DELAY TACTICS
How to lure big black bear boars to your bait sites—and keep them there longer during legal light
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Spread around small food items such as birdseed, cracked corn and barley#2 GO SMALL
I started baiting bears the same way most hunters do, filling barrels with sweet, day-old pastries from local big-chain coffee shops mixed with fryer grease. It was stinky, messy stuff, but it certainly attracted bears. I soon discovered, however, that it took just one bear to completely clean me out of bait in mere hours, no matter how much debris and brush I piled up in front of the barrel. It’s actually uncanny how many day-old donuts a small, 150-pound bear can eat in just one sitting. That’s how I also learned big bears won’t come in during daylight hours unless they have a reason to, such as a barrel still full of stale donuts and grease.
What’s even more disturbing is how often the biggest bears that showed up on my trail cameras tended to visit my bait sites in the middle of the night. Then again, a boar weighing 400 pounds or more doesn’t get that way by being dumb his whole life. Indeed, I’ve noted that sometimes the biggest bears in the woods will completely avoid getting close to a bait barrel altogether if they can.
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The good news is, you can still lure big bears to your site, as well as keep them there longer. The trick is to also spread around small food items so the bears must stick around in order to finish eating. Birdseed, which bears generally regard as a high-reward item, is great for this. It’s cheap, and easily spread by hand. Just two bags will do it, but don’t dump it all in one spot, as that will defeat the purpose.
You can also spread around cracked corn, barley and malt used by breweries, which bears find delicious. Even better, mix all three together for the ultimate bear-enticing concoction. I’ll sometimes spread it around for 15 yards in all directions to expand the size of my bait site; all it takes is a couple of buckets. Bears typically don’t want to compete for food if they don’t have to, so expanding the size of your site with smaller bait items will help bring in multiple bears.