BigGameHunt.net Hunting Forums

[shedhead]

I've been baitin for about 30 days with meat scrap barrel and dog food barrel along with pears and cookies and some candy. Have had several bears, saw large boar at 4;45 pm 6 days ago and have not had a bear on camera since.This is my first time to bait or hunt bear, it has been raining for about 6 days would this make them leave the site suddenly. I've done nothing different and had 7 different bears that all stopped coming at once. I am worried because the season starts in 2 weeks. Any advice is apprecited. Thanks, Steve

[Old Professor]

We have had the same problem at our bait site. Everything stopped, even the coons. One possible reason in our situation is that a couple wolf packs moved into the area. Another possible reason is dog hunters running the bears in the area, A third possibility would be some one puting something on your bait like diesl fuel to kill that bait site. Most likely, however is a change in the weather.

[Fisher King]

Mabe some of their natural food sources have ripened.
Just a thought .
F.K.

[expatriate]

I think Fisher King may be on to something. I've noticed natural cycles -- and not just bears. Last year on my bear stand I got all kind of rabbit and lynx pictures. This year, had a couple lynx pics early, then nothing. No rabbits, either. No rabbits = no reason for the lynx to be there. This year I had a surge of Ravens at one point -- over 200 pics of them. Then they dropped off to nothing, and I have no idea why -- you'd think once they found the barrel of food they'd be there for the duration -- unless another preferred food source became available elsewhere. Then just when I thought it was going to be a dry year, the bears showed up with a vengeance. As my son and I were skinning his bear, we had two more come in to the stand that we had to chase off.

When we lived in Idaho, there would be whistle pigs (ground squirrels) everywhere. Then they'd go underground and badger holes would start appearing all over. Then the badgers would disappear and there would be coyotes running around. The next Spring would start over with whistle pigs again.

[rasicnad]

I was not getting hit real hard, but had bear into both baits, they disappeared 2 weeks ago. We had some very warm weather, acorns dropped, corn ripened, oats were cut, etc. Food everywhere for them. Hoping they will start coming back in a couple of weeks.

[expatriate]

You might try advertising more, since you're competing with natural food sources. I fill my barrel with dog food, and stir in a bunch of molasses and artificial jelly donut juice. I also smear the sweet stuff all over the barrel and branches, etc around it. I hang a bucket filled with meat scraps, turkey, and some water up in the trees to get a good carrion stench going. I also hung an anise-scented meltaway bait above the barrel, and sprayed the tree and branches with bacon scent.

Last year I didn't get a single hit on my site, and this year I had at least three bears working it. I think a lot of the difference is that this year I put a lot more effort into getting strong sweet smells up in the trees above the barrel where the breeze could carry the scent. I even went out there one night with a cookstove, box of pancake mix, pound of bacon, and a jug of maple syrup. I cooked it all up, which put a delicious smell into the air, and threw everything in the barrel afterward. I even soaked down an old T-shirt in bacon scent and hung it from the tree. I also spread molasses on the ground in front of the barrel, so that if anything did come to visit, it would track the stuff into the woods away from the site.

Bears have one thing in mind: calories. This is especially true in the fall when they're thinking about hibernation. There may be natural food available out there, but they'll prefer whatever provides the most calories for the least amount of work. Get some strong, sweet smells up where the wind can catch it, and they'll find you.

[hunter g]

if you let the bait run out even for one day the bears will move on their main deal right know is food so they are on the move, if dogs run them off most of the time the bear is back the next day, the only way you can tell if that happen look for dog tracks around the bait you should have already taken your rake and scraped around the bait so you can see the size of the tracks that is important. keep two piles of bait sweets and plain like dog food. you may be able to tell which they like the best and stick with that. make sure your not coming in the bait the same way the bear are and use tree cams so you can see if someone is messing with your bait good luck this year.

[CAMPMEAT]

A friend of mine that is very good at baiting bears said he would drill large holes in a tree stump and pour sweet smelling whatever down the holes and then bait around the stump. He said once the bait is gone they would still come back and try to get that sweet stuff in the stump until he replenished the bait. Sounds reasonable to me.....