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Popcorn mixed with used Restaurant Oil, Strawberry Jello powder, Liquid Smoke and lots of mixing.

We are going to set up multiple trail cams at each site. Try news foods on bears and get a bunch of pics to post.

Bears are out now. Spring is about 5 weeks early here. Weather guy said broke a 100 year record for least amount of moisture for March.

I doubt there will be a Spring hunt but I still plan on running a bunch of baits for the fun of it!!

We wont have any residents hunting in camp, just us guides. Will bait a bunch up and when something nice shows up we'll try our luck.

We have a bunch of bait that wont make it to Fall so gotta use it up.

I will document all hits. Starting with the first day they visited.

I will be working in the bush until the border dudes announces that its going to open up for Americans. Work I will be doing is called tending the new growth. I select which trees look the best and cut the rest. Done this before and I actually get alot of enjoyment doing this kind of work. Can go back in 25 years if I live long enough and look over the forest I manipulated. I'll post the work I'll be doing on the forest in this thread.

I can tell Mike that you thoroughly enjoy your job. You do a great job at it!!

Thanks for following!!

Right when it was prime time my phone rang. As I was talking on the cell I look and a bear popped out about 200 yards from me. I hung up and planned my stalk. Bear had his head down pretty well all the time and allowed me to gain on him. Cut was noisy so had to pick where I was going to put each step as I got about 75 yards of him. Saxon watche me stalk the bear from 1/2 mile away from a high perch. The retrieval was about 3/4 of a mile to the closest road in the pouring rain.

When spotting bears you can walk the whole cut without seeing a thing. Then walk it again within an hour and its like hunting a fresh hunting spot as bears will just wander out at anytime.

I hunted the cuts with rifle but because bears always have their heads down and with the use of rock ridges, its easy to plan to get within Bow range...

This was an actual bomber turned into a water bomber. Crashed as it was dropping the water on a fire. Guys survived the crash and had to jump into a swamp to save themselves as the fire roared right over top of them. This picture was taken before the wreckage was air lifted out and put into a museum in Sudbury. Some of the wreckage still lays at the crash site.

A True Boreal forest has older larger Bears. A female bear will be older before she breeds and gets pregnant because a True Boreal forest is usually old growth forest. Less natural foods available as less sunlight hitting the floor of the forest. Less direct sunlight means less Blue Berries, Wild Sarsaparilla etc. Less natural foods means, mature later. Many times a breeding sow will not reach ideal weight or get the nutrition to produce a litter or she will most likely only have a single cub.

A sow breeds in June, if egg is fertilized she holds onto the embryo till she reaches ideal weight and gets the ideal nutrition needed to implant the fertilized embryo. So most times, September is when she actually implants the fertilized embryo. Breeds in June implants in September. So, a bear in the Chapleau Game preserve won't start producing off spring till age of 6 years old according to the studies by the OMNRF.

Also, because there is no hunting within their study area, there are older, larger boars. Because of this there is more cannibalism within the Preserve than in a hunted area. Meaning juvenal bears are a common food for Larger bears within the OMNRF study area. There are less bears growing old because of this. So, population is lower within an Old Growth Forest or within the OMNRF study area.

Lottie wanted some berries but there was a bear wandering around just over the ridge while she picked she decided to protect her picking's from the bear. She always carries a bear licence and her 44 trapper while picking berries. I dare a bear to try and take her berries from her...

Alot pf what they talked about makes sense. If you think about it a Biologist is paid for results. Has a certain time period to come to a conclusion. Where as a bear guide's lifetime knowledge of bears is far more greater than a biologist who has a deadline.

Mike, Rob, Pasquele, Alex Desjardin and I have worked with bears for decades. Biologists, they come and go, take over previous collegues data. But we have all the data Biologists wish they had on Bears.

Our populations of bears are higher than at any time previous...A bear biologist has to read her /his data from a piece of paper, I sat down with the Provincial Bear Biologist told her my conclusion on the bear population without reading from a paper. Just talked and they listened and actually agreed with my conclusion.

Pine Acres has an increase of 2 more Bear Form #33's, pretty well the same as 1981, 1987, 1998 or 2015.

A bear walks the road, scents the can of sardines and walks into bait to grab the can of sardines. Bear pulls down the bottom board and you have a hit. Once the can of sardines is gone.... no more bait to entice another bear in. When ever a can is gone, they call it a hit.

Problem with this setup is if it pours rain no fresh scent. If sardines are hit first day, no way to entice another bear in.

This is how they judge the bears population within the Smokies in TN. Ontario copied the technique.

I noticed one day the tech was about to set these test baits out. Standing at the truck in shorts. Bugs were bad. As I stopped to talk to her she grabbed a can of bug spray and sprayed her legs and arms down. She had 2 other students with her. They cut a trail to each set with chain saws, put yellow and blue flagging tape every 10 feet. I talked to her about 2 weeks later and asked how her test baits were doing... she said not well. No hits. I told her mine were being wiped out. The way they set up and marked the trail had everyone stopping to see what the trail led to. All these people walking into a test site wasn't very helpful to the study.

About a month after I last talked to her I went into the OMNRF office and looked at the data she collected. I told the manager what I observed while talking to her earlier in the month.

This was how they calculated a bears population within an area.

They now were able to collect the bears hair off the wire for DNA tests. This way they were now able to see by DNA, how many different bears were actively in the general area of the bait. Along with sex of the Bear.

In my Far North BMA, when they set out their first test sites they set these big DANGER signs at the beginning of the road. BEWARE BEAR BAIT TEST SITES!! Scaring everyone that someone is out baiting bears... LOL.

They baited the same road network I had my baits set up on. About 3rd week of May I got a phone call. They asked if I would go into the OMNRF office and mark all my baits on a huge map. I did. They also asked me to send in the pre molars of any Bears shot within their test area to compare with DNA collected.

This time, beings they conducted the study right and collected DNA, their sites showed a healthy population of Bears in our BMA and all over the study areas. Now we have a Spring Bear hunt Forever!!! Okay not counting the China Virus years.

A hibernating animal does not move or give birth while in the dens. Bears breathe and have a heart beat, although decreased and nurse their cubs which are born in January. Bears are amazing animals.

The last couple of years I have manned all my sites with camera's. I have noticed many things with monitoring the sites constantly. Some sites all winter long, getting me pictures of other animals surviving the long winters.

Now, Bear's seem to roam late into the Fall season. Is it because of my "New" cam use or is it because the Bears are becoming more populated. Clients previously while manning deer stands never saw bears at the deer sites, now frequent sightings.

Bait Barrels are all getting emptied within 2 days. All hit with multiple bear's.

I spoiled this bear today with 1/2 bag of dry dog food coated with honey.