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But once the bear have their guts settled to food, there is nothing any better than a skinned full body carcass of a horse or cow. I know beavers are great too, but they don't last long, whereas a good carcass can last up to several weeks if you are not in a high bear area.

And nothing I know will bring the bears, from a long distance, more than does a good grease burn, if you know how to do it. Not even a honey burn will compare.

Have a great bowhunt. BB

Thanks everybody!

Mix it up and watch and see what is being eaten. Some bears favor chocolate donuts other stawberry (don't laugh) some will eat popcorn others favor apples. Some like anice others honey or vanilla.

If you watch them you will see them pick through what they favor 1st, 2nd, 3rd and so forth. Give them what they want and they will keep coming back.

Fryer grease and bread always seems to do well and it gets on thier feet and is spead around the trails entering and leaving the bait area. Attracting yet more bears.

Beaver carcasses are a good bait if legal and you can find them.

You can't have to much bait. Know the regs and work accordingly.

Pic-a-nic baskets! :0)

Seriously, all the above are good, but nothing I know of beats bacon grease for an attractant. You need something of substance for them to feed on, but bacon grease will bring them in from far and wide.

The Old Sarge

1. as noted above meat and bacon grease attract brown bears

2. the law in alaska says you must carry out all contaminated soil from your bait station. using bacon grease soaks the soil worse than the dog food concotion I use, so we have to do less shoveling when done with our bait site...and the warden's do come checking!

Thanks Woody,you just saved my butt.

After over forty years of baiting bears , There is no best bait ! But there is a very important first bait ! And even before that there are two really important items , those being location of your bait , and wind current ! Now comes your bait. To me it has to smell ! Rotten fish in my opinion is as good as it gets ! It's cheap to find fish, even minnows work ! Get it rotted down as far as you can to the point where it's liquid, soak gunny sacks or even wash clothes in the fish and with a wire , hang it in a small diamiter tree that will show claw marks good(aspen)! Hang it fairly high so bear has to work to get at it ! Also bear can't climb that smaller tree ! You can now tell now what was there ! The location and wind currents will do the rest ! When the bear find it just about any bait mentioned above will work . After this stage of the game meat scrapes in my estimation are hand down excellent , Why ? because they have staying power thru rain , sitting for periods of time before the bear find it , and sooner or later they will omit an oder !

I know some folks are restricted to what they can use , but for those of us who can , thats what I like ! bearman,

I use grain corn and i put some cow molasse over it. I take a spray bottle and dilut haft water haft molasse mixed,then spray it all over the forest, the higher i can on branch,so the wind can transport the smell all over the woods. Last year,it was my first attemp to bear hunting and i shoot one the week after he almost eat me.

There is better ways and much appealing ways of bringin in bears.Smell bring them in then the game is keeping them there until hunting start...all of the above works beaver, muskrat, corn, wheat, frying oil, pastery, meat scaps, candy's, try any thing... bears are like us they have defferent taste and will eat defferent food depending on the season spring or fall....I found 1500lbs of strawberry jelly i thought for sure i it the jack pot on 33 bait only 2 of them eated the jelly but on those 2 baits man they ripp the stomps out and chewed the bucket.Honey burns not for me.Here I'am lucky i get to buy crunch up vanilla and chocolate cookies by the ton that as not falled me yet....

We found a good source of bait. Go to one of the 10 million local bagel shops and ask if you can get the bagels they throw out everyday - and they throw away a LOT! Lots of different flavors and smells in them, too.

Here in MN. we are only allowed to bait about fourteen , or a couple more days before season , Fall hunting here , So you want your baits to work as soon as possiable ! Here is what goes on !

I fire up my cooking pot, and kettel ! Load the kettel with used donut grease (it's in the solid state)and melt it down on a slow heat ! When it's melted , and boiling , I pour in some bird seed , all kinds of bird seed ! Then I stir the pot till it quits boiling , Let it cool a bit , and pour the mixture into small plastic buckets ! When it cools completly, I turn bucket upside down and out pops a perfect little cake of bird seed held together by donut grease ! Smells wonderful. The next step is to put this in some onion sacks and twist wire around it so it can be put in trees. These are placed in certain spots on trails before season, I'll check them a couple weeks down the road after they are out, to see if the bear were there ! If the bear were there , then I know it's a good place somewhere near to place my bait. Then I take everything(wire and remains of sack) back out of the woods because littering is a no, no !

It's kind of fun to do also ! bearman,

I once watched a nature show that detailed the eating habits of bears. It was really interesting.

First, donuts are probably favored over bagels because the donuts have lots of sugar in them, the bagels don't. The bagels that do get eaten are probably infused with the smells of other foods the bears like.

Second, in the spring the bears just woke up from months of hibernation and they've lost alot of weight and they haven't eaten in a long time. Generally during the spring time the bears like light and sugary things. Stuff like pastries, syrups and fruit. Meat isn't usually very high on a bear's lunch menu at this time of year but they will eat it if they can't really find anything else. Are any of you guys religious? Have any of you ever "fasted"? Well, if you have then you know what a bear feels like during the spring. You loose weight, you get weak and a little bit sleepy, and your stomach kinda shuts down. Your first few meals after you fast should be something light like a salad because if you dive straight into a really good porkchop, you'd better have two bathrooms because in about 30 minutes you'll be occupying one for the next 12 hours. In the spring bears like sweet and light stuff. Fruit is light and doesn't really bother an unused stomach. Also, the natural sugar in the fruit gives the bears a good energy boost they need and helps them build up their strength. Later in the year, this type of food will be passed over in favor of other stuff.

Third, in the fall they're getting ready for hibernation and they're trying to gain as much weight as possible. During this time of year they really don't want sweet stuff as much as they do fatty stuff. The higher the fat content the more it'll help them gain the weight they'll need during hibernation so that'll be what they go for. During the fall try anything meat related, the more fat the better.

Happy hunting.

Ryan

Having watched a perfectly good 800lb cow be consumed from fresh to skeletal conclusion. I found that carcasses are used in the early season by bears. First consumed was the butthole, followed by a small access hole in the gutsack where the intestinal contents were consumed like bad pasta. The meat was consumed by coyotes and foxes and birds. The bears ate mouthfuls of maggots from the meat...licking them off like Tic Tacs by the mouthful.

Grains, oils, anise, vanilla, carcasses. Great bait. Hunters are the greatest conservationists...let's remember that when we're feeding tons of sugar to game animals, we aren't doing them a favor. If you wouldn't eat 20lbs of donuts a day, why feed it to a bear?