Darned Bears!

I use 4 trail cameras at different sites to determine deer activity and to see what kinds of bucks are in those areas. I’ve placed mineral blocks and erected feeders made of PVC pipe at each camera location to bring the deer into camera range. I installed the cameras in mid-April and just swapped out the cards and batteries this past weekend. I was surprised to discover a lot of bear activity at each site. In fact, one of my cameras was badly damaged by a bear and 2 others were nudged,

This is year 2 of my camera scouting. Although I had bears at my feeders last year, they left my cameras alone and only visited them in the spring and early summer. This year they have been there pretty consistently.

This weekend, I put more feed out thinking that the bears would have moved on, but nope they are back -at least to one site. I replaced the broken camera with a spypoint micro and have been getting daily shots of up to 5 bears - 2 very large ones and a sow with 2 yearling cubs - including a cinnamon one. I purposely raised this camera higher in the tree hoping that the bears will leave it alone. So far so good!

I have gotten photos of some nice bucks as well as does, fawns a moose, and a couple of wolves. I’ll post those in the trail cam thread soon. It’s a fun hobby with a lot of trial and error. Next time that I get to check them is when I go back for the deer hunt in mid-November. Hopefully my cameras are still intact.

sounds awesome. i havent been bear hunting but ive heard they will keep coming to check out your bait site every so often once they know its there. cant wait to see the pics :)

I also put up PVC deer feeders while bear hunting last fall and those darned bears ripped them off of the tree. They torn my ratchet straps off like they were string.
Plus they ate one of my Stealth Cams. Lesson learnt to take bait gloves off when setting up the trail cams and spray trial cams with scent control before leaving

I've lost two cameras to bears now. That was before I started hanging my camera at least 10 feet off the ground now. Stand on the seat of my quad or climb it lol. Maybe give that a try

Bears are seeing or hearing something with my cameras and they are curious. Camera was out for months untouched so I dont think it's a scent issue in my case but it very well could be for some.

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I wear rubber gloves when baiting and take them off when checking the cameras. I think if you don't....the smell of the bait from your hands onto the cameras will cause the bears to damage the cameras.

Some sound advice!

Active site. Need a Bear tag.
Whenever the farmer plants corn on my property the place is overrun with Bears. Seen up to 5 while turkey hunting. They are destructive creatures, tree stand, ground blind, trail cams all have war scars on them. Not fun sitting in ground blind till last light only to come back next morning to everything spread out all over the place. Once you gather everything up and fix blind to sit in, it’s pretty nerve racking waiting for first light. HaHa.

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Originally Posted by Bowjob

sounds awesome. i havent been bear hunting but ive heard they will keep coming to check out your bait site every so often once they know its there. cant wait to see the pics :)

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I’ve uploaded some sample photos in the trail camera gallery thread.

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Originally Posted by Sam Menard

I’ve uploaded some sample photos in the trail camera gallery thread.

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I took a look at a few, some nice bucks !

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