Welcome to the Bear Hunting magazine Hunt Cash with me Kobe Morehead. We're gonna nerd out on bears hunting and the outdoors. We'll tell stories, talk biology, tactics, gear, and the fight to protect the pursuits that we hold dear, So grab your bino's, lace up your boots, load up your barrels, and gather the hounds as we venture on this journey together. Welcome to the podcast. It is that time again. It's time to go after some bears over
bait in Arkansas. The season here starts up next Wednesday, and I am here for it. Today we're gonna stay on the topic of baiting bears with some of the So today we're joined by three outfitters out of Bear Hunting Magazine that either I have hunted with or my buddies David McDaniels and Brent Reeves is hunted with. And we're gonna guard the gate here by showing that there's
no one correct way to bait bears. These outfitters are only separated out by a few hours combined, and they all have different ways that they bait bears, and they get some biggins. That's right, Biggins with two g's. I think you're gonna get a lot out of this episode and to help guard the gate spread that type of word that no one has the one correct way for
all bears. Bears do bear things, and that's one of the things that I like to say regularly, just to say that bears are very individual in nature and they have preferences. For instance, in southern Arkansas, bears won't touch sweets. They will only hammer the coin.
Yep.
Learn that from Omyran means from previous episodes. Anyways, let's get into it. I think you're going to enjoy this one. So Todd, tell me about Baldy Mountain, some of the history and just what things have been like since you took over.
Yeah, Baldy Mountain Outfitters. Well, I ended up purchasing it off of Tom and Debbie Ainsworth, which was Grand View Outfitters. He'd been running it for oh man, it was close to thirty five years when I took over, and I took over in twenty seventeen, so it's been whatever whatever the math is on that, I.
Think eight nine years.
Yeah, but I mean yeah, like I've been I had been guiding, you know, I've been eighteen I've been all over in the industry, like from Manitoba, did a bit of guy in Saskatchewan and out in BC.
Did you know different species and stuff, you know.
At a young age there too, I knew, man, this is what I wanted to really get into. So I just you know, kind of always would look around and then all of a sudden and then I heard about Tom wanting to sell This is something that I'm really interested in because you know, it's it's just been a primary there. The genetics are just phenomenal there. You get the color phase, you know, big trophy bears. I wanted to get into something that was like top notch, something unique,
not just an average outfit. And then too, you know, just be able to offer really high quality times with harvesting high quality bears. I talked to my wife and said, hey, like this kind of checks all the checkboxes, yeah or yeah, are we up for this? And she was like okay, so yeah, we just jumped into it. And it's been quite a right, I've been a ton of work. I've just been blown away, like every year, just the bears that we keep harvesting, the quality, the color phase, like
it's just crazy. I mean this year too, we took our biggest bear on the skull. If I could have measured the lower jaw, he would have been over twenty two inches, which yeah for black bears, like that's that's just crazy. Yeah.
Yeah, let's go ahead and talk about what you think of or what you're looking for whenever you go to start a bait.
Yeah. Well, I mean the nice thing is especially in the ducks there, it's such a phenomenal area for bears. So really, I mean, you set up a bait, you know, kind of anywhere, and you are going to get some matching at some point. But key things, you know, what I look for is kind of you know, just kind of pinch points with the topography a bit, but also too, I know earlier I've been like, oh, you know, I got to keep my baits like X amount of miles away or you know that way you're not like too close.
But as I've been doing this more or like, you know, when I set up baits, I'm realizing you don't always necessarily need to be miles away. You can even be you know, a mile away or three quarter mile. But then what I kind of call it is doing cluster baiting. So say you run like three baits that are kind of in a I don't know, say a two mile three mile radius, Then what I do is I'll put
hunters on all three of those baits. You may not get the volume you would like as if on one bait, but the thing is, especially for going for bigger bears, you're taking that pressure off and then that way you can kind of bounce around to those baits, you know, the big thing keeping your your hunting pressure to a minimal. I find in my area going back to like starting a bait, just being patient, you put work into it.
What I've found too is I mean I had a bait last year finally it took off, and I've been baiting for about three or four years. But baiting too, you've got to think of it as an investment, just because you don't get a whole lot of action right aways. Sometimes you know you've got to give it a couple of years, but you know, you just keep baiting it.
And like that one bait that I had this year, like I'd been baity and Badia and you know, I'd get a couple of bears in there and nothing special, and then all of a sudden this year, like it just took off and we actually harvested a booner off there with a thirteen year old kid with a cross, So it was pretty awesome. Just because a spot it doesn't take off radaways. Sometimes you got to give it
a bit of time. Other times, you know, if it's just not produce and then yeah, sometimes you just got to pull the plug and try some go somewhere else.
Yeah awesome, I know the answer, But tell us what you bait with.
Primarily I'd bait with corn and basically friar oil. This year I got a home blackload of honey, so was throwing some honey out there too. My go to up in our area there is corn. Other things definitely work, you know when you're outfitting. The corn is just super efficient for me. And what I've been finding too is like using corn, say like over oats. It's in my area, it's definitely night and day effer like you put corn where you put oats and corn, and they won't even
touch the oats, like they just nihilate the corn. And the nice thing what I really like about the corn too is the corn can get wet and they'll still eat it, or it gets on the ground. Everything gets like just vacuumed up like it's just gone. So it's yeah, it just works. It's been working really good for us. And and then I can always I like to advertise and kind of joke about it. Then we say, oh, yeah, we got corn fed bears.
Come up, so I like it. Now, what happens if corn goes sour.
Well, if the corn goes sour, it works really good. But you have a window of time before it gets too rotten. They usually have like stashes of barrels at the bait site and then I've had you know, bears also rip them off and then they end up in a swamp and then I don't get to until, you know, a couple of weeks later it's been sitting in the sun and then they're starting to ferment. But as long as I catch it in time, I opened that barrel up and I just dump it on the ground and
just the aroma off it of the fermenting. I've had that at some baits and they just clean it up.
Yeah, awesome. I want to try that sometimes just to see. Growing up, we did that with hogs when we were baiting traps and stuff, and man, it just pulled him in. Yeah, so maybe we'll get a hog of a bruin on it. Well, do you have a favorite go to bear story? Oh man, I got lots, I know, what's your what's your favorite? Well this spring, like with that that really big one.
That was pretty special this spring because I've been chasing that guy, oh man, i'd say for at least four or five years and just had him on camera a lot, and you know, he was very distinct. He had he was just nice for black muzzle and then he had like just this nice chevron on his chest there too, white patch. And yeah, it was crazy because I've you know, I've been having pictures of him in that one area there and that that was you know, kind of a
bit of an example of a cluster bating. What happened that night was we were hunting three baits that were probably like, yeah, kind of two miles apart from each other, and put a guy back in there. And he hunted with me last year and never he did not ended up not shooting anything last year because you know, he was looking for something really special and then all of a sudden, this guy came out.
I think it was like day two or day three.
And yeah, he just came out and it was a no brainer, and the guy just yeah, he gave him the news with a forty five seventy and you know, just shot him perfect. And then when I came in and to or to get or whatever just coming into the bear, oh man, Like I was just I think I was more excited than what he was like, you know, at first or when I actually saw the bear, because I came in there and he's like, you know, it's like, okay, tell me a story. What happened? And he's like, oh, yeah,
you know, it's a good one. And I'm like okay, yeah, yeah, well let's go check it out. Because sometimes guys say that and kind of you knows it's a one hand or that, you know. But yeah, Also I walked up on this guy and I was just like, oh my goodness, I'm like that's that's a good one, and then rolled him over and then started looking at him more and I was just like Mark, I was like this, I was like you I got history with this guy, and yeah,
it was just awesome, awesome team. So so sorry that's not too much of a natural exciting.
Bear story, but well it's exciting when you have so much history with one. Yeah, you know, to finally lay hands on it.
It's it's kind of a bit of a bittersweet too, like when when you end up harvesting a guy like that too. But I mean the really cool thing about it too is you know, looking at his teeth and everything, like he was old, Like I don't know how much more. I mean, he might have had one more winter in him, but yeah, he was up in the four eighty four, ninety he was just he was under fives, but just yeah.
Yeah. And the crazy thing is is I mean you you only do spring hunts, so I mean that's a you know, four ninety class bear in the spring. Yeah, and uh it's pretty well yeah cool.
Well thanks Todd, Yeah, well thanks a lot too, Coolby it's always uh always good chatting with you too.
Yeah.
All right.
That was Todd Waldemo with Baldy Mountain Outfitting, and next we're moving to rich Garrez from Eastern Sky Guiding. Now, both of these outfitters I've hunted with, and there's some similarities and there's some things that they do differently, but both of them got the bear. I mean, I've seen big bears and colored bears with both of these guys and had just some phenomenal sits. You would remember Rich from episode eighteen where we were recapping my recent hunt
with those guys up in Saskatchewan. Well, we recorded a section just pretty much strictly about baiting. So let's hear what Rich had to say. And I will say that Todd talking about cluster bating, that's something that's going to be rolling around in my mind for a while. I could see that working really well, especially with larger pieces of property or parcels that you have access to that are closer together, or in a larger hunting club. Let's see what Rich has to say.
Here's Rich.
I really liked hearing your progression of how you baited, so I'd like to talk about your bait theory and your the evolution of your bait baiting strategies.
Yeah, like when we when I first started bating, I used what I what I could get my hands on. We started with meat scraps and oats. We always had oats around, cooking oil we could pick up, you know, So that was that was the thing I could do affordably and have access to it, you know, readily. But and it worked. It worked really good, especially in the
beginning of the season. What we did find is, as you know, as the season went on and you got into your lush grass, dandelions started popping out, you could tell they were backing off on it. They were pulling the oats out, picking at the meat scraps, you know, that's what they wanted. But the oats wasn't a big thing at that point. And I think it's just because they had they had more choices, right, they had they had all this lush grass, they had alfalfa, they had dandelions.
So and we still will use some of the oats and meat scraps in the beginning if we have a source. As it gets later on and the competition gets higher, we've found it's made a huge difference. They want it more than they desire the green grass. If you can keep switching it up and keep bettering it, it just it helps. It comes down to affordability and access. Yeah, So if if you can, if you have access to it affordably, then I mean, everybody everybody's different.
You know, And you use the grease barrel kind of like I do corn, where the bears always have something there even when the other runs out.
Yeah.
One thing I've seen hunting and stands mainly up here in Canada. I haven't seen anyone do this down south, but those grease barrows sometimes they're highly preferred over the the other bears. Like they'll go and eat whatever the bait is, but they will stay glued sometimes to those grease burrows.
Yeah, and it and it really helps attract more bears as well, because they get it on them and they're wherever they go there, Yeah.
Track those ponds out. Yeah, And I wonder if it helps their coat at all. Like I notice, I don't know if it was just like the fall, but a lot of the bears. Most of the bears had slick coats that I saw.
Yeah.
I wonder if if it has anything to do with that grease. Like with dogs at your house, like you always heard that if you feed them some eggs regularly let their it'll slick their coats up. Yeah, And so I wonder if that has anything to do with it.
It's possible. I don't for sure. I definitely know they do not get constipated when they eat it.
One bear proved that to me in front of the stand last night. Oh, that's good. That's good, all right. That was some good stuff from Rich. And at some point we're gonna have to get his wife, Marla on here. Marla's awesome and she is a bear hunter. She's gotten one of the biggest color phase bears I've ever seen. If you ever go up there, you'll have to check out the main house. They have some really incredible bears
that they've taken over the years. So now we're gonna move over to We're gonna talk to Craig and Melanie McCarthy from North Mountain Adventures there in Southwest Manitoba. Now I haven't hunted with Craig and mel but my good buddy David McDaniels and Print Reeves have both hunted there. David has been there the last two years and had two excellent experiences. But it seems like between the two
of them, they're stuck on chocolate bears. Anyways, let's get over to them and see what they have to share with the So let's just start with talking about North Mountain Adventure.
All right.
So North Mounta Adventures, it's kind of a complex thing at this point. We started out as I don't fitting business back in twenty fourteen, and it was really just a small family operation for American bear hunters, and it took a big turn in twenty twenty, ironically, in middle of the global pause, we took a backseat and kind of evaluated things a little bit and decided to change our cabins that we used for hunters into a rental situation.
So that was a big shift for us. So we now have four season cabins that that we rent out to guests, and we also, I should say I also supported Craig's dream. It was really Craig's dream to pursue videoing his hunting adventures, and that has evolved significantly since its inception, and probably best if I let him speak to that. Yeah, when we found out that nobody could cross the border, that wasn't going to stop me from going out in the woods.
So I had a buddy over and we decided that we wanted to start filming some stuff. So we made two YouTube videos. I believe one was an el hunt and one of the local Canadian broadcasters got a hold of it somehow really liked it, called us up and asked us if they could use it in their on their channel, and then that turned into more talks and we ended up signing with them and we're working on season four now.
Yeah, so it's been it's been kind of a cool adventure, like Craig said, working on season four content now, Season three is still airing on on Wild TV and is now uploading on a weekly basis to carbon Tv, which is super cool for our American following. So now it's it's even more accessible. You can you can see it on the Wild tv Plus app globally, so that's still an option. But Carbon TV really opens the doors for our American followers to to be a viewer as well.
A lot of people would see a familiar face, our buddy, Oh, Brent Reeves came up there this year, right, that's right.
Brent will definitely be part of our spring guiding show, that's for certain. He was an absolute blast abbot Camp. Obviously, if you've hung up with Brent for any part of time, he keeps a smile on your face most of the time.
Yeah, and he always makes his case.
That's correct. That's it.
It's a joke about knives.
Guys, I say the same thing or not, but I thought, yeah, there's a.
Good plug for his name.
Yeah, you guys, as far as outfitting, you pretty much are strictly bear.
Yeah. We we have nineteen foreign resident bear tags, but we also have twelve foreign resident deer tags. Six are for one area and six we just got in a new area, and so we're actually gonna hunt that new area this year.
We awesome. Okay, Well let's shift gears and let's talk talk about bait placement. How you started up and then what you bait with.
My bait place. When I first started up, I pretty much went on, we have a in Canada. Before Onyx got here, we have an eye hunter app. So obviously I scanned all areas and look for quarters, just like when you're looking for deer, high ridges in between swamps, any kind of places where you think animals would normally run. That's where I would try and make a site, and I wouldn't make it ready to go to, ready to hunt. I would just put barrels and start baiting and just
see what kind of activity you could get. And believe it or not, sometimes moving a barrel five hundred yards actually makes a big difference. But on that that's kind of how I picked my spots. And if I moved a few, and now we got we're probably close to twenty five bait sites situated and they're all they've been pretty active for the last years. So on that we
mostly used for bait is oats and used grease. In the past four years, I've been putting Northwoods bear products gold rush in my grease, which helps a lot for sure. It definitely gets the scent out better. I find in the spring using the oats and the grease for sustenance, and then I chop up beavers and in the spring that's the first thing they go for is beavers and damn beaver. They sell a wax milt honey. It's like
a burnt honey in jugs. So putting that all over top of the barrel and throwing it around on the trees it sticks to it is really good scent also, and I find in the fall they're a little bit finnick here, so treats a little bit sweeter. Still put the oats in the grease, but they'll go after the treats a little more in the fall, I find more than they go after the beaver.
Okay, And what kind of treats do you typically ken on?
Doughnuts, honey, yeah, and anything that's expired from the stores that you can get that's got any kind of sweetness to them. That seems to work pretty good.
Okay. How long do you give a bait before you decide to move it?
I typically give it a full season, So give it the full season, baited in the spring, baited in the fall, and start at the next spring, and if it's still not hitting the way that I think it should hit, I'll move it. But you should know after the spring and then into the fall. How many you know, if you're getting three or four or five bears moving in there on your trail cam, then you know you're probably
in the right vicinity. If you're only getting one bear and it's a small bear, obviously you're not quite in the right spot.
Awesome.
What's your favorite bear story?
My favorite bear story? Oh, there's a lot of them,
I guess. Actually, a good one would be when David came up actually in the article, the one he wrote, and he mentioned it in the article when I put him in the bait site, and the day that I went to get him to pull his bear out, I actually forgot the sleigh and his bear was like died in the worst place possible for dragging it, So we probably had to pull it a good couple hundred yards on the ground, which isn't easy with a two and seventy pound bear, you know how they're so floppy and stuff.
And I heard about it the whole time we were dragging it, David about outfitters should be better than this, and you know how it goes.
How funny? Yeah, And the funny thing is, if you know David, he's he's not one to give a hard time like he's a he's a hard, hard worker, but he sure does like to mess with you.
Yeah.
Oh yeah, it's all in jest.
Yeah, it was all part of the experience.
The last two years, I've talked to him on his way home and he uh, he's had two great experiences up there with you guys. Do you have any go to tips, like any hot tips?
Patience? Yeah, patience is definitely key. I find that if you're obviously hunting a bear over bait, if you're hunting any bear can be obviously easy if you shoot the first bear that comes in, but he's chances are going to be small. The best tip I can give to a hunter that's sitting in the stand, especially when we have him on camera. The first couple of days might he's there, he's just sniffing you out and getting used to the bait side with the new smell in there.
Typically by day four he's probably almost used to you, and day three or day four you're probably going to see him. And day five even is probably your best chance at shooting the giant bear that's on the bait side in literally the last ten minutes. So best tip would be to hold out as long as he can.
Unless you're Brent Leaves. I was just going to say, there there is the anomalies where the big guys show up on that first day, but patience is definitely important.
Yeah. I told Brent, I said, you got lucky I opened the cage at the right time. Yeah.
I'll be honest. We really pride ourselves on our guys having fun. It's really about the experience, like the bear hunting, and I think David and Brent and any of the guys would probably tell you the same thing. The bear hunting is almost the cherry on top, is how we kind of like to look at it, like we really want people to feel comfortable to have a good meal on the daily and have a good experience, get to know each other. It's really just fun when everybody jives and takes that in.
It really is.
I would include just kicking back and having fun.
If you and fun, get out there and have fun, guys. That is something that we just need to remember to do. And I think Mel really hit the nail on the head. One of the most important things you can have inside your toolkit is a positive mental attitude because you can keep more friends other people going along with This is what makes things so rewarding, unless you're a grumpy gus.
Last year, whenever I killed my big we're guessing close to five hundred pound bear here in Arkansas, my buddy Rick was with me, and this year it's his turn, so I'm gonna I'm gonna go sit with him and we're gonna go after another bear this year on the same property. And they are not hitting the bait like they did last year. But I can promise we're in it and we're gonna have a great time regardless of the outcome. But it's just rewarding to be able to
spend time in the outdoors. It really is a privilege to live close to places that We love to go out and explore. Until next time, guard the gate, keep on keeping on, stay calm, and just go find some bears.
Thank you for listening. The Bear Hunting Magazine Hundcast is recorded by Bear Hunting Magazine and produced.
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