Bait Is sooooooooo Important

[Schultzy]

In my bear hunting thread viewtopic.php?f=7&t=15189 I had mentioned I was going to talk about this weird but yet successful season. Well here It goes.

Like the thread title states, bait Is Important. Specially when you have MANY other bear hunters around you. I've been bear hunting for 23 years and I've been around It for 30+ years. Years ago we never used goodies. What I mean by goodies Is pastry's, trail mix, candy, pie filling, etc. You get the point. We had always just used meat. Back In the day you could use bones. Bones were the bomb. Just like a dog, bear loved to chew on a bone. Anyhow back to the point of the thread.

The last 10 years we've started to mix up our Inventory of bait. We had to as our meat only baits were starting to suffer and not get hit as hard. Many more bear hunters In the area means much more competition and their bait was better. We still use meat scraps (beef) as our number one bait from butcher shops but now we also use goodies. This year the butcher I usually get the stuff from was very slow so I wasn't able to get as many meat scraps from him as usual. We usually get 3000lbs a year. I had to go elsewhere to get more meat scraps. Not many butcher shops In the area save meat scraps for bear hunters. Bear hunters have gone away from this because It can be a pain to store meat (no freezer space) and It can be messy to handle. Anyhow this particular butcher we got the other meat scraps from wasn't the quality of meat scraps I usually get from the other guy. His meat scraps were 90% fat. The regular guys meat scraps were 50/50 I'd say.

The 1st week of baiting (prior to the hunting season) we used the regular guys meat scraps. Baits got pounded pretty good. By the 2nd week of baiting we had to start using more of the fattier stuff from the other butcher. The baits kept getting hit but not quite as good. 3 days before the bear opener my regular butcher guy calls me and says he's got about 1100lbs of meat scraps. Sweet I said as he doesn't charge me nothing for his meat scraps unlike the other guy who charges me 20 cents a pound.

Anyhow I had gotten a total of about 2000lbs of meat scraps from this other butcher so I thought lets use this crappy stuff up 1st. The bear opener came and I got my bear opening day on my evening hunt. There was 2 other bear hunters In our bear hunting party so we had 2 more tags to fill yet. The baits just like that took a crap. They hunted for 3 days and had to head back home 4.5 hours to work the rest of the week. I told them I'm not going home as I took off the whole week and I'll see If I can get these baits fired up again. My dad also stayed at bear camp with me (he didn't get drawn this year) on and off to help with the baiting. By the 3rd day of baiting I was finally getting some of these baits going strong again. What I did was I quite using the fatty stuff and went back to the meatier meat scraps. I also went to town and bought some Karol syrup and mixed up 4 quarts of sweet smelling stuff. Tom from Monsteraxx had just made up a bear lure he wanted me to try http://www.monsterraxx.com/page/monster ... -bear-lure. It was some sweet smelling cherry/vanilla stuff In a liquid form. I mixed some of that In each of the quart jars of Karol syrup. Karol syrup Is nice to use as It don't evaporate or wash away as quickly cause It's thick.

Anyhow I had these baits rolling hot and no hunters around to hunt them. It was a Thursday and Friday night the other 2 hunters would be back for a Saturday hunt. It was just going to be a one day hunt as we all were packing stuff up Sunday afternoon to head back and call It a season. Saturday evenings hunt was a good one. One of the 2 hunters scored on a P&Y bear (18.5 Inch skull). The other hunter surprisingly got skunked on her hunt. That blew me away as her bait was by far the hottest of the 4 I had going strong. That's bear hunting for ya though I guess. What got these baits rolling was me switching up the bait getting the good stuff back In there. Tom's bear lure sure didn't hurt things either. Excellent smelling stuff!!! We still have 900lbs of the fatty stuff In the freezer that we'll have to use for next year. We'll mix It up with the other stuff and use It right away early In the bear baiting season when It opens. Come hunting time we'll have nothing but "good" stuff to use.

[Stanley]

Great post.

[dan]

Good post steve... When there is no competition you can use a pile of corn... But when there are tons of outfitters and hunters in the area its important to out bait the other guys... I have not used much meat for bait, but I put out such a variety, and such quality stuff, that every bear that finds it or gets down wind comes in...
I noticed a lot of the guides in my area just put out bread and pour some syrup on it. Thats no competition for me and my doughnuts, cookies, pastrys, pies, cakes, candie, grease, sugar, syrup, fruit, etc...

[Schultzy]

Good post steve... When there is no competition you can use a pile of corn... But when there are tons of outfitters and hunters in the area its important to out bait the other guys... I have not used much meat for bait, but I put out such a variety, and such quality stuff, that every bear that finds it or gets down wind comes in...
I noticed a lot of the guides in my area just put out bread and pour some syrup on it. Thats no competition for me and my doughnuts, cookies, pastrys, pies, cakes, candie, grease, sugar, syrup, fruit, etc...

Can't beat them goodies Dan that's for sure. Great stuff you use. The one thing these guides got going for them Is established baits. Chances are they've been baiting these same baits for years. Allot of times when we go In to bait our baits the 1st time the baits already have fresh claw marks on our bait tree where we hang meat from In a burlap sack. Love seeing that!

[Edcyclopedia]

Good read!