OK, I have a question for you all. I got a 55 gallon barrel, I bought it for $20 off Craigslist. How exactly do I modify it into a Bear bait container?

55 gallons is the maximum size in Idaho, by the way.

I know you need to have a hole for the bear to put its paw in, I also know that you need to have a way to secure it to a tree.

i’m still trying to figure out how to do everything for the bait barrel. If someone could give me some advice, I’d appreciate it.

A friend of mine who’s a bear hunter here, he said he uses a mixture of dog food and honey for bait. I’m going to try it when the season opens.

Jared

well the name of the game is you want to be able to keep bait AT bait site and not allow a bear to come in grab some and carry off

when cutting hole in drum, be careful to not leave jagged edges, as no reason to injure the bears that eat out of it with sharp edges
I would watch some hunting videos to see designs of other baited stand sites, as for securing barrel, I would think wrapping some good sized chains around drum and chaining to tree strong enough to hold it would work!
as for what bait to use, , always remember a few things, 1 bears find things by smell
so foods with scent that lasts and is strong would be at top of my list,
but also keep in mind that after the season ALL bait has to be removed and that means even residue ion many states!
more liquid scents/baits , can mean having to dig dirt up to remove evidence of it at the end!

NEXT< bears are little kids IMO< they like JUNK food, sweets, fats, corn

guides I know, that used to bait always used things like bacon grease, fat, fish, donuts and candy's, even old cooking oils/ry oils!

but again, where they baited they could use and wasn't an issue for them after the season on removal as rules maybe different !

another thing many baiters due, is place logs over top of bait, this way bears have to DIG to get to it, and this allows time for them to judge bears(which is also why many use 55 gallon drums, they use the drum as a TOOL to measure the size of the bear in comparison to the drum, but when doing this, keep in mind father away from drum, larger bear will look to it, and NOT be as BIG as drum at all!, think how some folks take pic trues of fish or game they kill making game look larger than it really is, by holding out father from the person HAHA)

so, like stated, what you carry in will need to be carried out after season
this can get tricky and messy pending bait used!
but scent is top of list to me, then flavor of things, sweeter the better IMO, and smaller the pieces, the longer a bear has to stay at bait to eat it, big pieces they can grab and walk off with, as even bears know MOST bait sites are traps, some will be dumb for easy meals, but many will be smarter than you think about it
and again, females with cubs many times will show up and leave CUBS behind, (due to many times MALE bears are at sites and or just out of fear bait site is a trap) so, try and learn how to ID females, all the more so if there NOT allowed in your zone/unit/area!
no one wants to see a cub die due to shooting its Mom I gather(but it also happens and can be 100% legal too, its just something I suggest before pulling the trigger to look closer females due have things you can id MOST times, if you have time to look)

Thank you. I’ll get on YouTube and take a look. As for sows with cubs, NOT legal to take in my state.

I will also look up gender IDs. That way I don’t make a mistake.

cutting a small hole in lid and bottom and then running a chain thru that way and around a tree would be MY suggestion on HOW to secure it

and then cutting a smaller hole in one side to add bait would be my suggestion too
just think about size of hole, don;t want a cub to get stuck inside, yet also don't want too large a bear can pull everything out too easy!

also make sure the barrel didn;t used to hold any chemicals or harmful things, you can poison animals that eat out of it, a well, as the odors can scare away possible animals too!
food grade drums are out there if you look!

Well, everything is all set. All that’s left now is to wait for the season to open on the 30th. I got all my supplies, my ammo, the bait barrel is all ready, the rifle is sighted in, and I got my tag and baiting permit.

Now I just have to wait.

well part of hunting is waiting, , so your already hunting bears LOL

remember that a successful hunt is, just a hunt you had a good time, the kill isn't the main part of hunting in the modern world,(were Long past the days for 99% of hunters, that HAVE to hunt to survive, hunting now is a luxury being honest)
and in the REAL world, only about small % of hunters kill there big game animal., the die hards maybe don't get this,a s they tend to be more involved and a such kill more often, but the average hunter , its a small percentage of them that tag out each yr!
here in PA< its less than 10% of those that buy a bear tag that fill it!

which again, isn't really needed to have a successful hunt or hunting season!
sure a kill is nice and all, but for many its just about being out in natures TRYING and enjoying the time afield,!
hunting is all about how YOU enjoy things, and you should enjoy it, , not enjoying it would defeat the point of it IMO!

just have fun and enjoy it all, and again, best of luck to you!

Exactly! Thats why its called Hunting and not Shooting. Where is the fun if it was easy and there was a kill every time?

Hunting is like cake, Sometimes there is icing, like when you get something, and sometimes there is no icing when you get skunked. Either way, there is DELICIOUS cake.

The cake is the fun parts of hunting, like being in nature, observing wildlife, etc. The icing on the cake is there if you get something.

Weird analogy, I know.

Hunting is the PROCESS of TRYING to get an animal. Its not about actually getting the animal, thats just an added bonus if it happens. Hunting is about getting away from civilization and being around nature, learning about nature, and working with nature on occasion.

Truth be told, I dont know if I will get a bear this season. Whether I do or do not, either way, its okay because I will have fun.

By the way, I did research on gender identification for black bears. I think I got it down, but I will continue to research. Even though its legal, I dont want to take a female without cubs. Females with cubs are protected, by the way.

3 days till the first day of the hunt.

Jared

Well, day after tomorrow is the beginning of the hunt. As you can see from all my posting every day, I’m excited. Tomorrow’s going to be my busy day, I need to get a lot of food prepared for my trip tomorrow. I’m gonna stay out most of the day. After that, I need to clean out my car and get it ready for the drive to the spot.

it’s almost here!

I’ll probably post day after tomorrow to let you all know I am heading out. I probably won’t post again unless I either get a bear or I come home after the day is over.

Jared

So it begins......

best of luck to you

I’m back!

I didn’t get a bear today, but I still got a LOT of hunting days left.

Its only the first day of the bait site being out there anyway. Maybe it needs more time.

Jared

some times it takes weeks for a bear to find things, its not magic, place bait and a bears show up!
and again, many times bears will ONLY go to it in the dark, till they go to it a few times and feel its NOT a trap
setting up a trail camera over the bait is a GREAT idea if you can, will let you know what time and what all is hitting your bait, even other people or??

if you shop about decent trail cam's can be had pretty cheap these days, I been buying and using a lot of the wildgame innovations models, , been getting them for about 40-45 bucks, with a sd card and batteries in there bundles, and they been GREAT camera's so far too, some are 2-3+ yrs old out and running 24/7/365 for me and I get 10-15,000 pictures off a set of batteries some times more!, fast trigger speed and wake up too
there NOTHING special, but serve me well
and for the value they are just GREAT IMO!
here is one of the models I have a few of, been very good so far, but I got them in bundle kits,. battery's and a SD card for this price, I see Dicks has some others like it but prices went up?? but to give you an idea

can ,look other paces for them on sale too, but I bought about 10 of them the past 3 yrs all for about 45 bucks , !

https://www.dickssportinggoods.com/p...b&gclsrc=3p.ds

I’ll have to try getting a trail camera sometime then. Thank you for the tip! By the way, I am aware it takes a lot of patience. I wasn’t expecting to get one today, because I just set up the bait site this morning.

One more question. Should I take a look at the bait site about once every three days and see if it’s been disturbed by bears? If it has been disturbed, should I start hunting bears then?

I don't run bear bait, so cannot really say HOW often you should check/hunt it, the name of the game as farI I can think,
would be to make sure there is BAIT there and good amounts of it, and replaced as it starts to get low, to keep the site interesting to a bear,
as they typically eat till ALL gone and mover on type of deal
so if bait runs out, it might take again a while to have them return
so maybe how much food/bait you have will determine how often you need to replace it

an average black bear can eat 20-40 lbs in ONE sitting! so, bait can be gone thru pretty FAST, all the more so if its very desirable food, and in that case a bear can actually eat about 50+ lbs in one sitting!
so, as you can see, HOW often can come down to many things, from what type of bait, HOW many bears are hitting it as well as OTHER animals and so on!
I guess every couple days to monitor things and get a feel, and go from there
this is also why adding a trail cam can help you, it will show you what and HOW many things are hitting your bait

running a bait site can get costly and time consuming, once a bunch of bears start hitting it!

I’ll take your advice and look at it every couple of days then. Thank you. As soon as I can afford a trail camera, I’ll see if I can get one. Thanks for all the help!

Would any of you guys recommend this product?

https://www.cabelas.com/shop/en/moul...ear-attractant

Again don;'t know if that would be legal for you to use, and HOW will you remove it after the season?
the liquid will end up sinking into the soil, and you might end up digging and hauling out dirt, which in itself might NOT be legal(to remove dirt from a public land, as I know its not legal to do on any federal lands)
but like anything you use, scent is what attracts bears, they LIVE and die by there noses, once the scent draw's them in, its FOOD that makes them stay and keep returning, once food is gone, they move on, a bears whole life is all about eating , crapping, sleeping breeding and repeat!
as one food source ends they move to another and repeat!
the average black bear requires about 20,000 calories a day to make enough FAT to make it thru a winter, so, that's a LOT of eating of vegetation and other things in the wild, and why sweets and other MAN made high calories foods are so tempting to them!
they can add calories SO much faster in less time! allowing for more of that sleeping maybe LOL

so, will this liquid in a jug work, MAYBE to attract them to BAIT, but won;t do crap to hold them at a bait site or make them want to return, as once they figure out NOTHING there to eat, there moving else where!
MIGHT get lucky and be in a stand when one travels in to see what smells
but it won't make them keep coming back again and again IMO! like real food /BAIT they can eat will!

cheaper bait IMO, might be corn, add some powder sugar to it, which is also rather cheap, seen 50 lb bags of it for about 25 bucks! and corn here is about 12 bucks for a 100 lbs bags

just again, residue needs to be removed that and be a little tricky at times pending how clean it legally must be when done!

Thanks for getting back. I failed to say that I’m using a bait barrel, and this product you mix with regular bait in the barrel. You don’t pour it on the ground.

My bad, I apologize.

Anyway, thanks for the advice. I’m gonna see if I can pick up more dog food then. Maybe I will try out the scent stuff also. See how it does.

by the way, I really appreciate how you’ve been helping me out. Thank you so much!

no problem glad to offer suggestions or thoughts if I can

even with a barrel, I was thinking a bear can drag things out and or leak from the barrel into the ground
bears will flip and roll barrels, so whats in them doesn't always stay in them,!

maple syrup has a strong odor and can work too
with dog food, keep in mind, when it gets wet or such, it will also get moldy and well, bears might not want it, so i would;t make too much of it in a barrel
as when time comes to haul out, a bunch of dog food all moldy will not be fun to handle! HAHA!

a bear has to be able to get to the bait to eat it and thus want to keep coming!
so again things in barrel will end up all over about the bait site!

Thanks again, I really appreciate it. I didn’t know bears could do things like that. I’m glad I got my bait container chained to a tree.

Still, they might be able to take some stuff out and drag it around. As for cleaning the bait site, I’ll check the regulations. I think you have to have the bait and the bait container out of the site no more than seven days after the hunt. I’ll check.

Bears are incredibly strong and powerful,. even SMALL bears can move heavy things you and I cannot!
you would be surprised how well they can throw about a 55 gallon drum even a FILLED one weight a few hundred lbs,
so, a barrel even chained will get bounced about at times if they want to try and steal it, and BEARS LOVE taking things from bait sites to eat else where, where they feel safer!


maybe some video's for you to watch, ton's out there that can show you what THEY do to be successful baiting and building a bait site and how often to check and so on



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3s2cWf9P2HE


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwsH-E5GjJw&feature=emb_title

Hey there, I just spoke to a friend of mine in north Idaho who is a bear hunter. He told me that he uses donuts and bacon grease for bait.

Fortunately, I have a lot of experience cooking, so I’m gonna be making a lot of donuts, and putting them in the bait barrel with some bacon grease. I’ll see what that does. By the way, there was activity up at the site. All the berry bushes were trampled, branches broken, berries picked clean. Nothing near my bait barrel though.

Yeah but everybody loves bacon. :D

used fry oil is also very popular, it has a lot of scent and the bears will eat it/drink it if they can get it!

and many times its FREE from smaller restaurants and burger shops

OK, I filled the bait barrel with some donuts. I also added some bacon grease. However, shortly after doing that, something interesting came up and I had to head home. Due to what came up, I won’t be able to bear hunt for about three days. Maybe it’s for the best, will take time for that bait site to get established and the scent to carry.

Jared

I’m having a lot of action at the bait site. However, whenever I’m there, nothing seems to be coming close.

I figured out what happened, though. I failed to cover up my scent.

Anybody have a good recommendation on how to cover my scent?

Use rubber gloves and boots for your bait setup. It doesn't completely eliminate your scent but it reduces it and may make it seem older than it is. Bears know what a picnic basket (bait station) is and where it comes from (people) but you still want to minimize your scent in the area. When you go back to hunt, wash your clothes in a hunting wash (not regular detergent) and line dry them so they don't have that dryer smell of anti-wrinkle sheets that your wife uses in the dryer. Store your clothes in a plastic bag so they don't pick up odors from your house. If you can, wear those rubber boots again. There are sprays you can use to minimize your scent (I believe some of the guys on here use those and can tell you more about them). Approach your hunting site from downwind and hopefully wait in a spot that covers or block sight of your movements. I don't hunt bears over bait so don't know all the ins and outs of it. Fortunately for you, some members do hunt bears over bait and a few even guide for it. They should be able to give you a lot more feedback but this little bit should hopefully get you closer to getting a bear. Best of luck.

I went up to the site today. Discovered some bear scat, and some other signs. My bait barrel was hit, there was a donut missing. I just got to figure out when they’re coming so I can meet them there.

Id post pictures, but my laptop is out of commission.

If you're seeing fresh scat, it sounds like how you're baiting is working. If you're not seeing any bears when you're hunting, maybe you need to minimize your scent on ingress to your hunting site. Do you have a trail cam you can setup to see what time the bears are checking out the site? 1 donut isn't a lot of food but with a game cam you can see what bears are coming in at what time and plan accordingly.

yeah if only one donut is missing, that doesn't sound to me like a bear was at the bait at all, maybe some other critter got it as its rather rare for a bear to find a stash of any human goodies and NOT eat there fill on things,
unless something spooked them off it(maybe even you when you went in to check)
bear scat is a good sign, but doesn't mean there working the bait site, bears travel and a smart bear will investigate a bait site and some will even move on if they smell a lot of human scent there!
the first bears typically on a bait are the young and inexperienced that dont;'t associate bait with danger!, older one's then to learn fast, easy meals can lead to trouble LOL
but there also the one's that tend to NOT pass up easy meals, as in if they found 1 donut, and more were there, they don;'t tend to leave the rest behind unless they have a REAL reason to leave!(bigger bear or fear of something)


I again also recommend adding a trail cam if the budget allows, there fun to have and worth buying when you can
as this will tell you what is happening at bait when your NOT there, takes a LOT of guessing out of things!
just keep at it, its hunting, more you do it the better you will get and its a NEVER ending learning game! so don't ever feel bad about not knowing something, that's just part of the game!

I already got the trail camera. It’s arriving in the mail tomorrow. Now that I think about it, you could be right. One donut does not mean a bear hit the site.

Anyway, I would post pictures of all the signs I am seeing, but my laptop is out of commission. Power port broke. Getting repaired. I can’t seem to get photos here on my phone.

As soon as I get my laptop back, I will post the pictures of what I’ve been seeing. A friend of mine in North Idaho did confirm it was bear scat, though.

Excellent news. I found a place near where I live that has agreed to sell me 5 gallons of fry oil/grease for $10. I’m going to pick it up Friday and then I will put it in the bait barrel.

well I guess that's not a bad price, but up my way, places GIVE it away free, , as most pay to have it taken away, so when someone WANTS it, and well, NO one complains(some places think or find it ILLEGAL to do so,a s they worry folks will EAT it somehow get sick and sue???0
but if you keep looking to might find some for FREE

which is always a nice price to get something HAHA!

I completely understand that. Truth be told, everywhere I looked, they couldn’t give it except for this one place. Even then, it’s $10. I also told them that it was specifically for bear hunting and not human consumption.

It is the best I could do, and you got to do your best with what you got.

on a sidenote, I got to put off the bear hunting again. On the 10th, I’m heading to Wyoming for a fossil dig. I’ll be back on the 11th, then I will get the oil/grease and install it in the bait site.

yes, you read that right. A fossil dig. Paleontology is one of my hobbies, and this place allows you to dig and discover fossils.

I never dug for fossils , but found a lot over the yrs,
I did however used to go searching for arrow heads and indian/native american artifacts, had several friends that were really big into doing so and tagged a,long on many trips and even went ion many solo searches
have a lot of old heads, ax heads and so on too
can be pretty fun activity as long as someone finds something now and then, other wise, I have to admit, I got bored after a few hours of NO one finding anything!

but been a few yrs since I went looking,. my main buddy I went with passed away a few months back, so, have less motivation now than ever!

so have fun, its just another form of HUNTING , if you ask me!

Agree! Same thing for getting mushrooms here.
-jake

So, I went to set up my trail camera, and I discovered that a bear hit my barrel last night. Barrel was tipped on its side, all the bait was missing, a bear hit it.

That's exciting!
-Jake

Captured a bear on the trail cam. I can’t post a picture due to my laptop being out of commission, but I will as soon as I can.