Bear baiting supplies...are you ready? What you got so far?

[bearfat]

I've dropped around $100.00 for above and that's all I'm spending. The rest I'll have to get by hook or crook.

I have two sources for donuts that have verbally committed but we'll see when I actually show up what I get.

The above pic is 120 pounds of "Old Roy" dog food
20 bags of marshmallow
10 bags of powdered sugar
5 gallons of pancake syrup
Couple bottles of chocolate syrup

I'll hopefully be able to get around 5 gallons of old fryer grease free from somewhere. That's what I mix with the Old Roy dog food to give them a little sour with the sweet.

I'll also be hitting up guys at work for freezer burned meat.

The season is only 7 weeks away for us in Minnesota. September 1st is always the opener.

[Redhawk1]

Yes the season is getting close, I am going up into Canada on August 13 for the opening week of black bear season which opens the 15 of August. 17 to 18 hour drive is not what I am looking forward to, but the hunt will be worth it.  Now all I have to decide is which gun I want to take?

[bearfat]

Redhawk1 you mean guns don't you...

 

Looks like I'm taking two 30-06 this year. One NEF with an aimpoint on it and a Rem 700 ADL with a Leupold 1.5x4.5 scope.

I really liked how that red dot shows up on the black fur.

[Redhawk1]

I usually take one, but I might take two. I know one would be my 45-70 Marlin and the other is up in the air. My buddy told me I should take my CZ 416 Rigby, because I have not killed anything with it yet. I told him it was on the over kill side of rounds in my opinion.  But I did have great success with my Encore in 416 Rigby on a Water buffalo. The CZ is set up with a 1.5X5X20mm Leupold scope and is a tack driver with the 300 gr. Barnes X bullets. It is a thought

[ihookem]

 Bearfat, don't you ever go down to the feed mill and buy mollasis by the gallon? Must be cheaper than syrup.  It comes to about 2.00 a gallon.

[Jaydub in Wi]

My buddy and I have $140 invested. We have 2 drums of strawberry pie filling and 2 drums of granola bars. One granola is yogurt coated and the other is coated with peanut butter. I also have a few bags of donuts also.

[bearfat]

Bearfat, don't you ever go down to the feed mill and buy mollasis by the gallon? Must be cheaper than syrup.  It comes to about 2.00 a gallon.

I think we tried it once. If I remember correctly it was in five gallon pails and just too thick to work with. Maybe there is thinner stuff but the guy at the mill said, It's what all the bear hunters are using." I think he had about 5 pails he was sitting on and wanted to get rid of them. The pancake syrup is bit spendy at around $5.50 a gallon but I pour it over both the dog food and the donuts.

One thing the guy at the mill had I forgot about was what is called a "Flavor Power Pak." It's a feed enhancement for pigs and cattle to entice them to eat in hot weather. It's got a really sweet smell and taste to it. I mainly just used it as a scent to originally help them find the bait station because it's such a strong sweet smell. I gotta pick up a bottle of that "Ultimate bear lure" too...guess I ain't done buying yet.

But my donuts are coming in and I got a source for grease. So $20.00 more and that's it. I had to drop $100.00 for gas in the truck to haul the bulk of the supplies in last weekend. The next 3 trips in will be on the "wartbike" loaded down with donuts. I'll backpack the dog food, grease, syrup, marshmallows, in by hand. The wartbike only costs $30.00 in gas for the 460 mile round trip.


The wartbike with donuts strapped on rear. I plan on 3 donut runs in August with the wartbike.

 

[DoubleH]

I sure do wish we could bait here in VA.   

[bearfat]

Well...your the real bear hunter in my eyes DoubleH.

Can you use liquid scent even. How do you hunt them?

[DoubleH]

I've tried aerosol scents and incense candles, but never had any luck with them.  Spot and stalk in the woods around here is not a serious option.  You can run them with dogs, but I don't.  To be honest, most are targets of opportunity as there is a substantial amount of overlap in the archery, muzzle loader and rifle deer and bear season.

I've been thinking about a honey or bacon burn, but I need to check the regs and see if that's legal.

[burntmuch]

Gotta cook the bacon to eat dont ya. That cant be illegal can it

[bearfat]

We use big tree stands in Minnesota (up north) and I have brought my coleman white gas stove into the stand with me and fired it up with 2 pounds of bacon slow cooking it in the evening. I shut it down around 6 p.m. so they wouldn't hear the stove hissing when they came in.

I use it for the night feeders and sundown feeders to entice them to come in a little earlier and throw caution to the wind.

Last couple of years I modified bacon cookers to hang from trees and used those little tea candles as the heat source and believe it or not it will cook bacon.

Here's last year rig:





The top picture shows the internal guts. I used one of those small tin folding stoves and a truss plate with a hole cut in for the candle to set exactly at the correct height, about an inch from the bottom of the stainless steel cooking pot. I wanted to use a smaller coffee can inside the big one but didn't have any.

Last year I even rigged it up on a pulley system (well oiled) to pull in and inspect it. The candles burn for 4 hours and the wind NEVER blew them out. I would eat what bacon was cooked. I should have had a little cooler with the mayo, bread, sliced tomato, lettuce and made a BLT sandwich. Maybe this year!!

[burntmuch]

Nice rig. What do you guys think about honey burns. Do they work.  Thats a god awful smell . I tried them last year for the first time no luck?   Jay

[bearfat]

I tested it but didn't like the smell either. It just seemed to burn too easily.

[burntmuch]

The guys I was hunting with told me works everytime. sometimes within 10 minutes. Never seen a bear

[bearfat]

They must of been using the magic honey.

I've had good results with the bacon burn at sundown on some bear.

Last years bear didn't seem to care one way or another. His set schedule was 7 p.m. period.

I cut his stomach open and it was strangely very empty. All I could identify was a muffin wrapper he had eaten the night before when he hit the station at 7 p.m.

The bacon burn should have been driving him nuts all day. I've heard they don't lay too far from the bait, in fact probably hear us come in.

If you have two hunters use the noisy approach in to the bait station and when you leave be noisy again but this time only one hunter leaves.

My brother-in-law got a day feeder like that one time that refused to come in while he was there when he came in alone.
I went in with him made a bunch of noise talking and laughing to myself when I left and an hour later Yogi came in but Mr Ranger was waiting and not too happy...BOOOOOMMM!

Some of you guys know I have a web site about hunting and fishing in Northern Minnesota. It's just for giggles but here's the link to the bear baiting page: http://buckmountainchateau.com/Bear.html  The page is slow to download I'm not sure why I've tweaked t as much as I can.

I like to hunt them but have a lot to learn. That's why I'm here on GBO.

[burntmuch]

Last year was the first time huntin them. Sure is different huntin in augest. HOT!!  Up in Canada we had a guy baiting them for a month before we got up there. They were hitting the bait almost every night. Then 3 days before we got there. the guy put up these monsterous ladderstands about 30 yrds from bait. They stopped hitting after that.   I gotta decide between colorado elk hunt or canada bear hunt next Year??   Jay

[bearfat]

It could have been bait burn out and a coincidence with the 30' ladders being put up at the same time. Last year my partner had them hitting and eating copious amounts of some sugar corn mix he made up with water. I mean half a 55 gallon drum of the stuff being consumed every week for 3 weeks, and then just before the opener...burn out! They wanted nothing more to do with it.


Here's his set up after a bear knocked the lid off. Note his grease pit in front of the barrel. The theory is the bears step in it and leave the grease scent on the trails and other bears pick the scent up and follow it in.

I rotate a sweet and sour mix every week. Heavy with the syrup one week and grease the next.

Another thing I do is routinely throw my dirty sweaty t-shirt by my stand when I leave after baiting to get them use to my smell being associated with the bait.

[william_75]

I've been thinking about a honey or bacon burn, but I need to check the regs and see if that's legal.
[/quote]

honey and bacon burns are illegal where I live but pure maple syrup works good, just dont use the cheap stuff.