spring bear 2024

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Originally Posted by Pioneerfreq

What has worked for me (in no particular order). Some of these are from Dr. Ken Nordberg and others are from experience:
Refresh your bait between 11:00 am and 1:00 PM only.
Never hunt in the morning.
When you plan to hunt, go in at 1:00 PM and plan for a long sit.
If at all possible go in with another person on hunt day. They refresh the bait and you stay in the blind (2 men in, one man out).
Never walk from your bait directly to your blind or vice versa.
Set up your blind a week before you plan to hunt.
Leave one of your stinky work shirts in the blind.
Never have food in your blind.
NEVER go to your blind after baiting.
If you have a trail camera, always deal with the camera before you bait.

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A lot of good advice there.

We tried spring bear hunting a few years back and got ate alive by black flies so fall hunt it is for us. I do admire folks that endure the spring conditions

one word THERMOCELL

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Originally Posted by bellerivercrossbowhunter

I hear ya dragging bears is a chore! If I were bear hunting solo I would quarter it up gutless and pack it out. Your body will thankyou for that... ��

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That's the way I do it. I butcher myself anyway, so doing a good chunk of it in the bush takes a little longer as your working on the ground, but not that much and it needs to be done anyway. Also don't have to drag the scraps back into the bush to dispose of them.

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Originally Posted by sabmgb

one word THERMOCELL

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X2 on that. Thermacell is life saver

I took my daughter and her boyfriend to an outfitter near Timmins about 3 years ago. It was her graduation present. We didn’t go into the stand until 4:00 PM. The outfitter would freshen up the bait while we were climbing into the 20’ high tree stands. We would attach out harnesses, light our Thermocells and get ready for a long sit. They baited with popcorn inside of a large blue drum with a small hole in the side. The popcorn was flavoured with strawberry syrup like the stuff you’d use on a snowcone. He then spread the blueberry version of the syrup around the bait. The blue drum was chained to a tree.
The bears would come in between 7:00 & 8:00 PM. They would pick us up from our stands between 9:30 and 10:30 PM. It doesn’t get dark until close to 10:00 PM there at the beginning of June. They had cameras on the baits. There was a large boar coming to my stand at 6:00 AM so I never got a chance at him. I passed up a sow one night only to take a slightly smaller boar the next. My daughter got hers the night before as did her boyfriend. He had 4 bears hanging around his stand for 3 nights until he finally shot one. He took movies of them with his Go Pro one night. After he shot his the other 3 circled his stand until we got there with the outfitter who fired a couple of shot over their heads with his Remington 911 to disperse them..
He had an old commercial popcorn maker he used to make the bait. I prefer spring bear to fall bear (I’ve had both) as the spring bear has no fat.
I hope there is some information in this that can help somebody.

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Originally Posted by newbiehunter

X2 on that. Thermacell is life saver

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I tried it but didn't seem to work on the black flies

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Originally Posted by huntnmachine

We tried spring bear hunting a few years back and got ate alive by black flies so fall hunt it is for us. I do admire folks that endure the spring conditions

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I wear a full bug suit while spring bear hunting and run the ThermaCell. Bugs buzz around me but can't get to my skin... :)

Baiting begins this weekend! :)

Going to be buggy!!!!!!!!! :(

Good luck!