What do you use for bait

[retiredcpo]

OK what do you guys use for bear bait?
I use dog food all the apples and peaches i can get (free or really cheap) seconds mostly.
I use some boarmasters sour apple to treat the dog food.
I also poor resturant grease around the site so they get it on their paws and track it around leaving a sent trail back to the site.
retiredcpo

 

[Derek M.]

I hunt BB over bait sometimes. I really like stalking better though. The guides I've been with have used a lot of different stuff such as dinner leftovers, whatever they were, like spaghetti, toast, beans...

Also, lots of cookies, chocolate syrup, donuts and other expired pastries, grease covered popcorn, sugarbeats.

Surprisingly, I never saw many bears go for meat in the spring hunts, not even fat. They always went for the sweet stuff. This is in Maine, New Brunswick, and Alberta.

The best bait out there is beaver carcass.

 

[brentc]

I prefer my main course to be molasses mixed horse feed it doesn't tend to wash away in rain like some other baits do. It smells great and drives the bears nuts when they find it. Cooking grease is cheap and effective, but it's hard to clean out of your area and tends to attract grizzlies.

For attractant I like to use some sort of sweet smelling scent ball. Anise works great and you can always burn some bear crack. You'll want the bait site to smell sweet for a good distance around the site. If you do this in a densely populated bear area you'll have bears in a hurry.

 

[brentc]

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[retiredcpo]

I was thinking about trying somekind of grain feed with molasass this year to fill in the dog food. I have used bear crack a few times allways had bear in the site but can not really say it was the crack that brought them in.
We dont have any grizzly to worry about here in idaho so im fine there.
Also looking like I have a line on out of date bake goods this year as well.
retiredcpo

 

[kc]

One of my friends in Wawa Ontario, cut a 55galln drum 1/3 shorter at the length, lets it set on concrete blocks, builds a good fire with about half full of water, (boiling) adds a few bags of corn buys around 5 gallons of corn syrup and he adds lots of suger till it gets thick like taffie if he can get oats he adds other grains if he can find them, to realy shicken it up real tight he gets some hey from his neighbor ( the fluff)
just breaks the powdery stuff.and it helps to make it real thick, but the corn boils for no less than an 2 hrs.he uses a box he made from wood and dumps around 5 gallons, of the mix and lets it cool and its a sweet treat for the Bear, Deer and the Moose hit it but not as much as the Deer and Bear. (he also keeps giving the mix water for the next 3 hrs just to let the corn absorb the sweet and softens it.

some use twinkies and every kind of junk food they can get. it works great, Bears are suckers with a sweet tooth.

 

[HARPERC]

I was thinking about trying somekind of grain feed with molasass this year to fill in the dog food. I have used bear crack a few times allways had bear in the site but can not really say it was the crack that brought them in.
We dont have any grizzly to worry about here in idaho so im fine there.
Also looking like I have a line on out of date bake goods this year as well.
retiredcpo

Idaho has grizzlies, fewer to none in some places, but they get shot now and then where they don't exist.
When it was still legal here in Washington, we used about everything-cheap is good, but they are what they eat. Example we got access to fish parts, and the bear off those were not edible. We lucked into a large bin of golden delicious apples (fall), sugar just oozing out of them much better bear to eat. Dog food works, but the grain feed with molasess would be my choice. If you have more than one hunter out (especially fall) bear fat from another kill really gets a response. Especially if there is a big dominant bear coming in. I don't know if it's legal in Idaho, as it's a game animal I suspect not.
Horses prices are down-feed prices are up, and one that'll lead to the bait site beats packing it. Just wire it to something they can't drag.

 

[retiredcpo]

harperc
You are correct there are some in idaho but not where i hunt I not heard of anythere all my life.
They are east of my hunting grounds in on the west side of the state at the top of hells cayon
Never thought about taking a horse in and leaving it
I think idaho law says it has to be skinned
interesting idea
retiredcpo

 

[HARPERC]

Retiredcpo
I don't know what's left of the spring bear season there, but looking towards fall with a little luck there will be a wolf season. I don't know what the situation is where you are, but friends farther north are showing me trail cam pics of wolves on their bear baits. Hopefully, bait will be part of legal wolf hunts.
We used to set up a close stand for archery or rifle, but if you can find the right place-with a little pruning you can make a longer range window. If the quotas, rules, and seasons are liberal enough we might have to see if what we learned bear baiting has any application to wolf hunting.
good luck

 

[sp6x6]

I used to go to AK too archery hunt. We collected pastry from Eddys bread. All had to be unwraped, twinkeys,pies,brownies,zebra cakes, you name it. Then trash compact it, about a 45# load on pack frame. Ran a "stink barrel'' beaver , halibut anything dead, 55 gal drum kept going.... for years. Some guys about puked loading a gal. milk jug, poured at bait or way in or on a good tree too catch wind. Switched to commercial smoke scent, put in a spray bottle and spray EVERYTHING, boots ,trees, you get the idea. We took ALOT of big bears, 18 1/2 to the best that I remember 21 3/4, nose looked like a brick, many 20+

 

[retiredcpo]

According to fish and game there is one good sized wolf pack in the area I am hunting in
I have seen two in the last 5 or 6 years we saw lots of tracks last year but that was a differant unit and a ways away
I dont think they will make baiting legal but sounds like you will be able to use electionic calls, well see shat they do
retiredcpo

 

[Wingnut]

I have had really good luck over the years using Laffy Taffy. I take my MSR backpacking stove and a small tin soup can with me when I backpack into an area. Place the laffy taffy into the can and place it on the stove on med heat. It takes about 20 minutes but eventually the taffy begins to smoke. It is a white sweet smelling smoke that drifts for miles. The bears can't seem to resist it. It makes for a lightweight way to bait in bears.

 

[Rick H]

(Wrong area)

 

[Dskiper]

hello, I'm not a expert on bear but this happened to me.I hunted for giant black bear in Newfoundland Canada last June.The outfitter& his guide were exprets at bear baiting as I saw vbear each day& shot two.They start baiting in early spring(AprilL. Soon as they come out theiris something to eat on baits tey put out so bears don't have to wonder looking for food.They stay so when season opens hunters get to see bruins.Later as the "RUT: starts bears start to move so if females are at bait sites you"ll see more boars come by.They use anything edible,foodscapes,fat from donut stores,fish rotten meat,varmints,moose bones from last season etc. Then each time every day a few loaves of stale bread went into the bait drums at each active stannd.Now came the SLAMING of the drum lid.That is lke the dinner bell!Within 45min. started seein bears!! Amazing but true!! I went out early mourning afternoon, and evening.Full moon week, but the bears keed on the noise of the drum slam& fired gun shots as anoter fellow shot 2 boars within 20minutes of each other.Gun shots mean gutpilesor dead animals just like the do in Alaska when hunters shoot deer on Kodiak Island and have bears raid ther kill. My guide suggested to shoot my gun after he left but I wa using a muzzelloader so I decided not to. The drumcover slaming was enough. I'm convinced this works so bait choice is secondary unless someone else is hunting close. Dskiper