Finally drew a Minnesota Bear tag this year and I thought it would be fun to do a Vlog every 3-4 days of the baiting and the season. Here's the first installment. If you're interested in following along, hit the subscribe link and activate the bell to get a notification each time a new video is up. Enjoy!

Looking forward to watching!

That's so exciting! Can't wait to see what you get

I wasn't going to check them until tomorrow but we had quite a rain last night so I'm going to pull the cards and put some more lure on them today. I'll try to have a short video up by the end of the day.

Thank you for sharing your process and procedure. We have our "get away home" in north central WI and we hunt in a large section of the national forest that has very little private land. It is incredible the amount of work, time spent and tons of bait that are used to bait the bears and work on training the dogs. All that is a small investment when one looks at the trucks, kennels, dogs, and all the technology etc. I am not a bear hunter but respect the commitment made by those that are heavily involved in the whole process.

Bryce

The weather is good the next few days for bear movement, we should have some more bear pics and videos on the trail cams this week.

Great video. As a half deaf old guy I really appreciate the closed captioning.

Bear baits and grandsons! I'm not going to be able to do that for maybe 4-5 years (oldest is only 2). Looks like fun times Bernie.

I like to involve the kids early on, but once it gets close to bear season and I have mature bears hitting the bait, the only ones who go to the baits are the people who will be hunting. Kids love being in the woods and it's great experience for them. They love the trail cams and the 4-wheeler rides.

Good thread!

6 years, I thought 4 years in my area (51) was bad! I drew this year and haven't got around to starting the bait yet. There looks to be very little natural food in the woods so not too concerned about getting on it right away.

Have you had good luck with the licorice? When I've used it in the past the bears loved it. Problem was, they came and in grabbed a gob of it and left to eat it.

Great thread, I will be following for sure.

Some good looking bait ya got going there.. I wish WI bait laws was more like MN as I hunted over there couple times back in late 90s. I just got started this last Saturday looking for a bear here in WI..Got this guy coming to one of my baits. Just need to get him there during shooting time..It's hard to do a do it your self here in WI if you don't live right close to where you bait. Hard to compete with guides and locals..They do lot of running to woods a do it your self-er can't..
Will enjoy following your hunt...



Mac

Lots of natural foods around here, tons of acorns and the hazelnuts are loaded. I get the baits going ASAP and hope to get the bears on my baits before anyone else gets them.

The licorice makes good filler but it doesn't keep the bears coming back like pastries and trail mix do. I like the licorice because it gives them a reward for coming to the bait even if the other stuff runs out. I have three colors, red, orange and black and they seem to like them all about the same.

Usually when a bear comes in and grabs something to eat then sneaks back into the bushes to eat it, that means there's a more dominant bear in the area.

This big boy was a nice surprise. Three shooter bears on the one bait. The others are slow.

The last one is a dandy! I notice that bear's pelage is very short. I have seen many bear like that over the years, and they are almost always bear of considerable bulk, rarely mediums or spikehorn sized bruins. Last year I baited (2017) I had a couple big fellas at one bait that were mangy. One of them was literally about bald from the armpits back. That bear started showing a 5 o'clock shadow after a bit, then by the time season was on it had that short bristly hair all over the previously bare areas. I mounted a big one years ago for a downstate hunter that was covered in that same 1/4 inch long bristle-like hair on the back 2/3. I now believe he'd suffered mange like these bear I'd had coming in in '17. Any theories out there as to why the big ole bear seem to have lousy coats like that?