trails and 1/2 mile or more from campgrounds/cabins. We have to register a bait with the G&F and are only allowed two, with no one elses bait (including yours)within the same square mile.
Baits you can't use: "big game animals, small game animals, game birds, game fish, protected animals, protected birds, or parts thereof."

But some guys just dump it on the ground.

I'm going to use oats and mollassis this year along with spreading grease on the ground around the barrel(s). Years past I've had success with donuts and hanging rotting chicken/turkey in small mesh bag in tree above bears reach.

MB.prostaff.bgcalls

ya, ive been successful, just started last year actually, with a bow of course. I gonna try something a bit diff this year. hopefully I'll be right on!
what do you guys use? I heard of thousands of different ways to do it?

eatsleephunt

How's it going, I'm new here.

I have done some bear baiting over the years. Where I live now in Montana we cannot bait, but I live a few minutes from Idaho where the rules are similar to the Wyoming guys'. I think the 50 gallon drum is probably the most effective if you can bait daily. Bears seem to like sweet stuff, milk and bread the most, but if you can't bait every morning they are more likely to die from cavities than your arrow/bullet.

The idea with the drum is not to let the bears clean it out too quickly. This is more important if you are hunting with a bow. I have used trickle feeders. These are a homemade affair using a metal five gallon can. I hinge the top, drill a 1" hole in the bottom and fill with dog food. Chain the baiter to a tree, put up some scentand set a stand. After a week or so (if you have bears in the area) you should get a hit, although it helps to freshen the scent every so often. The bear at this point has no reason to believe the "food" will be there again, so rebait, scent and wait till he hits it again. Now you have him if you continue to bait daily. The trickle hole makes it so the bear has to spend a lot of time emptying the can. This is good for archery hunters, video, and times when the bear may hit the bait before you get off work and get there. I.E. he could still be picking at it when you stalk in.

The upside to dog food is that it is cheap ($8 for a 20lb bag of cheap stuff), the down side is that it is not as desirable as natural forage when things start to green up good, which is why a grease scent post or a few doenuts or some type of sweet stuffhelp. Don't mix the dog food with grease or syrup in spite of what you might hear, the dog food will clot together and not come out the hole. Trickle feeders work better during the early season.

We catch chubs (carp-type non-game fish) and hang them in sacks near the feeders. This works great. Split them to maximize odor.

The toughest part of baiting bear for me is maintaining the site. The areas we bait are remote and especially hard to access if it rains, which it seems to much of that time of year. With work and weather it is tough to maintain a bait site regularly, which is not condusive to bringing in bears consistently. It seems like I bait for a few days in a row (on an active site), then it rains hard a couple of days, or I have to work late, and when I get back all the bait is gone and nothing comes in.

Recently, I saw a new baiting method in Bear Hunter Magazine. It is called the Bear Baiter Buffet (type that into your search engine and you'll find it). The BBB is a 5 compartment baiter that operates on a battery powered system, opening one compartment each day at a certain time. It also has the option of releasing a spray scent at this time. You would still want a scent post to innitially attract the bears. The down side is that it weighs 80lbs, so two guys would have to move it from a truck or ATV to a good bait site. The upside is that for us hunters with less time and more travel to bait areas, you have a system that keeps the bears coming more regularly. It has a 45 gallon capacity, so it might fly in Idaho or Wyoming, although one might check on the electronic aspects.

Hope this helps

Elkcrazy8

If you cut a hole in the drum, try welding a rod across the bottom 1/3 rd of the hole. This will knock the food out of their paws when they try to get the last bit out of the drum. It will help the last little bit go farther!!!

Western MA Hunter

Illegal to bait here in MA...

pyclub1

I bait every year and I use a pretty simple method if you want to call it that, First thing I do is go into a area that I have seen bear or tracks or just a good looking area that should have bears traveling through, then I liquid smoke and grease a area for a couple days, put the grease on a old rotten stump and smoke the trees and branches around the area, if a bear doesnt hit the stump in 2 days I get out and try another area if you wait for a week a bear may happen through and then you set up shop and dont get a hit or anything, if they hit in a couple days chances are the bear is a local and is hanging around the area, then when the time comes to bait I use a five gallon pail, I dig a hole and put the pail in it I like the pail to stick out of the ground a few inches,( bury the pail ) I like the pail to be i front of a tree or uprooted tree or something to make the bear come around and give you a better oppurtunity of a broad side or quartering away shot, then put some big logs or stumps over the pail and make it difficult for the bear dont think the logs will be too heavy because trust me, they will move them with ease, every time you fill up the bucket with your bait, I liquid smoke or put grease or something down around the bait station not only for smell to attract bears but something that they will walk in and the scent will stick on their feet and in their travels any other bear that comes across their trail will smell that bait and you can draw bears from a long ways, dont be scared to bang a plastic pail on a tree every time you bait, always try to bait at the same time every day or 2 that you bait,bears will get used to hearing that pail as a dinner bell...Now its time to hunt, have someone take you in at the same time that you have baited up till now and you go straight to the tree and whoever is with you waits until you get ready and then baits bangs the tree a few times with the pail and he/she leaves...Get ready, 2003 I shot a 276# pound blacky and my brother took me in and I shot him with my bow and He went 25 yards went down and death moned, I hollered for my brother and he hollered back he hadent made it 60 yards, I actually could still see my brother from my tree when the bear showed up and 16 yards like a ghost out of nowhere..So he wasnt very far from the bait and when my brother banged the pail and started out here he come...In 99` my brother and I were baiting a stand banged the pail started out got to a logging road and started down I looked back tworads the bait and 2 bears were standing at the bait looking at us, it was pretty cool....Good luck

Phil from Maine

Here you have to get written permission from the landowner ( unless you own the land ) as well as a permit. It is preety much the same as stated above, however cherry pie filling and donuts seem to work the best. But some big bears will only come to meat and nothing else. Good Luck.