Bear baiting opener today.

Placed a bait just over a hundred yards from my cabin door. The young fellas took two smaller bear off it last year. 230 pound range. Much bigger bear will make a visit if the boys are patient to wait. We bait for the month of August and the season opens the first of September. Got the same two young fellas back again looking for something bigger.

Good luck.
With these hot temps we've been having, bear are the last thing on my mind.
Lots around here though.

I've seen ninety degrees opening day of bear season. F&G in their wisdom decided that's where to plug in our season. Temps drop quickly during September and makes things more tolerable. I'll post pics as things move along.

Actually, bear move GREAT in hot weather it's just not fun baiting/hunting in it.
How's the natural foods doing there?

The only thing I've seen in abundance is apples. There are wild apple trees here by the thousands and the bear will hit those hard in October. They'll will hit the oats once they ripen off toward the end of this month and corn if there is any nearby. We had hazelnuts galore last year but haven't seen much on those this season.

Bear opens Aug 15 here.Never understood that,hunters looking for a trophy hide that looks like crap.
Sept 15 at least the new hair is starting to grow out a little and cooler weather for processing the meat.

That's what I was getting at with the early season and the heat. A bear hasn't begun to start priming up in those temps and you'll lose the hide and the meat if you don't get right after both. Bear slip quick in those temps.

I am glad there are hunters who want to hunt bear. To me sitting in a stand with either a gallon of deet on or swatting bugs in 80 degree heat to sort through the several bear that are hitting a bait just is not for me. Also one needs to have a plan to get a 200 plus gutted carcass out of the bush and with ice or in a frig etc. in time to keep the meat from going bad is another issue. The one thing it does is in many cases brings out groups of hunters to get the job done and work more bears and the group aspect may well be the best part of the whole deal, especially with those that use hounds. I know several bear hunters that to them it is all about the hounds and the bears are far down the list of what they enjoy.

Bryce

Love the slick, smooth look of an early season bear pelt. Some of the best looking bears I have shot where in late August to early September.

Keep us updated I will keep checking in

Good luck, Posco! When I have bear hunted in the heat I like to have a cooler full of bags of ice or frozen gallon jugs to stick in the carcass to cool them down asap. We love eating bear meat!

Moosetrot

good luck keep us posted ,

I always hated a too-early opener, or hot weather during bear season. Hunters mis-handle bear often, and as a taxidermist all those years I saw some real disasters as far as meat and pelt care. Some real clusters by guys that should have known better. That last tag I pulled had me shooting the bear when it was 87 degrees. Between my All purpose Boy and myself, I was prepared for a dead bear and didn't have any problems. It was a tasty bruin whose hide tanned up well.

Today is the moose season opener for us. Open until April. Our black bear season never closes.

I would think baiting bear near your cabin could be counter productive to having a nice cabin. That's how it works here. Cant hardly have anything out in the country the bears don't destroy.

Of course if you already have them in the neighborhood and need to thin them out. That works.

Good luck.

I had my sons wheeler parked almost under the eve of my cabin for the longest time. The wife kept insisting I bring it home before something bad happened to it. I told her it was fine. It was until the day a bear decided to rip the stuffing out of the seat. I put the stuffing back in as best I could, taped it up and kept my fingers crossed. The boy must have considered it normal wear & tear because he never said a word and the wheeler was sold without the wife ever discovering her prediction had come true.

Even being that close to the cabin, it's a great bait site. The bear wander throughout the area looking for apples and oats. So far they've never bothered anything else.

Who uses deet?

Thermals

Lol, I hate smearing chemicals on my skin. The top four pics were captured within 150 yards of my cabin door, the last pic about five hundred yards. I'm not getting any younger and it's nice not having to lug bait long distances. As you can see from the dates on the pics, it's a perennially good spot for bear.

Not that I know the first thing about judging bear but pics 1,2 and last give me an itchy trigger finger. The boys might score big this year it looks like

You're a fine judge, Ll. Those are keepers for sure.

Thanks, I am sure we can count on you to post some pictures if one of those beasts gets taken!

Some good bears there.
Hopefully you can keep them out of your camp.

my opinion that running bears with hounds is the best thing for keeping them well behaved and not wanting much to do with people in WI

group hunting is also a blast

There are some big ones around. I drove my tractor from town out to my cabin late this afternoon so I could move a granite slab tomorrow. It was late in the day but I figured if I drove the tractor close to the site it would move any bear off that might be on the bait without spooking it off. The bait had been hit. I pull the camera cards tomorrow and see what we have. I'll post pics tomorrow.

Off to a slow start this year. Just one small bear and a sow with two cubs has hit the bait so far. Coons out the wazoo.