Our berry crop failed miserably. No rain at all all summer. The few I did see were in drainage spots that collected the short rain showers we did get.

As for spotting and stalking, occasionally you see them in the islands, mostly swimming when in the boat. Bush is so thick you can be right on top of them and not know it!

Any logging roads on my lines are grown up with raspberries and blackberries six feet high.

How the heck do you spot them ??

Didn't you just have a huge fire there?Is that the only fire that has ever burned there?Old burns are prime areas to spot and stalk bears in fall when the blueberries are thick.
In farming areas oat fields in the fall are good spots also,and the farmers are likely to be glad to be rid of them.
In spring you can sneak up on them without actually spotting them if you get the wind when they are in the old beaver meadows or other natural openings in the bush near lakes etc-sneak up on the meadow.Of course old clearcuts are great bear country spring and fall(when there is a good blueberry crop).
Leave the gas engine machinery at home until after the kill.Its all about walking.You got to overcome all their senses and smell and hearing are the two big ones for bears.

The strangest things I ever used for bait was a pig hide. The thing must’ve weighed 75 pounds or more. I hung it from a nail in a black ash tree then wrapped it from top to bottom with 16 gauge wire. Believe it or not, when the bears found it they chewed through the wire and ate the hide and part of the tree. Lol. Maybe just a little overkill.

Now That's cool!

*** I hope it was "cured" according to Mn. Law on baiting w/pig

A


No burns here. I have a few forty year old charred stumps on my line, but the pines beside them are two feet in diameter. And no farms within 30 k of me at least.

The odd cattail Marsh here. Just lots of rock, trees, water, rock trees, water...repeat. my best bet is to wait for the summer and wait for my phone to ring lol

Last nuisance job this summer was on a kilometer Long island. Cedars were so thick the bear was just playing with us. Took me a bit to learn his escape trails to stay away from me, and me and a buddy got him. Smart buggers. Will be inside the cottage one minute, and turn into a ghost the next.

Well after the fire last summer you should have plenty of opportunity in a couple years,lol.30 k here is a small distance.what about hunting with dogs-is that legal in Ont?

I normally put out 10-12 baits with pacer,doughnuts,oil or sweets. Put a sent rag up high in a tree with anis and some LDC with skunk essence under a small limb. I tend them for a month or so and keep the 5-6 best ones.

Anise on a rag.

https://youtu.be/jDZVk2PoJCA

The more I do this, the simpler I get.
Sometimes anything will work, sometimes few things will work..
Bears are slaves to thier stomachs. If natural foods sources are slim, they WILL do amazing things to eat.
There is no magic formula!? There is no magic scent!

You have skunks in your area Hutchy? We don't up here, I mix a shot of essence with a big spray bottle of cooking oil and lay a trail and spray it high. I also use left over skunk and Vaseline. When I run out of that it's loganberry oil, sweet smelling and strong.

They can be very difficult with no rime or reason for what they do. I trap and hunt over baits. I had one logging road I set baits on that was only a mile long. I always set my baits according to the prevailing wind. I set three baits within a mile. One was getting slammed, the bears were eating a barrel and a half per week probably more if I would have taken more in. The 2ed bait got hit twice all fall the 3ed bait rotted in the barrel.
This happens quite often. When I am setting baits for trapping I dont care how close they are to the next bait because I am looking for "trap locations" I only set blind sets so I want alot of options and alot of trails.

Actually no. No skunks whatsoever....and then, six miles out by water, on an island on the outside of the bay, I caught my first ever skunk a month ago. A juvenile. Only guess is someone was getting a septic done and one got brought out in a load of fill on a barge. I mean, I know they swim, but having no one I know of ever getting one to that is a bit much. I saved the quill, maybe use it in the spring if I have any left from fisher season.

Peanut butter, pasteries, granola, caramel, dried cherries are a few of the things I used to take my bear this year. We had a ton of acorns and berries of every kind. Natural foods are hard to compete with. Start as soon as you can and make your bait better than the hunters next to you. Also don't put out too much bait at one time. If you have what they want, they will be the first ones in before it's all gone.

Hutchy a plastic 2 gallon or so pail on the back of your atv or whatever you use to get to your bait. Lay the container on its side off the back of the machine and crack the lid or even punch a small hole in it and let that drip as you drive to the bait. Sometimes I start the drip two miles out or better. Drip used cooking oil or whatever.

I have noticed bears are pretty open to bait offerings earlier in the fall. As the fall progresses they seem to single out a certain food or two and if it's plentiful they stay on it. Bears here go away from the sweets as fall gets late. I know an area with some agriculture where I have seen bears walk right past incredibly good baits that they had been pounding for weeks just to eat certain crops when the crop is ripened to where they like it and eat that exclusively right up to denning.

Personally I stay away from pastry. I use other things with lots of oil mixed in. With less pastry I get a lot more droppings around the baits. I think the pastry plugs them up a bit, I want them pooping and returning for more as much as possible. Keep in mind not all used grease is the same.

Osky

Another good Fall bait is Beef suet trimmings... a certain butcher I know well let's me know when I can stop inside the door and glean suet. No red meat to spoil....but put in it's own barrel from other boats late fall and they many times clean out the suet. I've tried dog food and black oil sunflower ...items they go crazy for in the spring...but like Osky said they change closer to donning time.

My uncle uses big peppermint blocks, you can smell it for miles when they are melting it down to make smaller easier to carry blocks. Works great and ain't bad to lick on yourself

I'm not even close to being an expert bear bait guy, but I do have over 40 years experience feeding the darn things. I think Bernie hit the nail on the head with saying you were a bit late. Bear do pig out big-time in the fall, and some will, much to the dismay of deer hunters, haunt a deer bait well into December at times, but most of them don't. The majority of bear shut down before Halloween in our area. Collaring studies showed nearly all sows with cubs were denning before the end of October, and the majority of boars were denning soon after that. Also, as stated above several times, a dump of natural foods will shut a bait down literally overnight. Bear can be maddeningly simple to bait in at times, and the next year in the same stump, maddeningly absent! My All Purpose Boy set a bait on his own land in '15 and not one bear even drizzled past to sniff it. Fast forward to '17 when I had a tag....that was a Super Bait....we had 10-12 (?) separate bear feeding on it. Same spot, same type of feed, same, same. Some years you look like a bear guru, the next your left with performance anxiety!

This guy finally went to bed, but he might be out again if we get a thaw. I've seen them active during a February warm spell.

The best bear bait I've ever used was from Nature Valley Granola. I had a connection with a guy in southern Maine who bought out their bad stock. Sometimes you'd run across a wrapper in the mix. Bears would not leave it, ever. He must have lost his connection because I haven't been able to get it in quite some time.