Minnesota Bear hunting

[Tripplebeards]

Start stocking up on your bakeries old, unsold, tossed out pastries and toss them in a chest freezer. Best bait on the planet.

[veeman]

I read somewhere, absolutely NO CHOCOLATE. Dunno if its true, but read it a few different places.

[megasupermagnum]

Really? For an animal that eats garbage, I can't imagine them being spooked off by chocolate.

[Tripplebeards]

They eat chocolate covered donuts, and snack cakes like they’re going out of style.

[veeman]

It supposedly will not digest well, making them very sick or death. I don't remember where I read it tho. I could be wrong. I was, once before, long time ago.

[veeman]

Is chocolate bad for bears?
Theobromine can, at high doses, be toxic to bears and other species. ... While baking chocolate is known to have high levels of theobromine, white chocolate and milk chocolate have low levels. “The bottom line is all types of chocolate can be toxic. It depends on how much they take in,” ,

[veeman]

Google is everyone's friend.
https://www.bucksbullsbears.com/2016...killing-bears/

[megasupermagnum]

Good, so I'll put out nothing but baking chocolate bars, and scent the area with cocoa powder. I won't have to waste a bullet.


What I get from that article is that the chocolate on pastries is rather harmless. At least it's good to know I should mix it with something else. Between donuts, fish, bacon grease, and anything else I find, I don't think bait will be my problem.

[Tripplebeards]

Ive used a spray bottle with liquid vanilla, spearmint, peppermint and or similar scents with luck. I’ve even mixed all together and sprayed. I sprayed it on a few saplings next to my bait pile and the little trees were rooted out of the ground. Must have ate them. Good smell attractant to get them to come in. Pouring grease around your bait will get on their paws making a good scent trail in the woods for more bear to find your bait. Dried out bread from the day old bread store with some $1 store maple syrup goes a long way as well.

[megasupermagnum]

In my case, I'm thinking the stink bait is going to be key. The no-quota area is no-quota for a reason, and I need to reach a LOOONG ways to draw anything in. I'm planning on a bunch of days old rotten fish carcass' and guts, and anything else I manage to kill, hung high in a tree. I've been saving bacon grease for a while now, I probably have about a quart of it. Have you ever tried deep fry oil? I've heard of guys taking that for free from the local fast food joint. That sounds like something that might leave a scent trail.

[Tripplebeards]

Oil yes, they love it. We can’t use bacon or any dead animals in WI...basically no meat. If you can legally do it dead beaver is the ticket so I hear. Can’t do honey burns here either which is also great.

[megasupermagnum]

There is no law saying we can't use meat for bait, however, we can't hunt beaver here. There is a trapping season, but it is over. Best I could do is luck out on roadkill. Speaking of which, I have my eye on a section of public land which is only accessible by boat. I'm hoping this means most people will overlook it, but still provide easy bait transport. I can pick up a deer carcass off the side of the road any day of the week. I wonder if that would be worth the hassle.

[Tripplebeards]

Only if you find bear tracks all over it. If there’s no or few Bear is not worth your time. I’ve learned in WI that I’d rather harvest a bear and not worry what size it is till I walk up to it. I’ve gotten decent size bears and have been lucky...but they seem to come into the bait all hours of the day here till season opens...then it’s a ghost town and or they go nocturnal. Kinda frustrating. Your best bet is the last couple minutes of daylight and sit farther than archery distances so they don’t smell you and off the ground so your scent blows over them. Last tine I checked here we could only use 2/5 of bait and no animal bi products. Also the bait set up had to be all natural...meaning no drums with a chain on it like Canada dose. We used and still use hollow logs buried flush in the ground filled to the brim with donuts. Then covered by a piece of plywood with a huge rock holding it in place to keep the raccoons out of it.