Bear barrel hole size
Contributors to this thread:Bears
From: Logan Hill
19-May-17
Logan Hill's Link
From: TSI
20-May-17
Bears don't care,the whole size is a personal preference.
From: M.Pauls
20-May-17
Link didn't work for me but that hole is very large. Start stocking up bait
From: Mike Ukrainetz
20-May-17
Hole size matters quite a bit, depending on what's in the barrel, and things like is it chained tight to a tree, loose to tree, rolling around on the ground, lots of ravens, no ravens, raccoons or not, how much bait do you have access to, how often you are baiting it, will getting your bait wet hurt it etc. The most dangerous size is a round hole 5-10 inches because a bear can get his head stuck in it, believe me on that one.
From: Pete In Fairbanks
21-May-17
What Mike said! The last thing you want is a bear with his head stuck in the hole.
Personally I use a hole about 2 to 3 inches in diameter. The contents last longer and as long as there is ANYTHING left in the drum, bears will fiddle with it. I try and avoid having to "reload" a drum; just put in enough bait to hold bears for the entire season. On good bait sites (that we have found over 40 years of baiting,) the bears will go through multiple drums full. Literally two or three thousand pounds of bait.
Pete
From: Deathmoan
28-May-17
I use metal drums and I think I'm going to weld/fix a plate in the bottom at a angle to create a gravity feed type barrel and keep stuff from just falling out the hole. Similar to how a bird feeder works.
From: gunslinger
29-May-17
You bet what mike says. But in our camp the hole is never bigger than a size of a quarter we actually just take the one inch bung out and that's whT they get the oats and cookie crumbs out of and it keeps the sows at he. Bait for hours
From: Mike Ukrainetz
29-May-17
That's too simple gunslinger! It'll never work!! Haha
Dam great idea. Is the barrel on a long chain, rope or just loose?
From: gunslinger
29-May-17
I leave 12 feet mike of yellow nylon rope tied around the.bolt of the lid. 1/3 cookies crumbs 1/3 oats and 1/3 popcorn Barrells weigh total 55 pounds and clean as hell worked for 14 years now except we only have 15 years of cookies left haha
From: APauls
29-May-17
I've always done 2-3" I like the size of the big bung hole is what I've left open. If your hole is huge a single bear will empty the barrel in a night and all your food is out for everything to clean up.
