Anyone have a recommendation on a spring baited brown bear hunt, archery only.

I went last May with very poor results.

Thanks

www.tokmanagementarea.com

Get in touch with these folks, they may be able to help you out. First rate, professional operation. Their bears are probably considered grizzlies where they hunt, but they have been taking some 8 to 9 foot bears in the spring.

Wow - $15K for a moose hunt the same as a Dall hunt yet Brown & Griz are less expensive.

I didn't realize Fish & Game's Moose management was that screwed up.

Maybe they should air-drop sides of beef for the wolves to eat and maybe they'd leave the moose alone - cheaper in the long run.

you could contact Alaska Trackers, Tom and Luke Krueger, (907) 398-7302. I haven't hunted with them yet. But I know that they do baited brown bear hunts in an area with a good population of brown bears. They have a web-site that should tell you more.

I do baited grizzly hunts, have a spot open in 2017. I'm also avid in the archery side of things so would understand what set up a bow hunter would need.

Thanks, I booked a hunt for baited brown bear in June 2018.

df,

I'm curious why you are interested in a baited brown? Is it the archery angle?

I always said I'd never shoot a grizz over bait. Till I tried it once because I had clients who couldn't hunt them any other way and an area where you'd never see the bears without the bait. Sitting from 7pm-9am staring at a bait site waiting is addicting. And when a shooter comes in its go time!! Our bears were very spooky we had to set up about 130 yards and across the creek from the baits. And we got to watch bears good off for hours on bait. Was really cool! Aside from being sleep deprived, gaining weight and boredom baiting is a riot.

Rodell,
Not sure what you are asking, but I'll try.
Yes I do prefer archery hunting to gun hunting, but I do some of both. Generally speaking, if it can be done with a bow and there is reasonable chance of success, I will hunt with a bow.
I also prefer ambush hunting, sitting in a ground blind or tree stand as opposed to attempting a stalk.
As noted above, baiting brown bears is far from a slam dunk. My friend and I spent 20 days sitting over baits and between us, we had one brief sighting of a brown bear.`

http://jonahsalaskanoutfitters.com/ It might be too late as you've already booked, but I have met this outfitter at a couple Alaskan Bowhunters Association Banquets. Very personable and has a high success rate.

Hughiam, thanks
Great minds think alike I guess.
I am booked with him June 2018. That's earliest we could make dates work for both of us.

I went this year with mixed results. I took a brown bear but he squared 8'2". I feel that I could have taken a better bear if the outfitter would have had trail cameras set-up. For $12,500 you'd think that he could afford to purchase a couple of trail cameras. Then we could tell how big the bear was and what time he came to the bait. I should have asked, but I thought the guide was equiped with the latest technology.

Where we live, everybody puts a few buckets of salmon roe in a hole in the ground, cover with straw & heavy board. The perma frost keeps it good for bait throughout the summer. Talk about stink, I can even smell it 4-5 hundred yards away.

Never had bear problems but have young wolves & lynx smell around the board. It sure works on the grizz. We have actually had them come into bait 1/2 hr after we hang it; I think they smell it for miles.

Swamp, I baited grizz this year as well. We had cameras on all our baits. What we discovered is that grizzly didn't come in on a a schedule AT ALL. Also some
Bears only hit the bait once, and a lot of bears the cameras didn't catch. Also some bears just walk right by and do nothing with the bait. The two bears we shot off bait we had only seen one on camera once. At 10am. We killed him at 9pm.
Can't complain about a bear you pulled the trigger on. I tell my clients if you don't like it or want a different bear, don't shoot the one in front of you.

A couple of things come to mind here. For baiting to be really successful for a number of species you've got to get the animals accustomed to checking a particular location or locations for food in their normal circuit. Those locations will just be ingrained in their memories eventually as possible food sources. It doesn't sound like guides offering baited hunts are having that kind of experience and I'm not sure that keeping baits fresh enough for a length of time for that to work is logistically possible in the AK bush.

As for the 8'2" bear mentioned I don't think the hunter got screwed particularly for that price. The but comes if the guide saw the bear he knew it was basically an 8 footer trail camera or not. If the hunter had discussed with the guide that he was looking for say a 9' plus then somebody messed up.

Mark

I started this thread and want to add a little more detail. I don't know when our guides put out the baits relative to our arrival, but I believe just a couple days before. My friend and I each had three baits. I suppose my baits were 2-3 miles from each other. And my friends the same, but probably 10 miles from mine. They were all along the Skwentna river, both sides.
One of my baits was never hit, before we arrived or during the 10 days we were there. One had a single hit by a black bear. And the third one had 3-4 hits in 10 days by brown and black bears. My friend had similar action.
What I think was a big negative issue, besides not having the baits out well ahead of our arrival, was what was used for bait.
He used popcorn only. It was cooked in used fryer grease and extra grease was poured on the popcorn. Also some blueberry scent was poured on the popcorn. The quantity of popcorn was big, close to a 55 gallon drum at each bait site.
In my opinion popcorn probably was not substantial enough of a food to keep bears coming back.
I thought he ought to have additional things for the bears to eat, like dried dog food, etc.

It kinda sounds like it was done the easiest way possible?
We used dog food, molasses and as many scent and attractant products as we could put out!! I ran two baits. About 400 yards apart. Next year I will run two but they'll be several miles apart we had 28 different grizz using one bait station over the month of June. Bears usually didn't hit till end of May. Baits were out late April and have been for the last three years.

I worked some bait stations hunts as well this year. We used dog food and cooking grease. It seemed to work pretty well, at one point we had 7 black bears on the station at one time, talk about comical.

The Brown Bears would work through at sporadic hours, but they seemed to like that dog food and grease combo as well.

I did not say that I thought that I got screwed. The only point I was trying to make was that a lot of information would have been available if a trail cam had been available.

Trail cams are fun. However the night we shot two bears we had nine bears at the bait and got a partial photo of the back of one, made me wonder how much we were really missing!