The noise is deffinetly a problem bears are very cautious and i mean very cautious don't forget thier hearing is like atleast 20 times ours rain and wind are your friend when hunting bears and yes change your bait go to a butcher and ask him for all the scraps he has if you can set it out and wait evening is also the best time for the big boys plus the big boys like the meat scraps the best they wanna have something worth while to go out on if not they'll just wait till night or till your gone to eat also they might see you if your not well enough concealed or high enough in your stand. good luck

I think I am high enough about 16' it the same stand I use for deer It has 4'high sides on it and today I added some camo burlap I left it sit in the stand for a few days to try and get some of the "new burlap " smell off it still stinks and when i bait i spray vanilla extract all over and burn honey

yea for that would work if you get a bear used to the same smell he wont mind it and ya 16' is perfect thats about what mine is are you hunting to 20 mins after sunset?
but try the meat scraps and you will see the diff

My wife is hot on the trail to meat scraps the problem is the health dept. thinks that if you get the scraps from the butcher they're for human consumption. one of the guys at work has a friend that owns a small shop said he won't have any till after the weekend wait and see on that. Plan on hunting this weekend the season started sept 1st. But because of the holiday week end cabin became a rec zone not a hunting zone. I usually sit all day in the stand til dark. it's a bitch to walk out 3/4 mile when dark do you think that burlap smell is to much it's been out there two weeks?

nope that smells fine he's prolly used to it by now, ahh well we dont have problems like that down here with the health dep they dont bother us and soona as you get em out i bet one will walk out keep up the same thing you'll get one guaranteed i got one last night here's a pic

the first time I baited this year I used old freezer burnt steaks and a chicken I hid the steaks around on the trees like easter eggs all gone the next day the chicken i tied to a rope and hung it from a tree 6' up only had bite marks on the bottem couldn't get it down the next time chicken had to go stunk to bad cut rope and threw in woods then came back next day all gone carrion beetles and all

Hey if you can get it try using a cow head tied to the tree. Drive a piece of rebar threw the eye sockets then use the rebar to tie it to the tree. Sounds like you are doing everything right. Baiting is not complicated if you have bears in the area. Do you just throw the bait out or what does your bait site look like. I will post a couple pics. One is of mine and the other is of a friends with the cow heads. Make sure you cover your bait with logs and branchs. Make the bears work for it. If you are having problems with foxes coyotes raccoon or whatever piss all over your bait. My sons favorite thing to do when we go check the bait. Keeps everything except bears off it. But here are a couple pics.
First pic is with bread and grease dumped on the bait and up and down the trees.

This pic of with the cow heads and the bucket he fills with just plain ol grease and the plywood is just a piece he puts about 15 pds or a 5 gallon bucket full of donuts. His bait site is established for 20+ yrs.

This pic is when I started using meat scraps after they ate all the bread away. I also use a trail cam and had 12-13 different bears hitting my bait this year.

nice ya i used all kinds of stuff this year but nothing works like scraps from a butcher and raspberry jello powder i tryed it and a bear hit an hour later might have been a coincidence but it hit then i hit and you see what i got this year that was the first night i tryed the jello powder ill have some pics of my treestand later dont have any at the moment and my bait site also

here is a pic of my bait station. I thought about putting road kill on but jeez it's been 90 here lately and the spilled grease smells bad enough in my truck.
In minnesota we can use mammals as bait but no bones or uncured pork.my wife went to the butcher shop to day bought 60# of scraps

sweet man thats what you need set er up and wait for the big boy by the way nice setup man yea i know what you mean i have an SUV and i loaded up five buckets about a week ago and it still stinks like ass