Hi all, I was wondering how does baiting for bear works.
What is the best bait for black bear, what do you use on the bait barrels? do you bait year round or only in the hunting season?
Thanks for your anwers.

anyone in the know?

Haven't done it in 5 or 6 years. Grizzlys have pretty much ended baiting where we used to hunt. Used to be an annual event with my sons. We used meat scraps, pastry products, and out dated processed meat. Laws have changed, on private property, you can pretty much use what you want, but public land you have some restrictions. Even walked old horses in and shot them many years ago. When I would walk into the barrels, I usually would drag a rag soaked with an anise oil solution diluted with mineral oil and water. It left a nice scent trail. Then at the bait I would hang a gallon milk jug filled with the same mixture, and poke a small hole in it and let it drip slowly. Worked well. We have shot a dozen over baits and about as many spot and stalk. I once used an old rotted stump and soaked it with gallons of anise oil mix, never got a bear but they would tear that stump up and eat a lot of it. I enjoy hounds to, but you have to go to Arizona or Utah to use them.

Just don't hunt them much any more, you can only have so many rugs and I don't like to eat bear.

old bakery rolls, scraps from butcher shop, fish, put in barrel with lid on tight and holes in the side, peanut butter in tree knotholes work great. most anything that can be eaten and is cheap - you'll go through a lot of bait.

Back when baiting was legal in Colorado we had good luck with old pastry and various sweet things. One really effective item as big blocks of caramel. Don't know what it was about caramel but the bears couldn't resist it.

Another thing that was effective was to take 4 or 5 gallons of either bacon grease or old cooking oil and pour it on an old stump. It wouls soak into the wood and hold the scent for a long time. The smell brought the bears in, but the pastries and caramel kept them there or brought them back.

I rue the day that Colorado lost the spring bear hunt. But then, the Colorado of my youth is long, long gone.

In Wis we are limited to non meat products and no honey.

Lots of pastry bread cookies ect. I use sun flower seeds and corn and peanut butter or feed molasses to sweeten it.

I buy 55 gal drums of Broken Granola bars.The bear love it.I use a strawberry concentrate in a spray bottle for a scent attractant.Bears are on my baits with in a day of putting them out when I spray all the brush and nearby trees with the attractant.

Strawberry jello works well,aninse oilwork fpr a attractant.

never baited bear before but someone mentioned shooting an old horse. I could lend you my wife.....

dead yearling cattle---bears love the stinkier the better-

Most resturaunts change their deep fat frying oil after fish friday, a few gallons of that poured over and around bread, donuts and beef trimmings and bones. Friend of mine used to collect bacon grease for the whole year then near his bear baits would heat the grease up with a tin of sterno to put scent in the air and get them coming.
Can't do this in Colorado anymore thanks to our tree huggers.

Did a lot of bear baiting in the 70's. Grease is good, so are leftover pasteries. One time I was given the contents of a broken freezer and had 3 different bears coming into the bait. Not one of the bears would eat any of the pork. Cheapest bait to buy is dry dog food.

Try a "honey burn" to attrack them to the bait. Works better than anything else I ever tried.

....and you can nail a dead beaver to a tree near your barrel. Put it up high so they can tug on it but not take the whole thing.

Thank you very much guys, i just had surgery and Will continue to stay hére in the hospital for 2 moré days, the only tinglado keeping my Morale up id reading you guys and this wonderfull forum, thanks Again.

Dry dog food in barrels seemed to work well around Prince William Sound in Alaska, of course there were LOTS of black bears there.

Been around some of the "walk a old horse in"
bear hunting...
It will change your mind and method after
having to skin a few of them that have rolled
around in a "festering" dead horse bait.
Damn, just describing it here rises the bile.

quote:

Originally posted by MEXHUNT:
Thank you very much guys, i just had surgery and Will continue to stay hére in the hospital for 2 moré days, the only tinglado keeping my Morale up id reading you guys and this wonderfull forum, thanks Again.

Hope your surgery went well and your stay in the Hospital wasn't too miserable. Heal up and get back out there!

quote:

Originally posted by ravenr:
Been around some of the "walk a old horse in"
bear hunting...
It will change your mind and method after
having to skin a few of them that have rolled
around in a "festering" dead horse bait.
Damn, just describing it here rises the bile.

Not to mention the stench when you gut them, or put that first steak on the grill. I'll take a bear that's been eating berries every time!

Thanks Guys, I am back to normal life, Your kind answers and insigth are the reason this forum is such a great place.
Best Regards.