Our crew had a fun spring playing with bears, we eventually went 4/4 and learned a ton. I've been messing with them the most and have really enjoyed the hunt probably more than the kill. I didn't think I'd like baiting this much, but its a blast. I may even try to figure out how to do it in WA in the spring, just to watch bears on camera and figure out what is in the area (I don't think thats illegal?).
Rough Summary of the Season, all in the Idaho Panhandle:
Early May - The "town spot" or the area closer to town is the only place open/free of snow, I buy some barrels from Eagle Peak Containers and try some different designs. I'm able to get to our "Old Elk Spot" by driving the long way around, but that takes what should be a 45 min drive and turns it into a 1.5 hour drive, each way. The closer drive is blocked by snow until late May. Baits were primarily sweet cob, dogfood, maple syrup and kool-aid. There's a reason you see so many barrels with giant holes in them, they work and are easy. After many barrel designs I just settled on big rectangular holes. I cut an "X" with the grinder and pound them in. Also, I learned that for the chain holes, you really want those to go into the barrel and out the lid, the bit of reinforcement on the barrel lip keeps it from tearing as the bears get rough with it. The #1 town spot gets hit the first night with sow and cubs, next night by a small boar, a week later by a cinnamon, who comes in irregularly. I set up a stand to shoot the small boar (guessing) who comes in with a regular routine. I get a shot on him with my bow and hit him high, complete pass through. I look that night and the next morning, the next afternoon he's back on camera, seemingly healthy. Wow they're tough. I've spent countless hours continuing to try to hunt him, he's going to live to 20 years old now as he's the smartest bear on the mountain. He'll come in, but when I draw he hears me and bolts. He's a super aware bear now.
Early June - Our "new elk area" is probably open so we take a scouting trip up, along with baits and a couple barrels. Still some snow and places we want to go that we cannot, but we get some baits out, 1.5 Weeks before our big 4 day weekend hunt. MORELS ARE EVERYWHERE. I bet we picked 10 lbs of morels without trying. Its a big area with few people, but we did run into TWO other bait sites, one active and one inactive. I guess we all pick similar locations, who knew?
Mid June - After a 1 week soak, we go check all the baits in our "new elk area" and find that we can access places that the snow had previously blocked, great news. Only one of our 5 sites down there is hit and the bear is the size of a suitcase. We move some baits around to the original areas we'd wanted to go before we realized snow was a problem. My buddy arrives with lots of bacon grease and fry oil, which is hard to come by in North Idaho this time of year. I also get some new barrels (instead of ground baits) and try a new, SUPER SIMPLE design, since the lids on these aren't removable. Giant square hole up high, for both filling and feeding. This is my new favorite design. Also, they had some oil residue in them, so I threw a little gasoline, a little syrup and a little fry oil in the drum and lit it up. Who needs to spray paint! Turned those red barrels a real rustic charred color. They only will have a 3-4 day soak before we come back for our hunt. Not enough time, but we were in a hurry!
Later Mid June - We had a 4 day weekend planned. Original bait in our new elk spot was still getting hit by the tiny bear. We decided that since we all can buy two tags, that we'd put the newbie out there. It was his first time to the new elk spot and first time bear hunting, so my buddy took him into the spot and had planned to drop him off and come back and hunt spot/stalk with me. It was nice and quiet after a good rain and they walked in on two bears feeding, that we'd never had on camera and were able to get both! Boar and a sow, bigger than the suitcase bear we'd seen, but generally average bears. Boar was very pretty. Spent the next 3 days checking our sites, drinking beer, picking morels, did bump a sow with 1.5 year old cubs who had a fun time huffing at us as those blonde cubs hid in trees. Saw a few elk with new calves, all that good stuff, but bears were pretty weak. Last day as we're getting ready to pull out, 3 of our 5 sites get hit overnight. We decided to pull overtime and hunt til dark. No luck for either of us, but clearly things are perking up. We left the baits as I'd planned to go back in a week or two.
Late June - My uncle couldn't make the earlier hunt and wanted to shoot his first bear, my aunt didn't want to be left at home so she came too. We ended up with 3 baits that were left, the 3 that got hit. We had the "good finger", the "broken camper" and "double barrel". They'd all been COMPLETELY WIPED OUT. Barrels ripped off of the chains, totally empty, every camera (I started buying cheap cameras because I got tired of spending more on camera security than cameras) had been ripped off the trees by the bears. Each camera was up for different amounts of times, but the "good finger" had a young blonde and a BIG sow with 3 1.5 year old cubs, the "broken camper" had something like 4 unique bears on it, the biggest being a slender but large black one (couldn't tell boar or sow on that) and then several smaller "normal" bears in a variety of colors. My favorite bear was on "double barrel", and I had hoped to run into her since the previous weekend, but no other bears. My uncle goes in for the afternoon hunt, only has to sit two hours and my aunt spots a bear coming in. Wham, his first ever bear down. I come help him out and we celebrate. Next morning I get up early to sit "double barrel", not a huge bear on camera there, but biggest that we had. I wanted it. Sat 6 hours, read half a book, nothing. Went back for lunch and my uncle bought a second tag that morning and had sat for 2 more hours before lunch. We broke camp, ate, went back out. "Broken Camper" got hit AGAIN while we were eating lunch, which we discovered after we both returned to stands after lunch. My bear showed up about 4:00pm to my delight and I made a pretty cool shot on her that was captured by the trail cam video
End of Spring Season - In one area spring season ends June 30, in the other July 30 (hints for anyone paying close attention). For my marriage, my season ends with the earlier season. The "town spot" has cell coverage, so I get constant updates throughout the workday, reminding me that I should be hunting. The small bear I hit there is still coming in daily, and he's crazy smart. I've been 15 yards from him twice and just cant seal the deal. I think he's earned time to grow at this point. I will say that patterns have changed significantly, and today, a REAL good bear just showed up on the town cam. I've got two days left, but I'm a little tuckered from this weekend and its hotter than h_ll outside.
Learnings -
1) Paint Barrels with fire, not paint, if you even want to paint them
2) Apparently we all target the same areas for bears, even when you're new at it
3) Too many rednecks in one spot puts a scarcity on otherwise invaluable wasted food items
4) Related to #3, baiting bears is expensive and addicting
5) Snow is the real challenge, find spots that have roads that open up early
6) K.I.S.S. on barrel design, one big hole is just fine for most casual applications, they're easier to fill and do the job just fine.
7) Bears are crazy smart, oddly quiet (quieter than in western wa, maybe because no blackberry bushes?) and a weird combination of predictable and unpredictable.
There's probably a way to reliably bait big bears, that said, I only have 1 big bear on camera, was he hitting someone else's bait?
9) You have to use whats available to you for bait, but my favorite mix at the end was 55 lb sacks of molasses cob from North 40 for $13.99, 50 lb sacks of dog food from Walmart for $19.85, Walmart Pancake Syrup for $1.86/20oz, Kool Aid Powder - $6/3lb or so.
10) I used to think baiting was kind of cheating. Its not, its hard, its a ton of work, even once you get bears coming that you like, killing them is also hard. Even so, its a blast. I think I have more fun setting baits and checking cams than I do pulling the trigger.
11) Watching bears on video is so fun, they do a lot of crazy things.
12) Summary: 4 bears, hundreds spent on bait, two people got their first bears ever, I got pretty good at cleaning them, I think i'm better at judging size now, I do think these north idaho bears are smaller on average than western wa bears, but thats just speculation, there's no spring berries in North Idaho, not sure what these guys eat without bait, other than grass.
I'll post photos, but first, watch this video until the end!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1l39H-qt1p1VIZW4S8l_DDc9A8NhXp7ss/view?usp=sharing
