Unread postby bowhunter15 » Wed Sep 09, 2015 1:50 am
Man that weather was nice last night. Cooled off and got dead calm for the last 45 minutes. If it was going to happen, last night would have been the night. Nothing seen or heard. Neither of our baits had shown signs of being hit at night while we were gone either. The baits were a little soggy from all of the storms, but the bees and flies had no issues finding them. We made a list of lessons learned from the trip:
1) Find bait sites closer to home so we don't have to put all eggs into one basket in terms of weather, getting home at 2am after tracking and dragging a bear, etc.
2) Make sites closer to road. This isn't so much because we're being lazy, but the fact that our closest bait to the road was hit in daylight multiple times means that bear comfort level trumps difficulty in getting to the spot. So we'll focus more on good areas close to the road, which will save a lot of time making circuits during the week to bait.
3) Use more bait/bait more frequently. The fact that all four of our baits were empty upon arrival this weekend meant that the 10 gallons once/week wasn't sufficient. If we hunt closer to home we can bait more during the week.
4) Use trail cams at ALL baits. We had trail cams on 2 of 4. When the other two were hit, we didn't know if they were nocturnal hits or not. Also, we saw the same bears at 2 of our trail cams. Having more trail cams set would better allow us to track the bears' circuit and approximate where they're bedding.
5) Do a better job of cleaning out shooting lanes. On a couple of the baits my buddy set, there were hardly any trees that were huntable within range of the bait, and those that were didn't coincide with the angle of the crib. As a result, he ended up sitting 7 yards from the bait with a shotgun; but preferably, he would have chosen a tree 40-60 yards back and cleared a shooting lane from there to the bait.
6) Clear/mark baiting paths better. Sometimes carrying bait through seas of 1" saplings was pretty rough, but more so, it was easy to lose the trail for a couple yards, and we were constantly leaving a trail of scent on everything we brushed up against. Would have been better to clear a path wide enough to walk through unscathed, leaving only boot scent on a consistent trail. The key is making it inconspicuous from the road so guys don't wander to our bait.
I've still got one bait I established close to home last week. Gonna check it once again before leaving for CO. If it's hit, I'll refill it. If not, I'll scrap it and try to establish another in an area I think looks promising. Hopefully I can find someone to refill it at least once while I'm gone.
