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I hiked about 10 miles of bear woods in the mountains of NH the past couple days. Ended up setting up a tree with a set of sticks overlooking my future bait site where I'll hang from my saddle. It's an area off an old logging road where multiple overgrown skidder trails all intersect, bear and moose sign was hot! It's loaded with blackberries that should be ready to ripen around the bear opener, so I'm hopeful it's an area the bears will want to be even before my bait goes out. I'll prep my second site in the next couple weeks.

Who else is chasing bears next month? Where are you hunting?

HFSC, your spot sounds amazing. Hope things shake out for you! Looking forward to your reports!

I'm pretty pumped about this spot, Will. One of those spots that just gives you the chills because the potential seems so high.

Or, batting occasionally in the area to keep them "guessing" ( happy and fat but still searching in the area) and then a short break (the required 10 days) from baiting, before the season, until introducing an original new smell that brings them in to check it out. Keep it seemingly random until it is not. Then its too late.

Seems that the natural scavaging / foraging is better supplemented in a random way until it is time to hunt , That way they won't be able to associate a human smell or our path /pattern. But I don't know much about the bear's brain. Just instinct talking here.

I think I would chuck bait bags randomly in the previous months and then drop one close by as the time to hunt closes in. Then the fake food smell at the last moment.

Brad, I'm going to keep the barrels at my camp and bring the bait out in installments as needed.

Tekoa

Just sayin :)

Unless you are a lazy bear hunter like me, and would go for the heck of it, or maybe shoot one for bycatch so to speak during deer season - ha ha ha :)

That said, slow cooker sweet and sour bear is, to this day, probably 25-30 years later, the best tasting wild game I've ever had.

Nice looking bait site, Moons! I gotta say I was a little jealous when I saw all your barrels loaded up on your atv. I got 2 baits all squared away in NH on Saturday. Hiked bait a mile in at both sites, from 5:45am - 4:30pm. Pretty grueling day, but I think they are the two best baits I've ever set, I'm hoping to find them pounded when I go up to re-bait on Thursday.

It reminds me of the guy who posted/suggested packing a grinder in your pack,.. LOL

Moons, you might try contacting your local conservation officer, I bet there is a good chance he'd let you move it if it's not getting hit. I've spoken with the guy in my zone, e2, a few times. He's super down to earth and really willing to help guys out. Baits bears every year himself. Also, did your season get extended this year? My zone is open all the way to October 5th.

I won't be back in NH until next week to rebait, then hopefully in a tree Thursday and/or Friday depending on work and wind direction.

Well at least the bear did a #2 at spot 2!

Just got back from rebaiting. Ran into a guy who said he and a few of his buddies saw over 12 bears from their stands last night. My baits were totally cleaned out again. I've got two sd cards burning a hole in my pocket, but can't check them until late tonight after work.

I got into the tree around 12:30 yesterday afternoon, by the way this was also my first hunt in the saddle. This particular bait was the one I had mentioned earlier in the thread, that was directly at the intersection of some old skidder trails and had become overgrown by thick nasty black berry bushes. It had activity at all times throughout daylight hours, leading me to believe multiple bears could be bedding with in sight or smell of the bait. I got into the tree very quietly, approaching in a way that would blow my scent away from the area I though most likely for a bear to look after the bait.

When I was finally situated I noticed a bear had drug the barrel off and out of sight. There was still some bait on the ground, but appeared it had been soaked from the previous nights rain. My confidence dropped at that point, but I kept trying to remember there were bears here every single day, in day light hours, since September 2nd. Five and half hours later, I had seen nothing but squirrels, chipmunks and birds. Finally, at 6pm, I heard a blue jay let out it's alert call directly down wind of me. I heard some faint rustling of leaves and branches snapping slowly circling my perimeter for the next 30 minutes or so. At about 6:45, as closing time was approaching, he finally committed and sauntered toward the bait. The wind was not good, it had shifted directly towards the bait. When he was about 18 yards from me he turned toward me, slightly quartering to, and definitely smelling my wind at this point, but it was too late. My pin had settled tight to his left shoulder on account of the slight quartering to angle and I let the arrow fly. The arrow hit probably an inch or two more forward than I wanted, but the 564 grain arrow broke through his left shoulder blade, got both lungs and buried in the ground behind the bear. He stumbled 20 yards and died within sight.

I had it skinned, quartered and hung in game bags by 10:30. With temps dropping into the upper 40's I saw no reason to break my back lugging meat out in the dark. I packed it out this morning as the sun was coming up over the mountains. If that ain't living the dream I'm not sure what is!

I estimated the bear to be between 125-150#, although when I first saw him walk underneath me I thought for sure he was well in excess of 200#. They will definitely fool you. The conservation officer thought 125-150 was a reasonable estimate based on the size of his head. He took a tooth to be sent to a state lab, they then publish the ages of all the bears killed when the annual harvest report is released.

Will, I'm itching to get after deer now, but I'll welcome a few weeks of just going to work.

let's see if I can get this pic upright

That’s a wrap on the baiting season in my zone in nh. Didn’t get one, but I’d call it a success. Last year was the first year I did a site. No bears came. This year I had 4 different bears just couldn’t kill one!! I tell ya this stuff is so much fun! If you haven’t tried it you got to