Quick start bear bait ?
Wisconsin
I have a chance to hunt a piece of private property the last 5 days of bait season. Owner has trail cam pics of bears in food plots and walking through property. Most pics are daytime. I know a lot can change between now and then, but what would be a good "mix" for setting a bait on the first morning to try to hunt over the rest of the season ? I was thinking of liquid smoke, corn/molasses pellets ?
I have started baits late like that several times and been pretty successful. Often the last week is one of the best times to get a nice bear. Most of the other baits have been shut down by then, the best natural forage is gone by then, and the masses of deer baits generally haven't been started by then. Biggest key is to get something that they can smell from a long ways away to try and get their attention as quickly as possible. I prefer spraying anise or some of the other bear attractants. The one I used last year smelled like butterscotch and was mixed with cooking oil. I could smell it from fifty yards away and it lasted quite a while. It's pretty rare that my baits aren't hit within 12 hours of starting them so you have a pretty good chance.
All of the above plus vanilla and a few apples. Beaver castor or lure is also excellent to put in area.
Beaver castor would be illegal in Wisconsin unless you it's a completely synthetic scent.
Thanks for the info skook. I hunted last week, passed on six bears. Mostly baited with granola and cereal. Just thinking I should try something with more carbs, being later in the season and before den up ?
Corn is not that great unless it is milk stage, sweetcorn, or ground up and mixed with other stuff. So often I see whole kernel corn in bear scat, they just don't digest whole kernel dried corn. If you use whole cobs break them into 3-4 chunks so they don't carry it away from the bait and eat it too easy.
If there is any chance you could start the bait a week or more before your hunt that would certainly help even if you can't keep it baited every day. Good to get your cover materials cut or hauled out there early too.
Scents mentioned above are good advice, except for the castor as zinger explained.
Get the scents up high as you can. If you can pull over a small popple or something like that, smear it on the top and let it spring back up is a good way to do that. Also liquid scents in a good pump sprayer can get pretty high and on the under side of leafs where it is protected from the rain is good too.
Fish guts left in a bucket for a week mixed with Fryer grease. Gets their attention NOW...but kills every damn living piece of vegetation it comes in contact with, so don't get any on ya! Chicken carcasses are a close runner up.
I did not think fish, even guts, could be used in Wisconsin. Isn't it meat? Chicken certainly illegal.
South Farm from MN I see. I'd be curious too what would be a good bait in WI for later. I baited/hunted MN and being able to use meat products I think really helped my success. I hear more often from WI bear hunters they move off their bait right about the time when season starts. Myself and friend are seeing this on our baits, no bears after the first weekend of September. We're using primarily trail mix, with some gummy bears and sweet ice cream cone pieces mixed together.
I should note that my only bear from MN, which was taken my first year, was in 2000, when they opened the bear season in August. I can't remember the date, but I think it was around the 20th or 21st and it fell in the middle of the week.
I'm going to stick with the baiting and see if it picks up again in a week or two.
Ooops, sorry, he asked what works QUICK, not what's illegal. My bad! LOL!
Ya, I know MN bear hunters that freeze their leftover minnows, when baiting starts they add water and let them rot for a while and use them to start baits. Ewwwwwww....... I suppose fish guts are just as good or bad depending on how you look at it.
Any meat product, fish, etc. is illegal in WI. Bears start to switch from carbs to protein right at the start of the WI bear season. Makes it tough. Food picked up some bait that is pretty nut heavy. Trying some protein. Scent is usually the way to bring them in. Curiosity. Be ready they may not even hit the bait just checking out the new scent. My wife shot her last bear that way, Four days no hit, then we hunted and put a new scent out. Bear came in smelled the limb and she shot it leaving. Stomach was full of acorns. And we have a big acorn crop around us this year. Any new strong scent each time out.
Jeff in MN, the year I got my bear in MN, I was freezing whole carp that I was snagging in the early spring, then switched to bow when it opened up. I had a very large chest freezer and most of the carp were in that 2-5 lb size.
I was baiting with donuts, meat scraps and other whole foods and I'd always bring a 5 gallon bucket of frozen fish, which would fit about 3-5. By the time I got up to my bait site they'd be partially thawed and I slit the stomach open and many of the carp had eggs.
Unfortunately, back then I just had a 35mm camera, so my first season I never got a pic of a bear because other animals would eat up the roll of film. But prior to my hunt I was baiting daily for a few days and the carp were gone with no remains and I believer were carried off.
Roasted or fried soybeans = +-40% protein.
Mixed with trail mix and we killed a bear over it.
I have another 5-6 day hunt planned in Bayfield Co. After that hunt, (if I don't shoot what I'm looking for) I am thinking of taking the offer, to hunt the private land. I won't have a chance to pre-bait or set scents. I just remember bowhunters over the years telling about bears coming to their bait piles while hunting deer. That's why I was thinking of the corn/molasses idea. Mike I can try the roasted bean idea. Thanks. Two Feathers, I will check if there are apple tree's present on the property.
They might have ate those carp in 3-4 bites and down the hatch. Probably would have been a good idea to chop them with an axe while frozen or thawed them day before and cut them up. That way the bears are kind of forced to eat at the bait site. We never used much meat. Just too stinky, hard/expensive to store ahead of time, and generally messy to handle.
I might just get back to using some fish next fall, we should draw MN tags and usually just go up a few days before the season starts to start the baits. Saves a special trip up ahead of time to do it.
Remember, no bones from a mammal and no more than 1/4 of any mammal can be used at a time. Pork has to be cured.
Also, MN split zones 26 and 44 up this year.
Mike F. Great idea. Never heard or thought of that. Thanks.
SHHHH
Top secret!
Good Luck trying to find them.
Be careful with molasses as it can give them the squirts....
Take a small stove that screws into a propane cylinder and an old pot and on medium heat add a bag of marshmallows and two packages of rasberry flavored jello. Use a stick to stir until it starts burning. Thier will be a thick plume of smoke that will carry into the timber for a half mile if the wind is good. Cook til its done smokin and dump the scraps on the bait. Have never taken more than a day for the bait to get hit. And yes this is legal in wisconsin
shedhead, Not that I see anything wrong with your idea wouldn't it technically be illegal because the "bait" is in a man made container? But then again if that's not really any different putting doe in heat scent on a cotton ball in a film canister - for those who are old enough to remember film and film canisters LOL!
Shedhead's "burn" is legal in WI as long as no "honey" is used - honey in this State is illegal.
I have used honey while baiting - not here - and I find NO advantage to it....
Burns they say work well with honey - I don't know that however...
You cook the bait and take out the pan when your done. I dont leave anything at the sight
Good suggestion Shed. I think I might try it ahead of time just to test the process. Using the pot to cook that 'scent bomb' in is no different than carrying your normal bait in with the aid of a bucket. Of course I presume you need to cover the leftover stuff like you do the rest of your bait.
Bloodtrail, I think a lot of people think that if something is illegal it has some magic that makes it super affective. Many, many years ago when I was a teenager I put some salmon carcasses up for bait thinking that since it was illegal it would bring the bears running in. They quickly rotted and the bait went dead. I also used dog food with corn, bread, etc. The dog food was NEVER eaten but everything else was cleaned up by the bears. Stick with what's legal and common as there's a reason everyone uses it.
Thanks guys for the tips. Also have some ideas from other hunters to try. I will let you all know if it works out!
Zinger - Not illegal if you take the pan or container and cooker on public land, if it's private you can leave the pan and the cooker in the woods, if you empty the pan.
You are not baiting you are creating scent. I had this discussion with the my local game warden. If you use no animal products you can burn what ever you think will work.
We never did it, but now that I am thinking of firing up a new bait or 2 I think it's worth a try.
