How have you refined your bait sites?

[idelkslayer]

My state requires only a single metal container up to 55 gallons. I have found that almost anything works but the bears don't like to eat rotten meat. I will usually try to catch some large carp and set them in a bucket in the sun for a week or two before setting my bait site. I do not put the carp into my bait, I hang them in a tree nearby for the purpose of spreading scent. It helps to draw the bears in but they do not eat the carp. I have had really good success with meat in the fall as long as it doesn't rot. Another very successful bait item is apples. In the fall I will go to abondoned homesteads and to the apple trees growing in the right of way of highways and county roads and pick a couple hundred gallons of apples. Most of these are too small to really be useful since the trees have largely gone feral but the bears love them and after sitting in a barrel in the sun and heat they really put off a good smell that you can detect from a long ways away.

I use a lot of popcorn mixed with molasses oats and maple syrup in the spring. Sometimes I mix in a jello packet for added scent. The bears seem to prefer the oats mixes that have a lot of corn and oats and not so much of the pelletized feed. They also get sick of popcorn if it is not mixed into something else. I usually mix my popcorn as stated above or I drench it with cooking oil.

I have found that bears will not eat raw potatoes, oranges, banana peels or mangos.

 

[HARPERC]

I have found that almost anything works but the bears don't like to eat rotten meat. I will usually try to catch some large carp and set them in a bucket in the sun for a week or two before setting my bait site. I do not put the carp into my bait, I hang them in a tree nearby for the purpose of spreading scent.

Interesting experience. We used to get fish and parts left over from a fish market for free. A couple of times as pick up was early in the week the fish would sit in a 55 gallon sealed drum, in the back of the truck. I've seen guys literally puke when the barrel was opened.

The bear killed that year were inedible. Pulling hides was nasty, but they ate what we gave them, and licked the maggots clean as well.

I've seen them eat lots of dead rotting salmon in BC. My partners Grizzly skull still smells of fish. Boiled and bleached in 2006, it's turned yellow again and smells of fish, as will your hands if you pick it up.

I can't say for carp, but rotting road kill gets cleaned up here.

 

[idelkslayer]

I agree that the bears will eat the rotten stuff if nothing else is available but my experience has been that given the choice between fresh meat or apples and sweet mix and rotten meat, the bear will eat the fresh meat or sweet mix options.

One fall while trying a new location I had about 30 gallons of meat that I got fresh but never got hit by bears until the season was almost ended. By the time a bear arrived the meat was rotten and full of maggots. The bear ate the pile of popcorn nearby and never touched the barrel.

When I went in to clean up the site and had to dump out the rotten meat I nearly vomited multiple times, I could even hear the maggots from several yards away as I left the site.

Nowadays when I use meat at my site, I place it outside of my barrel so that it won't rot as quickly. If I have bears actively hitting the bait then I will put the meat in the barrel because I know it will be gone before it rots.

I would say that anyone who intends to eat the meat from their bear learn from your comment about how the rotten fish affected several aspects of your hunt. For the sake of my nostrils while on stand I think I will stick to my current baiting practices.

 

[HARPERC]

I will stick to my current baiting practices.

Not out to change hearts or minds. Just relaying experiences. I have seen bear eat most of what you listed as "won't". Exception was mango I had to look it up, we never used mango.

Most of what we know as baiters is from inference. We pick a theory when in reality other interpretations may be more correct. It's said bears stomachs take a while to wake up, bear don't just all get up all at once, and small volume depletion may be a numbers issue. The bear in a friends living room was killed first week of May, chowing down on a rotting horse carcass.

Bear can leave a good bait for a lot of reasons, rut, killed, run off by other bear, found another bait, dug up an old winter kill, didn't like the human smell.

I do think they prefer naturals, when available in plenty, and you're better off at the edges of what they're living on instead of far away.

Keep in mind local regulations will dictate more of what can be used and how its applied these days. Illegal here in WA, MT etc.