Deer Stand Overrun by Black Bears

As the title says - for the last three weeks I've had no picture of deer on my trail camera coming to my whole corn feeder. However, I have quite a number of pictures of black bear. There appears to be a large boar, and a tall, long legged "skinny" sow with three cubs in tow.

All hours of the early evening, night, and morning. Hell, the coons aren't even showing up on camera anymore.

This early in the year, what everyone suggest? Should I just keep my stand where it is (I am hunting bear this year as well) and shoot some bear then hope for deer, or should I move to another location with less bear?

Hmmm a bird in the hand.......I'm thinking bear license get out start the season sooner

Deer and bears will walk the same path.

One guy at the camp told us that if we baited bear the deer would not even show up in the same county. That was one of the dumbest things I ever heard. We had bears coming in and knocking over the barrel with deer walking in the bear tracks within an hour of the bear.

Go out and get your bear, but by November they will most likely be pretty sleepy and may be filled up by then.

Good luck

Well it sounds like you have a very active bear bait at the moment!

I'm thinking the most likely thing that's going on is that the does in your area have some nice yummy fawns in tow and want to stay the heck away from bears right now.

And I'm thinking maybe bucks don't want to be around your bait due to the amount of bears or they're finding better natural food sources.

My experience has been that deer will stay away from corn this time of year because it's too hot a food for their digestive system. If you don't want the bears around let the bait go dormant and not feed the area til later on.

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Originally Posted by Bo D

My experience has been that deer will stay away from corn this time of year because it's too hot a food for their digestive system. If you don't want the bears around let the bait go dormant and not feed the area til later on.

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Exactly what I was going to suggest. X2

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Originally Posted by TurkeyRookie

Exactly what I was going to suggest. X2

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Sounds like I'll let it go dormant for a couple months and hunt it during bear season, then once October rolls around I'll start tossing the food out again.

Funny thing is, I was getting plenty of deer pictures there a month or two ago, then they stopped and it was nothing but coons (heavy) for a week, then the bears rolled in and stopped the party.

First year having a camera is really neat to see this kind of stuff going on. Sure, you can hunt without a camera - but it adds another level of excitement to things.

If you want to shoot a bear off it I would continue to bait, you are only a month away from the season, just keep it up.

The deer wanted energy when the long winter ended, before the main browse became available. They will be back, but if you want a bear just keep things going as you have, just make sure you drop that boar, the cubs if this years will most likely not survive the first winter alone.

Keep it baited til Sept. Wack a bear or two then let it go dormant.

HA

My experience with the same thing happening is the Bear will F off when the acorns start dropping and likely wont be back. The same thing happens to me almost every year when I start putting out COB for the deer.

Watch the feeder though if the bear can reach it sure as it will be dysfunctional when they are done with it.