Thankyou folks for the input, sorry I'm responding late (been busy around the house).I was baiting 1 to 1 1/2 hrs. before dark during the week & various am hrs. on the weekend. I started to back off on the amount of bait I put out when I found out it was eaten at night ( hoping the bear would come in earlier to see if there was more food). On the second night I opened up a bottle of vanilla 3 ft. from the bait hoping this would bring in a curious bear. One hr. before dark I noticed a black object off to my right about 70 yds. away that was not there before. It moved, it was a bear---cool. I watched as it came closer to the bait, trying to determine the size of it. She stopped right next to the 32 in. high stump the bait was in & the vanilla.After a few seconds it started walking away from the bait as if it wasn't even interested in it, it then stops again in about 10 ft.By now I'm thinking this looks like a fairly nice size bear & It has no intention of hanging around, so when It started to walk again I put the red dot from my 30-30 contender handgun on it's front shoulder & squeezed off. Not a huge bear- 171 lb. female. Any ideas on why it wasn't interested in the bait, was it just passing through for the first time?
Thankyou for the help, Joe