In my humble opinion baiting bear is nothing like baiting deer and is much harder than with hounds, if the dogs are any good anyway. Bears learn quick where the bait is coming from, and unlike deer bears WILL climb into tree stands and blinds. Sometimes it might look easy, but if that bear winds you its over. And they are much better at the game than we are. Dogs on the other hand all you need is fresh sign and big acreage. If you can follow them they will tree your bear.
On another note hunting them by stalking or sitting is very difficult and will not be a good conservation tool as far as keeping numbers steady.
Iv got land in Northern NH and baited 5 years in a row on it. The first year it worked great. Then I just fed them for 4. They came, but they knew about me and when I was there. Trail cameras are cool toys for seeing things and seeing bear show up a half hour after you leave, time and again at different times of day says a bunch.

I agree with what you are saying about baiting bears.. I know quite a few where the sites were active just before hunting started as well.. Then once hunting started they had already changed their ways.. Sometimes they go after berries and apples.. This year it has been a great year for both of them making baiting even harder to do..

In some cases like yours where the bears only comes in at night they change the amount of bait which sometimes works well.. Other times forget it they just tend to move away.. Others have moved some bear droppings from another area to set in by their sites as well. The idea behind that is to get the bears to think another bear is visiting the site. With less food out gets them moving sooner to try and catch the other bear at it thinks is getting the food. But there is no guarrante that this will work either..

Clever idea idea Phil. Can't see as to how it would hurt.

Bears are hitting natural foods right now. Haven't seen anything at all this week. Hounds have been idol .

I am sorry to hear that but it does happen.. The hounds can not be used until after the second week of baiting season.. I still hope you get to at least see a decent bear if you have no luck at all. Naturally I am hoping you get to tag a nice bear though..

Bears hitting natural food is the only way I get to hunt them.

I agree baiting is a good way to hunt bears for the reasons stated, it's not easy though you can't just throw out a few donuts and come back and shoot one. It's not easy with hounds either, a lot of work. The anti hunters seem to keep coming back till they get there way!

Yeah, bear baiting is nothing like going to the candy store and sometimes you have to wonder if coyote baiting is easier.. Both are predators with keen hearing and smell.. A bear may have poor eye sight but can smell and hear for miles it seams..

Thanks Jay!! I have heard nothing from that other guy. But, I surely hopes he has some great luck this fall..

Hunting with hounds or bait is no where near a given. We hunted hard all week and one of the guys in camp didn't tag out with hounds. If an anti wants to come and say hound hunting is unfair , have them run in the woods with those dogs for a few days and still not catch up with a bear. Love to see them try it because it kicked my behind

Yeah bikerman, it is a lot tougher than it sounds that is for sure.. Nothing like heading into the candy store at all. Plus those thick swampy messes you end up going threw is tough on anyone.. I do not care who you are and what kind of shape you are in.. They are simply put bad places to end up in..

phil , do you know randy cross?

Yes I do and he is surely on our side as well..

he is good friends with my guide Dan Wagner. dan trapped bears with Randy for research . randy was also a reference for dan when i was booking my hunt. he answered the phone when i called him inside a bear den :)

While I am not sure exactly how many bears were shot over bait this year it appears to be a great season for a lot of hunters..

The hounds have been busy as well and getting some really big bears!! I am thinking the biggest so far ( at least from what I have heard and saw pics of was 1 at 451 lbs..

The on going issues with HSUS is getting closer to voting day.. So far we have been slowing gaining more and more votes!! We surely hope we can continue gaining those votes for voting day as well as getting them to the polls for the vote to be made.. I believe we will be sending HSUS back to Washington with crying towels!! At least it is looking better for us all the time..

Just a little something to read in this special addition of SAM's news paper over our bear hunting issues with HSUS,,

http://www.sportsmansallianceofmaine...al_Edition.pdf

I truly believe we win this fight . Too many educated voters involved in this one

Yes, I am a firm believer we will prevail.. Then after this battle we will start another one and push legislation to prevent this from happening again.. Also want to thank all the out of state groups that has been donating to the cause.. They have help a lot in this battle up here.. After we win this we will start a new battle to prevent them from doing this ever again..

the great thing is we have the social media now where 10 years ago we didnt. more people are aware

New frontier taxidermy is stating they have taken in a 535 530 and 520 all this year from bait

Most of the bears taken here is from bait.. Then followed by hounds and trapping them.. Lastly which comes to no surprise is stalking which mostly is a chance encounter while out hunting for deer..

yup, that sums it up

A friends bear that is reaching and eating out of a crate where the bottom of it is 6 feet high.. He also had his snare broken by the big one " Fatty "





He is still trying to get one of them...

There is a lot of great information that is out on the Bear Whisperer -- The Maine bear Referendum Show.. Here is a link for anyone that wishes to view this show.. It takes roughly a half hour and has a comment on the end as to where you can look up the info for your self if desired.. http://vimeo.com/108039587

Rigth now it still looks as though we will defeat this referedum although it still to early to tell for sure.. the polls here suggest that this will be defeated by 5e % percent of the vote to 37%.. I hope they are right.. Currently we are waiting on judges ruling on a suite HSUS has filed to try and stop our wildlife officials from having any more say into this and to have them pull all the adds.. But, I am hopeful the judge will rule against this.. I am also hopeful that most voters have made up their minds already.. So we will keep trying to nail done the undecided voters and wait it out for the voting to close on November 4th.. Wish us all some success on driving HSUS out of here once again.. Thank You all !! ...Here is a little something from one of the pieces of info being out here..
http://bangordailynews.com/2014/10/1...ef=regionstate

Oh yes I forogt to mention that old fatty still has avoided the trap.. He has set it off a few times and even had part of a back paw in it.. That did not bother him any at all .. He keeps coming back and has done a lot of tricks to keep out of it..

For anyone that wishes to you can follow this along at http://savemainesbearhunt.com/..

Some of us feel pretty confident that this will be shot down and HSUS will have to go packing for another place to hit us from.. We will be trying to come up with new laws to prevent this type of stuff in the future like some other states have recently passed..

I've lived in Mi, another state with a fair bear population all my life. And as a life long hunter I spend a good deal of time in the woods hunting game & also mushrooms of several types.

In all the thousands of outings over the years I've seen just 3 bears.

Sure I'm not going out looking for them, but then the deer hunters the anti-bear-hunt groups say will take enough bears are also not primarily looking for bears.

I read through the majority of the links you've provided. Most telling was all the changes & extended seasons the western states that have banned bait & dogs now have to use to try for even moderate control of the population of bears. I also noted how they now, at public expense, have to control problem bears who will other wise damage timber stands in some areas & raid trash cans in others.

Good luck to you in beating back the HSUS.....a bigger group of liars would be hard to find. Not a surprise they draw most funding from Washington DC another lair for liars....

Thank you craig..

Also more good news that HSUS has tried to block in this campaign... The courts have ruled in our favor on our Wardens and Biologists can help in the campaign..
http://bangordailynews.com/2014/10/2...ting-question/

HSUS has appealed the courts decision which we suspected would happen.. The polls which we know can be wrong is showing 57% against the referendum, 36% in favor, and 7% undecided. If this holds true we will be sending HSUS packing.. There is not much time left and HSUS is planning on a media blitz to try and win this.. So it is still a long ways to go even though the days are being numbered.. Thanks everyone for your support and understanding on this very important issue..

good luck in your fight!

Well it will only be 2 more days before the polls will close.. Then we will know for sure the out come of our fight against HSUS and the rest of the anti's.. It is still looking good and we believe we will be sending HSUS packing back to D.C... I will let you all know once we get the votes counted on how things went.. Even though we are in belief of a solid victory a lot can still happen..

Well we have another anti busted for shooting grouse out of the window of a motor vehicle.. This guy claims he has shot 40 bears in 25 years ethically here in the state of Maine.. Legally there would be no way he could do that. Plus it was very doubtfull from the begining.. LOL He was an anti story teller and that was about it.. Now he has a real story he can share with them. lol Another one bites the dust...

https://www.facebook.com/bangordailynews/posts/10152389874495796?ref=notif&notif_t=notify_me

While the vote is still being counted.. It looks like a win for us and HSUS will be getting the boot award the heck out of here.. As it currently stands we are clearly winning this against the antis and their money buying scemes.. Currently holding a 6 % lead with the counting winding down.. Yahooeee!!

You guys won. Congratulations . I'm glad I can still hunt bear in the great state of Maine

Congrats Maine!

Yes and the final tally was 46 y to 54 nos !! We won with 8 % percent of the vote.. We now will be making plans for a bigger battle to come !!

Thanks everyone!!

You did better than we did in Colorado.

I didn't think the election went too bad in CO. Udall is gone, Coffman and Buck are in office. Granted we didn't get rid of Hickey Baby but it was close.

It was a long and drawn out battle that is for sure.. We pulled all political parties together and used all the resources we could find.. Also a lot of out of state help with the backing which was very helpful and a big thank you goes out to them.. I can tell you first hand it was a very tiring road to go but well worth it.. HSUS threw everything at it and still failed and that makes us proud up here.. Even though we wished the win would of been strong we still prevailed with the outcome.. HSUS looks at Maine as if it would be some kind of trophy if they can break us.. We let them know not yet!!

The HSUS rolled right over us here in Michigan.:rolleye0011: