I'm sure it is a lot of work, but you guys are making bear hunting sound ~easy. I'd like to try it someday. I currently have 11 preference points so could probably go soon if the opportunity presents itself. Thanks for making this thread a good read.

Yes Sam the bears are very inconsistent this season. My son is going to take a couple nights because of the warm weather. We did get a new bear on the camera last night and my thoughts he is pushing 400 lbs. Would be a real good one to get. But there's a reason they are that big.

It seems like they are always consistent until season opens, lol. At least they are for me.
I'm going to give my bait a couple days to cool off. Emmet will hunt again on Saturday.

Lol, Yote. I was hoping he'd be my good luck charm tonight. He was pretty bummed that we didn't see a bear. He was pretty excited about the turtle though, he wanted to climb down and catch it.

I think that would have made a great pet for the boys.

Big Sam, that’s darn near a booner turtle!

It came together last night and I’m glad it did as the wind will be wrong for the stand I was hunting the next several nights! I got in the stand about 4 pm after baiting. I opted to “sneak” in on foot with the bait, bait quietly, and slip into the stand…..rather than yesterday where we rode the wheeler in as usual, baited, drove out to the field and parked wheeler, and walked back in to keep the routine like normal baiting. Saw my skunk buddy again along with a snowshoe hare, and the usual cast of characters at a near bait…..(NOT a turtle lol). About 7:56 she started coming in, poked he head around a tree for a few seconds and watching before committing, and sauntered in. I knew it was one of the sows and I was of course hoping it was not the one with twin cubs. She went to the right side of the pile of logs, opened it up a bit, and plopped down. She got up once about 5 mins later and stood there looking around (there’s a nice boar that’s she’s been sharing the bait with, and he seems to kinda rile the roost, but tolerates her). I watched her for almost 20 minutes before putting my trusty .308 Savage 99C to work. She stood up part way and I knew I better take the shot then as I only had 7 more minutes of legal shooting and I wanted to avoid the laying down shot. I double lunged her and she went about 60 yards. My buddy came to help me drag her out which wasn’t terribly far, but through that thick stuff a big football like her wasn’t easy to move. She hit 270# on the scale (that’s field dressed weight for you goofy folk who do “live weight”. ;-). I got her all skun and trimmed all the main fat off last night, so far 7-8 gallons of pretty clean fat! Can’t wait to render it down, maybe I’ll start it on the stove before my wife gets home from work as a 10th anniversary gift for my wife when she walks through the door. Now I need to get finished breaking her down and all cut up and packaged as it only got down about 50 last night.

I hope the rest of you MN bear hunters have some good luck of own this season! Happy trapping! ScottW