Bear hunting site
Wisconsin
Here is the second of two loads of bait I hauled up. Mostly cereal and waste candy.
This bait site was setup a few weeks ago, just got back to it yesterday morning. It had been cleaned up good.
Here is one of the culprits that stole all that food. I had a series of pics for a half hour of this average size guy. Then he or another bear chewed the power wire to the camera and tiped the battery over. I think he shorted the wire and that turned off the camera. I would have liked to have seen that bear geting a buzz on his tongue from that 6V car battery.
Some fresh bait on the pile. Four gallons of cereal, heart candy, and gummy bears.
Cover it all up. The logs are all 4' for size reference. This year I am including one 6' log for additional reference. The bear is comeing in heavy from behind and just right of the bait. Perfect approach direction, this is exactly where I hoped he would come in on this setup.
Next, seting up the stand. This is my favorite stand, solid as a rock, no squeeks, cannot be affected by squirrels except maybe chewing on the seat. Note this is on private land so the screw in steps are A-OK.
Then finally, clear the shooting lane. This is the grand-son in law of the landowner helping me. He is an ironworker. Man, if you want someone that can climb a tree without steps and hang a stand using one hand get an iron worker like him to help you!
Jeff, you know what you are doing!!!
Thanks for the photos!
BC
Elk, correct the Dodge pulls better with heavier loads. ;-)
BC, when you are part of a group that runs 200+ baits every year in MN you do learn a few things about how to do it. Of course it is much easier when you run pretty much the same bait sites every year. Over there we use a wood chipper to chop up bakery and a cement mixer to mix it all up.
I should have mentioned a little about his site. We can drive a 4 wheeler on a slight ridge right up to the stand. That slight ridge continues on past the bait. To the left is a large wooded swamp. Not standing water but still you would need knee highs to walk it. To the right of the bait is a small open grassy and wet swamp in a bit of a bowl. I was pretty sure the bear would use the trail to the right of the bait that you can see in the pic from the treestand. There is a path in from the big swamp on the left. I don't think he is using that but it is hard to tell because thats where we cut the dead logs to cover the bait with and we knocked that grass down ourselves.
About .8 miles from this bait is a bait I started yesterday. There is a huge swamp with some pretty deep water between the two locations. That other location has more bear sign near it than I have ever seen in one location. I'll carry the camera in there next time and get some pics of what we saw. I would not be surprised to see a half dozen bears using both of these baits. I am really pumped up on that other site. It was hard to find a good setup as not many trees capable of holding a stand over there. Finally found a popple growing right with a large spruce. Can put the stand in the popple and the spruce will provide awsome cover.
A bowsite member asked my how do you spot bear sign. Here are some classics.
This first one is most common but often overlooked. Bears and humans are really the only animals that crush grass and other weeds like this. It is a very good sign to look for when tracking a bear too. But keep your tracking helpers behind you because their tracks will do the same thing.
Wolf might crush a little grass but very little compared to a bear.
Broken trees are a sign you see a lot in spring after the trees start to bud out. They break them down to chomp on the buds while other food is still scarce. You see this a lot with Popplar (quakies) in the spring. With fruit bearing trees and bushes (hazlenut) you will also see it in fall.
Riping up stumps or rolling over logs is also a sure sign. This first pic is a smaller stump, I am pretty sure it was bear because of other sign in the area but a stump this small and rotten could have been coon.
Not much chance this rolled over log was done by anything except a bear. This was within 10 yards of the stump above.
I'll add more as I come across it with camera in hand.
I don't hunt bear but thanks for sharing. Always like to learn more about the outdoors.
Great info Jeff. Just one thing. Do not call Aspen Poplar. sometimes called Popple but Poplar is a species and not what is mistaken for Aspen, Big Tooth or Trembling. While in the Genus Populus there is a tree called Balsam Poplar, a different tree and not what people refer to as popple.
Maybe you mean poplar but in so many cases with outdoor writers they mean popple or Aspen.
Drives me NUTS! But then I have been told it is a short drive for me.
Popple, aspen, you know, the stuff that the grouse like. Didn't realize Poplar was something else but if I knew it drove you nuts I would have certainly used that just to get a rise out of you. ;-)
Truck and boat are loaded and ready to hit some bait sites at 5:30 in the morning. Raining now, we still need more so if it is raining in the morning I'll just sleep.
Like Storm I don't bear hunt , never saw a reason to shoot something with a jelly donut in its mouth , but I really do enjoy the pics and storys .
Jeff and Tony have taught me so much on this site , I feel I could sucessfull anytime I wanted to hunt them .
I ran most of our baits today and got this pic of some scat, one of the three sure signs of bear. Sorry this one got steped on plus it rained a lot last nite.
I almost got a pic of one of the other two sure signs of bears. An actuall bear, probably in the 250# live weight class. I was driving down a logging road he he was walking toward me. I stoped at about 80 yards but by the time I got the camera turned on he steped off the road.
The third sure sign is actual track. Second best to a sighting because it gives you a ballpark idea of size.
When you setup a bait site if you want to use a barrier of some sort to make the bear face quartered away it has to be something substantial for it to work and not have the bears tear it apart. Between the root crown and trunk of an uprooted tree works good. In this case I took advantage of a large Popplar (Popple for Smokey) that had fallen. Not even a bear is going to move that main section. This was what the site looked like 7 days after I started it.
The bait was where that short log is in the middle. I cut a large chunk of branch off and stuck it under the tree and to the right to prevent bears from reaching under from behind the tree and to keep them angled out a little. They might move that one but not too likely.
Yep, popple(Aspen) definetly not Poplar.
I think that the first poo picture I have seen on Bowsite.
Yes and Pat said he was cleaning up this site:-)
You need more voltage for your trail cams. This old boy learned his lesson the hard way.
Jeff-
You forgot a picture of one of the most obvious sign markers and mostly overlooked it seems. Dug up ant hills, if you look for them, you can spot them all over in bear areas. You can also tell a fresh one from one that is a couple of days old.
Good point 5Rs, I haven't even seen an ant hill yet much less one that is torn up. If I run across one I'll get a pic.
I did see another bear yesterday, crossing a county trunk highway. I stoped where he crossed and again was a split second short of geting his picture before he disappeard into the bushes. He did stop at the treeline and look at me for two seconds tho. Only a 100+ pounder.
One more sign of bear. Hope you can read this "Bear Sign". Pay particular attention to the difference between Black and Grizly bear scat if you ever plan to go out west.
Thought I would find this very old thread and bring it to life. It was the last time I hunted bear in WI although I did help baiting most of my prior sites for a friend to use several years later. I did hunt that site in the first set of pictures above. That bear kept turning my game camera that was only about 6' from the bait. I eventually moved the camera back another 10 feet or so and got pictures of that bear rubbing that tree which is why the camera kept getting turned. He wasn't that big and I eventually focused on other baits.
That property changed hands so I will not be using that exact site this year but do hope to find a good spot on public land very close to this location.
Back then my trail cameras used 8-D cell batteries and went dead real fast. So, I bought several 6 volt tractor batteries and hauled them in the woods. Bears chewed one of them up. Sure glad cameras have improved a lot. Now they have to go through the camera to get at the batteries. ;-)
