We cantstart here till the 21st. I have no tag this year .

Wrong. You're a lot better off having the bears hear you coming to the bait and giving them a chance to leave than to see you walk up to the bait and spook them. You run a lot better chance of turing them nocturnal the second way.

Good Stuff Kyle......alomst exactly how I do it.

Then again, what would I know about bears?

I don't do the 4 wheeler stuff either Sandiland. To be honest I can't stand the damn things! I hunt in a area with people everywhere and all I hear is 4 wheelers. I know for a fact that 4 wheelers have cost me a bear more then once. People seem to not follow the rules here in Minnesota. They make there own paths in the woods with them, illegal as heck! They are legal only on logging roads and marked roads, nothing else other then retrieving game I believe. If people wouldn't abuse the use of these things so bad I wouldn't have a problem with them. As for the dinner bell thingy and the 4 wheelers, It's probably true but as far as I'm concerned they can hear and smell us when were walking into baiting the baits as well. All to often I bait a bait and come back and check it the next day to see the timer showing the bear coming in 10 minutes after I've left. They see/hear/smell us come in and out, no dought in my mind. If the 4 wheeler thing works for Kyle and Dan, thats cool. I'm sure these guys don't abuse the use of these things. All in all though to me the more quite I am at a bait the better when I'm baiting it. Again just to make myself clear before someone gets all worked up I'm not knocking every person down who use's 4 wheelers, I'm reffering to the people who abuse these things and screw it up for the others.

I just don't like them either. My hunting partner has a rhino. He can use it on his spots but I will go on foot. I've even offered to carry all his stuff in to his sites. This spring I carried 250lbs of oats, 250lbs of corn, 2 barrels, 70gal of grease and a bunch of other items. Sure it was alot of work but I didn't want to put up a sign for everyone to see(quad trail) where my bait was.

Good luck during the season Kyle. I'm sure the bears will find your bait and you will have a successful hunt.

What kind of grease are you using?

Very Nice! Love the color.

Bummer, Sliver! I'm lucky, I live in a No quota area. I get two bear tags, over the counter!

Steve, I hunt our own private land. Only one fourwheeler is being heard. That must be why it's an advantage, to me.

Sandilands, I'm using bacon greese and also french fry grease. I don't use a tremendous amount though. I see more action with my spray bottle of hickory smoke.

Then I must be doing something right!

Good luck this year, Dan!

Anyone use burn baits? I know many people who do, I was thinking of trying it. Kinda worried about burning my woods down, and having to jump out of my tree to stomp out a fire[&:]

Like I said before Kyle, good stuff in your baiting regimen. Here's how I go about it, not to much different then the way you go about it.


My 1st week of baiting my main goal is to get the stink out and get the scent in the air and bring some bear in. The way I go about it is I go out and catch some fish (catfish and bullheads preferably) about 2 months before baiting. I then take these fish and put them in a black 5 gallon pail whole (not cleaned) and put a little water in it and slam the cover on it and let it sit in the sun and ferment. This stuff is nasty come middle of August when baiting starts. This is what I use for an attractant to get the stink out, It works well.

The bait I use- Meat scraps (beef) from the butcher shops, lots of grease, molasses, bread, pastry's, code blue scents, liquid smoke, fish stink I described, and other stuff I can't think of right now.

When looking for an area to put a bait up I look for dark, thick, low areas. To me bear feel much more comfortable in a dark/thick and cool area. When I bait I hang a burlap sack in a tree about 8' feet up. Reason I do this is to see what size of bear or bears I've got hitting my bait. The more claw marks on the tree the smaller the bear, less claw marks the bigger the bear, no claw marks (I'm real excited then)!! I then put bait on the ground below the same tree the sack is in. I pile meat in one spot, bakery goods in another spot. I don't mix them up being some bear only like one or the other. Bear are very finicky/picky eaters. After I'm done with that I'll then stack the biggest logs I can find and stack them on top of the bait nice and straight. I position the logs to how I want the bear to come in according to my stand tree. Another thing too I make sure my logs are stacked as neat as possible. Reason being I've seen some monster bear come in and just move one log a tiny bit and then leave. Allot of times the big guys will do that so thats why I stack my logs perfect so I know when I come back if there a tad out of place somethings up, and its usually a good thing! Multiple bear, small bear or cubs allot of times will have your logs laying in every which way direction spread all over. After the logs are in place I'll take the fish stink and pour it into an ice cream pale and fling it away from the bait up into a tree to get the scent out. The higher the better. Before I leave I'll take the grease and or molasses and dump at least 5 gallons of it on the ground around by the bait. The bear will then track this every where they go. When I walk back to my pickup I'll tie a string onto a sack and dip that sack into my molasses pail and then drag that sack all the way back to the truck on the walk in trail. I usually have a spray bottle as well full of code blue vanilla scent that I spray at the bait and on the trail all the way back to the truck. Last year was my 1st year doing allot of burns. I would put the code blue vanilla scent into a coffee can along with some grease and do a little burn while baiting my bait at the bait site. I had bear coming in 10 minutes after I would leave last year doing this, camera's don't lie, there so nice! Last year was my 1st year using one. This year I got another idea from ElkCrazy (thanks bud) on doing a different burn. I'm really excited to see how this stuff works ans smells come next weekend when I start baiting.

I forgot to add this that the 1st week of baiting I usually use about 70lbs of meat and two 5 gallon pales full of bakery goods if I can get them per bait. I run about 15 baits or so. This year though I'm going to try something different. I'm going to bring in about 150lbs of meat per bait instead the 1st week to try and get more bear at the bait to create more competition and thus this should keep them less nocturnal then. We'll see if it works but I'm guessing its going to work well.

I know I'm missing a few stuff but this is how I go about it my 1st week baiting.