Newbie bear hunter dumb questions

[UNDBowhunter]

Thought you guys would like to see this on my camera...

[Boar]

That cool, beutiful color phase cinno, thsnk for sharing. Where abouts was that taken?

[bigbucks]

So how much fryer grease are you guys trying to get? I'm concerned we're not going to have enough. We've got 3 guys to bait & I don't think anybody's collected anything yet.

How much can you get from one restaurant & what's the drill? Do you need to take them buckets or do they have buckets of the stuff to get rid of anyway?

I'm the only one of us that I think has done any looking into this at all.

[jay83196]

I think everybody has different contacts etc I myself know a friend I get it from a restraunt I bring and fill my own buckets out of a big dumpster they put it in to get picked up. I go through 3-4 buckets myself a year, I would get on it myself not that much time left.

[HooknHorns]

A few years ago it rain 5 out of the 7 days we hunted and the amount of grease we went through i didnt think it was enough to keep the baits smelling good enough.

10 gallons to start the site and two five gallon buckets throughout the hunt if it rains alot. Might be overkill on a dry year.

[Boar]

Boy get on it double B, But i guesse its all in how a person uses it. I'm the exception to the norm i use probably over 200 gal. a season but i store my bait that way to. But i have 3 sites to bait an I grease up alot an I'd say about 2 gal per site per visit, with an average of at least 4 visits per week. But i soak a sak evertime an launch grease into the trees an brush, I'm over kill, but it works for me. My sites get so saturated that rain dont wash it away an when it gets warm like it dose end of august erly spet. I can smell my sites if the wind is right long before i get there.By mid sept. if I havent taged out I back off on the grease. Some resturaunts will have put in the plastic 5 gal container it came in which happend to me so its handy pick up an go, others like jay have the grease dumpster to bail it out of an that can be messy, at least it was for me, yuk. Becarefull on the grease dumpsters, I got permission form one an found out that they dump the grease AND the detergent to clean the fryeres into the same dumpster. Ya dont want that stuff. Any grease is better than none. Good luck.

[mrklean]

Had a buddy ask me this question but i didnt know he didnt get any bakery items for bear bait just some candies and frostings stuff that he bought will it be tough to bring in bears without bakery items? i had no idea but figured someone here would know better

[Boar]

I wouldnt woories so much about bringing bears in as much as keeping them coming back, frosting an candy will get eating up no prob, but your budy needs some staple bait, main course so to speak, doughts are great, granola trail mix type, heck you can go to a feed store an get a mollassas mix that works great. meat scrapes, (read the regs), breads soaked in grease or mollassas, ect. Gonn be pretty tough to hold a bear bear for two weeks on just frosting an candies especially with other baiters around. If he gets in a pinch an wants to take a road trip I got doughnuts, man do I got doughnuts....

[jay83196]

I agree with boar, I have found bears also have different taste at times for example meat or dog food has been great others it won't get touched. Donuts etc are usually one of best but I know people that don't use donuts and do well. Smell brings em in, keeping it full with variety of stuff keeps them coming in my opinion.

[mrklean]

Ha dog food huh would have never thought of that, ill let him know that, any other easy to get baits out there that might work like a dog food or mollass

[jay83196]

Popcorn works great too, can be fairly cheap, takes more time to pop it than anything.

[mrklean]

Plenty of movie theaters around to collect from could hopefully get him a good supply

[Boar]

Yeah there ya go, dog food an grease or mollasas pop corn micro wave a bag from a discount bin to dump for a goody. Iver even bought the alpo dog food in a can, a case for 10-12 bucks an one can per visit or at leaste wen they start hitting regularly. An like I say feed stores have a good variety of stuff to consider. Ol roy dog food like jay mentioned is golden. Some investment an he'll get a good variety. Popcorn for free for sure. spinkle a little liquid smoke on some dog food an its yummy time. Good luck to yur buddy.

[LindellProStaf]

Boar I just sent you a PM.

[WAG416]

PM sent boar

[Archerysniper]

Mr klean take that sugary stuff and mix it in with the dog food or I go to the mill and buy bulk bags of oats and throw the sugar and oats in a old cement mixer and your golden.

[BlackArrow1]

IMO 5 gallons of fryer grease goes a long way. Use it on your baits and some around the site. Good for popcorn and bread stuff. I posted this years past. If ya want a nice rug or mount careful how much of that stuff you spread. I had a nice big sow hitting. She rolled in the grease spread about. Her coat looked like hell on trail cam. All matted and greasy. Glad I didn't have a shot on that one. Thinking that no taxi is gonna try and work that stuff out. Just my 2 cents.

[bigbucks]

Okay these maybe stupid questions, but 2nd weekend I'm bear hunting by myself so:

What's the best way to hook a rope or cable to a bear to drag it without damaging the fur? (I'm planning on a shoulder mount.)

What should a guy hang it by to skin it out? (I'm assuming I don't want to slice it to slip a gambrel through, but don't really know.)

[jerkbait]

An otter sled works great for dragging them in or a small sled. I am no expert on the hanging and skinning. I laid mine on a table on its back and skinned it that way. I would like to hear some hanging ideas also.

[bigbucks]

Don't have an otter sled. Seems like I don't have any plastic sleds large enough other than my sled fish house, which would be too big & clumsy.

[Matt Breuer]

We've always hung them around the neck. Never affected the hide/rug IMO. We've done this with a ton of bears, and I've never been able to tell there was a rope present after the tanning was done...

[Boar]

I roll him up in a tarp like a borrito an tie off the ends an slides really nice too.

[bigbucks]

Okay now I have a question about burns. Can you only do that at a registered bait site or could you go setup somewhere new & do that? Obviously you'd be there when it's happening.

We only have two baits setup for two of us & don't really have the bait or the time to establish additional new sites. Thought about just doing a burn in a new are of the same several hundred acre woods, as our hits have been 100% nocturnal the last two weeks.

[Boar]

Yea pretty sure if ya do one becareful as dry as it is maybe check with ur local fire warden first. If you done clear a large area around urburner down to dirt, dont use bacon with the dry conditons grease catches fire i'd use honey. Good luck becarefull. I dont even wanna advise it as dry as it is.

[CANOPY SAM]

BigBucks. It is my understanding that you can do a burn pretty much anywhere within your designated hunting zone. As technically you aren't hunting over, or maintaining a bait pile, or continually feeding animals in anyway, so the DNR would not need to check your station.

Doing random burns can be a very effective way to quickly find a bear, and bring em' in close for a shot, but it's not nearly as high a percentage as hunting over an established bait station. When doing an exploratory random burn you also have the cards stacked against you in terms of 1) well concealed stand location, and 2) open shooting lanes if and when someone shows up.

Up in your neck of the woods I don't imagine it's nearly as dry as we are here in NW MN. Boar is correct though. If you're going to do a burn make sure to clear out more than ample space in the undergrowth and forest floor. These little homemade burners have been known to burst into flames, start bigger fires, and even burn folks pretty bad trying to put em' out!

Bacon (or bacon grease) is probably the most fragrant and affective thing to "burn", but it's also the most flammable, and has to be done carefully. Fruit jams or jellies work well, and burn slowly. I liked the post earlier about a burn in the BWCA with marshmallows and cherry koolaid. Likely a nice fruity/sweet smelling burn, and easy to do. I like spraying concentrated black cherry koolaid all over a site before doing a burn. For some reason, I don't know why, it seems like that smell kind of belongs in the woods, and bear seem to dig it as much as I do?

Good luck to ya', BigBucks, and be careful.