No baiting in NY State. Spot and stalk is difficult. They do post annual takes by township if you request reports. Herkimer county often scores high. A couple of years ago, they had a very heavy take. The following year was quite low in comparison. last year was better.
Best ways to hunt are to look for food. There are problems with that -- bears eat almost anything. Early in the season, they tend to sleep 20 hrs /day, eat 4 hrs /day. Later, this inverts: eat 20 hrs/day, sleep 4 in order to put on weight for the winter. In the early season, berries are often out, and you'll see lots of poop around cherry trees, broken branches, etc. Usually, these activities will have been nocturnal. By the time you show up, the bears are gone. Later, they hole up with their food sources and eat.
Later in the season, the foods are nuts: beechnuts and such. There aren't lots of oaks in most places there -- nor have I even seen lots of grey squirrels proximal to Blue Mountain Lake. There are a few stands on southern exposures, but their production of acorns is often quite weak. There has been some disease hitting beech trees before they mature enough to produce beechnuts -- but you'll find some surprisingly small trees producing in certain years (not predictable). You might find some apple orchards getting hit. There are a number of old orchards near old settlements (hit the library). Much of the Siamese Ponds area had been settled.
The high peaks have been showing more activity of late. There are new regulations posted to manage some of that. Some of the DEC campsites have been hit by bears over the years. There's one by Limekiln road by Inlet in Herkimer county (there's several "Inlets" -- you want the one at one end of the road that comes out of the west end of the Moose River recreational area.
There are some folks who regularly get in the record books (some of my friends cannot believe they do it without pouring bacon grease on a stump).
Dan
