Dummies Guide to Baiting Bears

so you can go there as well. Interstate Batteries outrageously dependable. My name is Clay Nucoleman. I'm the host of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into the world of hunting the icon of North American wilderness. We'll talk about tactics, gear, conservation, but will also bring you into some of the wildest country on the planet chasing. This last week, I had the opportunity to be on

a pretty pretty cool platform for the outdoor industry. Ye, I've got Colby Colby moorehead the Bear Attack here with me. We're gonna give kind of a little preamble to the podcast. But last week, well it was actually we recorded it back in July. Yeah, we've been waiting on this. Yeah, but it just came out this week, which August I think is when it came out. But but I was on the Meat Eater podcast with Steve Ranella, which it

was cool. I really follow everything that Steve does, follow his Netflix series Meat Eater, follow the podcast, follow what they're doing on social media. So this this was a big deal personal personally, a big deal for me to be on the podcast. It was really a fun experience. Um so you can check out that the podcast asked tell them what the podcast is called, kolbe all for a Flashy Mule, All for a Flashy Mutle. I think

it was the episode A hundred and eighty three. And uh, I don't know if a lot of people would know this. I didn't know it until I kind of did some research. But on iTunes, the Medior podcast that's this at the time I looked was the sixties seven most listened to podcasts in the world on iTunes. I mean, that's for for a hunting podcast to be that popular, it's interesting.

I mean everybody in the outdoor industry should I think, key in on something like that to say, what, what's happening here that's making these people, you know, draw into this and you know it's just interesting. So you can check out some of his stuff. I mean, I don't need to do a infommercial for Steve Ornella, but uh, but it but it is interesting stuff, some of it. Um. But this podcast, the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast my boys

last night I told him. I told him about Ronella's podcast being at the top one hundred and they said that is yours in the top two hundred And I said no, and they said, isn't in the top five hundred in the world. I mean they were just certain and I was like no, and they were like, no, Dad, your podcast has got to be in the top five hundred in the world. I mean they were just like floored that and I said, no, boys, it's not. But

but the Shepherd was like, but it's getting there. It was like really loyal to the call to the cause here. But but what I wanted to what we're gonna talk about on this podcast. I think the conversation that we had about the actual fundamental aspects of baiting bears, like how to we nerd out coolbe about baiting bears with two of the two of well two of the best

guys that I know in Arkansas. Um, not to say there's not more, but these two guys I had on here, Jason Lyles and and my longtime friend Ryan greb Um Good Good Bear Hunters, been bait and bears serious for a lot of years. They both have a lot of good insight, and so this podcast probably has as much tactical information about what debate with, when, debate with baiting, sequence, where to set up a bait site. Yeah, we covered

a ton of stuff. But why I'm doing this preamble like this, which is a little bit longer form than we usually do because we didn't get into at all, you know, like the foundational aspects that I think we've all got to have on the tip of our tongue in twenty nineteen. As we're trying to we're trying to prolog, you know, we're trying to not defend. I don't want to be on the defensive, but we're we're trying to

educate ourselves on why we do what we do. I mean, this hunting lifestyle that we live, it has to be fueled by an understanding that we can articulate of why we do what we do. And I think a lot of guys would would perceive baiting bears simply as just an effective way to hunt. It's like, this is an easy way to hunt. And obviously with baiting bears, there's a ton of misperceptions, uh, you know, charismatic megafun of putting out food and bait for charismatic megafuna. People would

could look down upon that. But what I want to say is that and this is what I said to Ronella. And part of the reason that's connected to this is we talked a lot about baiting bears and using hounds

on the Mediator podcast. And so the foundational aspect of baiting bears is that anywhere it's legal debate bears, that is a core management tool for the game agencies that have the data, that have the science, that know the habitat, that know how many bears there are, that know how much their bear population is growing every year, and they know how many bears need to be taken out every year.

They have this data, and where baiting is legal, it is a management tool used for these organizations to achieve their management goals for the betterment of that bear population. Yeah, for sure, I mean that's a fundamental aspect. So it's not just like, well they have lenient game laws in that state and so they allow baiting. No, that's stupid. It's not the case in the East particularly and uh in in Canada and in in in the places where you can bait bears, it is other methods don't work.

The prime example is Arkansas. Our bear season was reinstated in nineteen eighty after like a seventy year uh gap or well from nineteen seven and nineteen eighty and for twenty one years from nineteen eighty to two thousand and one, all you could do in Arkansas was basically spot in stock hunting bears, and every year they probably they killed

less than fifty bears in two thousand one. Finally, the science, the data, the expansion of the bears, they were like, we got to have we got to take more bears out of the population. They said, we're gonna do that with baiting private land baiting is highly selective. Perhaps hound hunting and hunting over bait would be the most selective way to hunt bears. Like you're you're you're getting pictures of this animal and we're just talking about baiting on

this podcast. So let's you're getting pictures of these animals, you know what your target animals are. Bear comes in close range, he's standing there for a long period of time. You're able to evaluate that bears, age, the bears, sex, the bears, size, all this stuff. You're able to evaluate whether it's a salve that has cubs because you're you're watching, you're looking, you're evaluating her. And so it's a highly selective way to hunt. And so and that's the way

people have to view it. Number one management tool. I'm pounding it into the ground here. Number two is that hunting over bait is one of the hardest way is that I hunt, I spend more time and energy baiting bears did almost I do anything. I mean, it's a ton of work. So this idea that hunting over bait is easy is rediculous, absolutely ridiculous. It should be expelled from people's minds. That hunting over bait is just the easy man's or the lazy man's way to hunt, just

not true. Anybody that says that has never done it. I challenge now. Now, granted people may have gone on outfitted hunts over bait and come back and go well, that was easy. Well, it was easy. It was an outfitted hunt. Somebody that has killed bear over bait, that has done it themselves will never say that it was easy. Now the hunting, I mean, yeah, you might have a bear come in the first day and you may kill it,

but there was a host of work behind that. So those are the things that I want to say as we come into this, because we're gonna nerd out for an hour and fifteen minutes about the tactics that we're using for bait and bears. Super good stuff. But yeah, yeah, what do you think I like it? Am I pounding too hard into the choir? I don't think so. I

don't think so. I mean even when I went on my outfitted hunt, I killed early and so I so I went out with the the outfitter just to see what it was like and it was a lot of work. I came back drenched in sweat. Yeah, and uh yeah, it's not easy, even in my limited you know, exposure to it. Yeah. Well, hey, you're gonna enjoy this podcast with Ryan Grab, Jason Lyles, and myself and that's it.

That's it. Before we get into the podcast, I want to bring your attention to our friends at Northwood's Bear Products. In this podcast, you're gonna hear us talk about the way that we use commercial sense, and you're gonna hear these guys talk about their preferences and what they're doing. Do us a favor. Go to Northwood Bear Products Instagram page, give them a like and a look on Instagram. All right,

it's it is time for bear hunting. There's still time to get commercial sense if you're if you are, if you're baiting bears, it's legal in your state. Like we said last week, it's some some places you can't bait, but you can use sense. So check your check your regulations, and uh check out Northwoods. They've got all kinds of scent attractants and these are the things that we're using. And uh yeah, north Woods Bear Products dot Net. It's August August and in two days here in Arkansas, we

can start baiting bears. In Arkansas, we can bait bears thirty days before the opening of the bear season. Bear season opens on September, fourth Saturday in September. Usually the last two years, the fourth Saturday in September has been in the early twenties of September, which is way better, way better than late September. It's like people that wouldn't know bear hunting, or at least around here no bear hunting. We know that the difference between September and September is

pretty massive. Yeah. Absolutely, So let me introduce who we've got here. We're at the Global Headquarters and air Conditioner Works today, and uh, I've got Ryan flint Faced grib here. Ran has been on the podcast several times. Ryan is a good friend of mine. We even hunted quite a few places together. And Ryan is uh a decorated Arkansas bear hunter, been bear hunt in Arkansas since uh, since you were two. That's right, Rise Rise really good, real

good bear hunter. And uh, I've got Jason Lyles. Jason's new to the podcast. But uh, but man, I've known you. I feel like I've known you for many years, but more like internet buddies in the past three years. Probably Yeah, probably so. And uh now Jason's hooking me up with in the squirrel dog world, No doubt, he's a He's a good tree dog man coon dog, squirrel dog. And the pup we got is uh, your wily mountain cur

dog is a grandsire. Is that correct? Yes, that's right. Yeah, go the pup goes back to uh, a man named Todd Cole's goes back to some of his bloodline. And then the uh, the damn to your pup is uh out of my mountain curve wildly and another female that I used to own. That my buddy, Donny press your owns right on. Yeah, So Jason's helping us with with the squirrel dog world. In the squirrel dog world, Jason

is also a decorated Arkansas bear hunter. You know, the bearer world in Arkansas really seems to be pretty small. It's it's growing. When I say small, like in Arkansas, we're killing less than five hundred bears a year. So so the northern zone in Arkansas there's a there's a I believe now it's a three hundred bear quota. I can't remember. They raised it fifty bears again, they raised

it this this year, that's my understanding. And then the other zone there's no quota, but typically they're killing less than a hundred fifty bears either, so really not a lot of animals. And so we've been baiting bears in Arkansas since two thousand one. Okay, I've made this claim on the podcast, but I've never made it in front

of two decorated Arkansas bear hunters. I claim to be the first Arkansas bow hunter to legally legally kill a bear over bait as soon as it was legal in Arkansas in two thousand one, because at the crack of dawn, I mean at a crack of dawn on October the first, two thousand one. My dad was wearing his white T shirt because he still didn't put on his camo. He had just climbed up the tree he was gonna video

for me. I was in the tree. He was like eight feet off the ground, like, for whatever reason, closer to the barrel than me. I don't know why we decided that he was gonna film this bear hunt. And uh, he's just like glowing like a light in this tree.

And I see this bear coming up the ridge and it was the first bear I had ever seen in a hunting situation, you know, I'd seen bears like a cross the road and stuff, and h man, it it it was a fascinating scene to me to look off down this ridge and it it was still twilight enough that he really couldn't see the bear's legs move it just looked like it was just floating, you know, like this black blob just floating. And I mean it just came right in. I didn't have my release on. Put

my release on. The bear walks right in, Dad. I think it's the cameras still on the ground, like on a rope, you know, and shoot this bear at twenty yards. Bear runs off and gives the most dramatic death moan that a bear has ever made in all of history. I'm quite certain I was. And me and my dad our jaws dropped. I mean we were just like, holy yeah, we didn't we didn't even know the death moaned. But you know that story. I have told it several times. I walked up to that animal. I was twenty one

years old and two thousand one. I walked up to that animal and I knew nothing about it. That was the that was the dominant feature of the hunt for me was I was fascinated by this incredible, beautiful, magnificent animal and I knew nothing about it. And that's kind of what set me into the bear the bear world. But to go back to my claim, and I'm gonna can can either of you dispute this, did you kill

a bear before then. What you didn't know is I was just down the ridge and I had passed that bear too before I got But then you were hunting on national forest and that was illegal. Maybe so maybe so? Now so did you did uh? Now did you kill a bear in two thousand one? No, I did not hunt over bait rookie, Mr Rookie. Two thousand two though, two thousand two, Now, when did you first start hun two thousand three? It was the first year that I

tried baiting bears and it was late. I started like October and uh oh, you didn't get started until season got going right. It was muzzled season. I was like, oh, you know, I'm gonna give us try didn't didn't work out it all that year. Two thousand four was the first year I actually put some effort into it. Started baiting thirty days before season and uh, opening morning, got him, got him, got him, got us big one. So my

claim still stands. My claim, you wink. Now. What I want to talk about on this podcast, though, is I want to go from zero two informed for people that were listening about how to bait bears, because it it would seem that it would just be easy people that have never baited bears, even hunters would think baiting bears would be relatively easy. But what we've found and what I've learned, and I've learned a ton from Ryan Grabb,

I really have. What I've learned is that there's you gotta do a whole lot of stuff right in order to be successful year and in year out on older mature males, big bears. A lot of people can go out and have a crack pretty good opportunity at a subordinate bear, but no season hunters us guys wanting to chase the more mature bear, whole different animal, you gotta do a ton of the way I just say it is you gotta do a ton of stuff right, and there's a lot of It's not just one thing, it's

a lot of things. And uh so, hopefully in our conversation today we can just cover I want to hear from both of you guys about kind of just your sequence of baiting. And let me tell you the questions that we're gonna answer. And these are the questions that I get all the time, is what do you bait with? I'm gonna go through the questions and well, you'll can help me. Remember what the questions are, what do you bait with? What's the best bear bait? That's a question.

The other question is how much do you feed? The other question is when do you feed? Because there's a lot of options. I mean, there's some places where you can bait bears year round. There's some places where you can bait bears just a week before the season starts. We're working with a thirty daytime period, which is actually pretty good. Um, there's some places, I'm pretty sure there's some places where you can't start baiting until the season actually opens. I mean, so you put out bait and

then you can't even start before the season opens. Um. And so what debate with? How much? Debate with? When debate with? And the question that most people don't ask that they should be asking is where do you bate like because in the landscape you're just looking at the landscape of Arkansas or landscape of any place, they're gonna be locations, even on a micro scale to a macro scale that are gonna be way better for attracting bears

in the daylight, because that's the thing. You could put a bear bait out in the middle of an open pasture and bears would probably go there during the night and not have any trouble. But you're not gonna You're not You're probably not gonna kill a good bear out in the middle of a pasture on over. I mean, he wants those bears want to be in secluded places. They want to be in places away from human contact

and activity. They want to be the places that are shaded, places where they feel secure, and you want to you So even the way I say is even on a forty acre property, that maybe is all would it like you would think, well, all this is the same, there's one place on that property that's the best I mean for killing bears, whether it would be higher honor. So I don't want to get too deep into it. But those are the four questions we're gonna answer. So let me, Jason,

what do you like to bate with? What I usually use is I'll do a lot of doughnuts, pastries, bacon, just pretty much the basic type stuff that you mean bacon, grease, no like bacon ends do you actually okay? Not cooked, not cooked bacon, raw bacon, cooke, bacon doesn't matter. I

really like anything. Fatty pork, beef, you know, stuff like that mostly going to be pastries pop popcorn, which is a little bit of work doing that, but they really they really eat that popcorn and it, you know, it's small pieces and it really really have to work to bait and stay there to eat all that um corn do a lot of corn, deer corn, straight up deer corn. But I've I've kind of come up with a secret to that is I make these barrels. I've got these barrels.

They're smaller about gallon barrels and they're tethered out with a chain or a cable and they're usually a snaptop lid so you can get them open easy. I drill three holes in one side that are about an inch max. And I fill that barrel with the corn, and I use maple syrup and I stir that in it turned and just they roll that thing and just roll that corn out and they just take hours to get that out.

And the thing about that I really like doing that is because when they empty that big barrel, they've got something else to sit there and work that bait and stay there. They just keep coming for another thing I'll use. Sometimes it's always here a lot of people using dog food and such. I've not had much luck with dog food. The dog food, I do have luck with something that's more corn based. Like a lot of times you go down to the co op and you get there's some

discard bags of dog food. I've seen where the bears will roll that barrel and roll that dog food out just to get the other stuff and leave that dog food. But there's certain brands of dog food even just that are more basic, less meat based, probably more just stuff the dirt. Cheap, Like if you go to have you had that express food. The cheaper stuff is better for bears. The stuff that has mostly corn for filler. Those bears like that better. You mix that with syrup and it's

just like they're just crazy over it. Yeah, just go nuts. So let me ask you a couple of questions. You said something there that somebody might not understand in terms of the philosophy behind what you're doing. Like the first thing that the bear is gonna go to, Well, first of all, a bear will love anything that will make a human fat. That's the way I like to set I mean whether it's donuts, pastries, bread, sweets, sugary stuff, candy.

I mean, they don't really like hard candy, but like gummy candies, you know, anything that's really sugary, uh, really fatty, lots of carbohydrates. They're gonna eat that. So let's say you've got a barrel and you've got donuts, you've got white bread, you've got some wheat bread. I found that bears just eat any kind of bread. I'll get this bread from a thrift store and shuck it. We call it shucking bread. But you know, take it out of the package, and man, they'll eat it like crazy. I

pour a lot of grease on there. But so they'll they'll eat that down maybe. And if if you have multiple bears coming in, they'll eat that quick fast. So your your corn roller barrel gives them something else eat that's harder to access, that takes longer to eat. Keep them coming in. It's andrategic heats of equipment, basically at my bait sides. Yeah yeah, yeah, Um tell me about making your popcorn with uh you told me you sprinkle

in some other stuff. Yeah. So what I'll do is, uh, you just take a regular propane cooker and just like a fish fryer, and I'll have a steel pot and uh, you know as a bare bater. You always gathering like old frier oil stuff like that, and you can use new cooking oils. Well, it doesn't matter. But I'll I'll set aside five gallons of fried oil just for popping the popcorn, and I usually get that. You know, you

gotta have that flame pretty hot for popping popcorn. I'll fill the bottom of that pan with probably half inch oil, and I'll mix in sugar in that oil, and then I'll fill it in with a couple of cups of popcorn. So you and just as long as that popcorn seed is covered that oil, but lit on and just uh pop that. You know you don't want to burn it. But I'll just keep popping those kettles of popcorn and

dumping them into a fifty five gallon drum. Well, as I get the next one going, I'll sprinkle like some cherry koolated powder or little you get the bags of the small marshmallows, sprinkle some in the there and stir that up, and that just melts together. It doesn't make a big gummy ball, but it's it's kind of sticky. While the popcorn's hot, right, it'll melt that the marshmallas down. You've just said, you said a couple of things that are important. Number one was fried grease, which I know

all three of us. Friar grease is a major component of what we're doing calling luard to your bait, I think or grease. Used fried grease, which is accessible once you find a source, can be tough to get. It can be tough to get, but every restaurant has gobs of used nasty friar grease, and they some people are selling it for people making using it for bole field cyclon and stuff. But most of the time you can get it if you just go in and like hey,

and offered to pay for it. That's the way I've had luck, because pay you ten bucks if you let me get some fryar oil or something and U that's essential to any bait, I feel like, because it's it's it gets on their paths, they're making trails. It's not water soluble, it won't evaporate. I mean, you can sometimes go back to these bait sites a year later and like not maybe not smell it, but still have the soaked dark earth there where the oil has been or

the trees. You know, if you have a long standing bait site. All those trees are just dark black rush additive import. Yeah. Yeah, well we can't talk about what tell them what you use royn as in the additive. Yeah, I mean the specific gold rush. Yeah, north Woods gold Rush absolutely, and it's uh, now have you used that,

just really Northwood's gold Rush. Yeah, it's killer. Describe it just a concentrated better scotch and uh, just it takes maybe an ounce two ounces per you know, five gallon bucket, and it smells like pure candy and you know, so it takes it takes this uh, it takes your frier grease, which fire grease has an odor, but it's not like a super strong odor, and it makes your frier grease have a super strong and they carry it with them everywhere they go and use it in liberal mounts, sling

it like safe border on your baits. Let the bears roll in it, step in it, just sling it way up in tree trunks and the foliage. And so the most of these fried grease additives, and there's multiple companies that make them, but we're using the gold Rush and it comes in eight ounce bottle. It's like thirty six bucks. But that eight once bottle, will I think it will treat forty gallons of grease. Now, I like to mix

it hot. I like to make hotter than what they say, so you know, I'll probably get twenty gallons of grease. But still that's quite a bit of that's a lot of grease. So yeah, friar grease. The other thing that you said was the powder sugary additives. That's good stuff. Good stuff because those kool Aid powder bags do produce a lot of scent and you can mix those in and just anything that is going to cause more scent

to be there. But we can talk about commercial sense to later, because I use a lot of I mean, aside from gold rushers, lots of other just spray products and products, some of these you know Mama Pop stores that sell like the out a date stuff, the big bulk bags of gatorade, you know, in different flavors. I found that's worked. The powder. The powder just makes it like you would to kool Aid. Yeah, you know, baiting

here in Arkansas, you've gotta be kind of resourceful. It's uh, you know, there's a lot of people doing it, but there's enough people doing it can make a lot of competition for getting your bait. And and so last year, you know, I came across a lot of good bait. You probably remember seeing those pallets of stuff I got on the trailer. There was a there was a palette of raspberry jelly buckets, bulk on that and that worked

really well. You know, anything berries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries. They love that, you know. So you said, uh, cheap dog food, corn, pastries, bread, popcorn with marsh, marshmallows and kool aid. Let's just leave that right there, right, pretend like he hadn't even talked, and being serious, like I want to hear from zero. You're baiting strategy. My hook up has been and it has been for a long time. Just uh, there's been a bakery that makes lots and lots of pastries and

has lots of excess every day. So for me, is that a good business model for them? I don't know. As he gets tons and tons of doughnuts, and I'm always like, man, they should make lass if they want to make more money. You know, before it's baked, there's actually not that much material there. I see, I see you got a point, but no, you know, I usually I can get two d three hundred pounds of pastries every day. Are you're gonna share some of that this year?

I've got people knocking my door down. Well you're gonna share it with me though, right, because I'm your friend. Yeah, I brought you one doughnut. He took a bite out of it. Yeah, but that's uh, you know, usually my mainstay. But you know, like you other guys, we you know, whold corn. I usually grease it down, is what I do with the you know, the gold rush in it. And like how much Let's say you got a fifty five gallon drum full of corn, will will hold three

hundred pounds of shell corn? Yeah, so give somebody an example of how much grease you would pour on that. I've never filled one hole. I've got some roller barrels, you know, and may put you know, half of five gallon bucket two and a half gallons on it, really soak it down good. Um. I've got a metal pipe feeder that's been there practically growed into the tree where I changed it fifteen years ago, and fill it up, um, you know, And every once in a while I try

to stay away from the meat products. And now used to you know, I do a lot of beaver trapping and I used to do it for the county down there, but I'd say beaver carcasses. But you have to have a hot bait. Lots of bears coming in. It seems like the bears in this area you want fresh fresh meat. If it starts to get at least what rancid, and you've got a mess on your hands. And see that would be different than Canada. Yeah, Canada and some of

these northern places that nastier the beaver, the better. Yeah, that's that's strange. I don't know if it's just cause maybe it's a little more cooler afair, not as humid or something. But down here, I think it's just resource availability. I mean in the far North they are there is less stuff for them to eat up there. Yeah, and I mean they're just taking advantage of any protein they can get down here. These bears have a lot of options. Yeah, I think it's just that just this year, you know,

every strain of oak tree is loaded. Uh, there's walking sticks. Katie did tons of poke berries, you know, for Semme trees are loaded. Blueberries did good. Blackberries did good, lots of blackberries. So you know they've got more of a smorious board down here. Uh maybe compared to the in timeframe, these bears down here are staying awake for ten months a year, nine to ten months a year. Northern bears are staying awake maybe six to seven months a year. But the you know, back to what I say, and

my main core of my boots is pastries. Yeah, so any other little tidbit secret things you do that you've never told me about, not really, you know, Uh, you've been holding out on me. I can see it in your eyes. No, I try to keep as much there as possible. You know. I don't know if that's something Elays wanted to touch on right now, but you know I have. That would be the next thing is how much? But now, you did use some Asian food that you were getting there for a while, didn't You didn't work?

Uh friends who actually worked for a guy that has a Chinese restaurant down there in the town where I'm from. And boy, every night when they'd empty buffet, there'll be five gallon bucket or more of Chinese food. I'm like, man, that bears ought to tear that up? Yeah, I poured it out and you come back. It has not been touched that where I'm at, they will not touch anything spicy, right, It's strange. So I actually had to shovel it up back in some I forgot this story. I was thinking

that it was that it worked. Oh no, no, it didn't work, Jason. Have you ever put out something that did not work? Oh? Absolutely? One year I gotta. They use it to as filler for cattle feed. They'll take serial and you think bears all they love lucky charms and you know Captain crunch and stuff. But they pulverize that cereal into like a powder, almost like rice brand. And I used that and mix it in my roller barrels with corn and syrup and stuff, and I had

to dump it out. They did corn. They would not touch that barrel with that. It immediately went from that roller barrel being destroyed to the point where they had it caved in on the side. They were rolling it so hard. To the week I put that out, just quit quit it, quit that particular Carol, and just kept

emptying rum non stuff. Okay, here's my story. One time, I thought, well, bears leave our baits to go to mass crop, right nuts, So I brought home, like two hundred pounds of almonds, and they were they were seasoned that and that was probably the mistake salted and uh and uh, you know I never ate one, so it may have even had some of that smoked, like the smoked almond, the liquid smoke artificial. Man. I put those out and I was like, bears are gonna love this stuff.

They never they would. I mean they would walk circles around it, you know, to get debate. I mean they didn't want anything to do with it. So you find stuff like that when you're baiting bears, and I think regionally that's gonna be the case. It is, says you know me and uh, Carney got them big old pallets of skittles. Last I dumped out here four or five gallon buckets of skittles. Did not touch a single one. Carney dumps him out up here where he's from. I

can't find a single one left. Same thing here your skittles last year. Remember, I tried to give you a few cases them. They were a pain to unpack because they're in a little yes. Uh, the bears at my bait did like them. A few miles up the road at my buddy's bait and wouldn't touch him. And I'm sure some of the same bears were probably visiting both those bait sides. But yeah, so I think the point is is that you before you commit your life to

one's single bait, you better make sure that it works. Absolutely. I think bears get conditioned to stuff over the years. Absolutely. I think that like maybe you could go back and put out skittles this year, or maybe if you'd have it is just theory, but sprinkled them in a little bit here and there rather than all at once, like maybe they would grab actually move towards I know. It's it's like that when guys feed rice brand with deer. You know, we can bait deer here in Arkansas, some

people put out rice brand. Sometimes the deer wanna eat rice brand for weeks and then finally then finally one of them starts eating it and they're like, oh, this is basically corn, you know. Um. But so before you just commit to anything, you gotta know that they'll eat it. But the one thing that they will not turn down is bread and pastry stuff. I mean, I think that would be like the core of probably most of what

we're doing. And popcorn related stuff. You know, I've seen them be finicky with popcorn at times, but most of the time they're gonna hammer the popcorn absolutely. Um. You know. Let me talk about what I do with my baits, bread and donuts. Number one, I'm gonna have one full barrel, like packed like I'll jump in the barrel stomping it down of bread, donuts, pastries of any kind that I can get. As I'm putting it in, I'm putting in

oil on top of it layers. You know. I'll put in like ten inches of bread poor oil, ten more inches of bread poor or you know, just kind of make sure he gets evenly distributed. I'll have a roller barrel. Just last year I started using a roller barrel, just like and Ryan does that and uh that that was major. And I'll put a full three pounds of corn in there.

And I've got about six probably two inch holes at the bottom of my roller barrel with a with a uh fifty five gallon just around the rim of the bottom, yep, just at the very bottom low as I can get those holes. That's what I did. And I put an eyebolt in the barrel and put about an eighteen inch chain on a tree. So I mean they pretty much they really can't. It may be a two ft chain, but I mean they really can't just like roll it all around, but they can knock it around and they

do um. And then the last several years I've gotten bear bait from commercial bear bait distributors up north Lucky seven as where we got our stuff last year that he ate some of you, Like he had my backpack some into what he called a walk in bait one time, and I probably twenty pounds of liquorice. Yes, that's why you didn't have near the load when we got back in there, Like where's all this bait? Where did it go? I thought you were loaded up more. Some of that

stuff is good now. And so what I've used when I've done that and I'm not doing it this year is uh is we would have pop tarts. We would have like like the tops of Oreo cookies. So I just envision or you guys would do it. But I'm describing this to people that wouldn't you know, envision Oreo cookies without the filling, just a little chocolates or or

vanilla ones. And then some years we've had ice cream cones just crunched up in a big, huge tote that probably weighs eight hundred pounds, like pop tarts, cookies, Uh yeah, sugar ice cream, sugar cones will have big buckets of frosting which work great. Um, they have a couple of years ago, well, last year, I got boxes of gummies, sour gummies. I thought they would have a hard time with the sour gummies, and I think they did at first.

The first time I bade it, I just poured out a whole like forty pound box of sour gummies on top of the barrel, and they didn't hardly mess with it. And I was like, dog on, They're not gonna eat these things, and I'm gonna have all this bait. But soon enough they started eating it and they ate it all um. And then uh man, We've had a lot of different stuff, but the frostings, frostings and those uh well, uh, kettle corn. You know a lot of these commercial baits, Troopers.

You can buy kettle corn, which is popcorn that's got sugar and toffee and stuff mixed in with it, kind of like what you're doing. Um. And then the last thing I used was trail mix, which that's what a lot of the Canadian guys and stuff up north uses trail mix, which that would be like pretzels, uh eminem's and nuts, varieties of nuts, and and the bears ate

it good. They ate it good. Um. So typically I would have two full bears on a really good bait that I knew a lot of bears were coming into, two full barrels of you know, ice cream, cones or whatever you kind of like my carbohydrate barrels into the corn barrel, and then I would spray the heck out of it with a scent product just whatever people go nuts over, like the different types of scent, you know, like what's the best scent to track the bear. I

don't think there is one. I think they it's just it's just a it's just a potent loud you know, Ryan uses the word it's loud, you know, just a loud scent. But okay, that's that's good for that discussion. We'll just leave that there. Uh. Second thing, how much do you bake? So ready to go? Typically, what I do is I'll have the roller barrel. It's about thirty gallon barrel. I'll put all a couple bags of corn and that probably or I might mix it with a

bag of corn and a bag of dog food. And you know, like the way I make that roller bear, I make it those whole small enough they really have to work to get that amount of feed out, but always at five gallon drum as full as I can get it. Sometimes last year I did to drums and a roller and and this is an established baits side to very established so established baits side, you're bait. You've been baiting the same place for fifteen years. That particular

bait is old, faithful in fifteen years. And the amount of bears and the amount of big bears that come to that bait is staggering to the point where I was like, you know, you know, I used to think, well, I want to keep them as ungry as possible, So I just put one full barrel out in the empty out and then when I get back, the more feed you can keep there, the more they will come to that bait. They will stay. The best Canadian outfitters say that,

and I I'm a fund believer. As much as possible, I don't want bears out roaming looking further from yes, I have a lot of reason to stay Yeah, I still talk to guys that are baiting small amounts of bait, and to be honest with you, a lot of times it's because they don't have access to a lot of bait. I mean, there's a lot of limiting factors in baiting, Like some guys don't have access to the bait that

we do just because they don't. I mean, I don't know why they don't, but maybe they just don't have the time to look for it. It does can cost some money, um, But we're talking about best case scenario, like best practice, so we're not factoring in that. Yeah, this is gonna be a massive hustle that's gonna take a ton of time and a ton of work, like that's guaranteed. Um, But best case scenario, you feed them

as much as possible much as possible. You know, in my particular area, I've gotten to where I have lots of competition from other hunters in my area, and uh, the more good quality bait and then more of it I can keep there. To keep those bears coming to my bait is key. I think it's key for having success. And because it's tough and mentally, it probably keeps you a little less stressed. Absolutely, Hey, even though I've got competition, I feel like I'm doing something right here. I go

above and beyond. It's a lot of work to do this, you guys know, Okay, tell them, tell me why it's why? Okay, I'll be the devil's advocate here. I want my bears to feel like there's competition at the bait, so my bears will eat all the food that I put out for him. I'm just gonna put out like ten gallons every time I go in every two days. Why is that bad? Say, if you've got ten bears hitting this bait,

it could potentially be wiped out in one evening. And then you've got, say, if you're only doing it once a week, there's six days of then going somewhere else. That's right. Absolutely, you'd be amazed that you guys wouldn't. But people would be amazed at how many people have bought into this idea that lack of food creates competition.

I have yet to find anybody that's been able to convince me that that's true because all these outfitters and nothing against outfitters, but I'll tell you the best outfitters I've ever hunted with gave them as much as they could they could eat, or legally, some places you legally can't bait. There's limits on how much you can bait. Some places here it's not we can put as much as you want. But there's this idea that if you put out less, there's competition because a bear is incentivized

to come there earlier. And I always say, a bear can't reason. A bear doesn't know that. A bear just shows up after dark and there's no bait there, and he goes, well, guess what, I'm not coming here again because there's no food here. He's got to fill his belly up. So if you can just pound them, and I've had lots of people say, just yesterday, I talked to a guy that said, uh, that said, oh man, you feed him too much much, they'll get they'll get where,

they won't come in anymore. He thinks you can over feed them. Yeah, I don't. I don't. I don't agree with that at all. I've found the opposite completely. I feel like, if, like I said, if if they go there and there's not feed there, they're going to someone else's bait. They're going down the ridge gonna eat acorns. They're gonna bears rome a long way. It's a lot farther in a night and days time, and people realize, you know, and the more you can give them the better.

Plus logistically, not everybody has time to run out in bait throw ten pounds of bait out every day. It's so if you put out five hundred pounds of bait at one time, maybe you can go. I mean, depending up on how many bears are coming there. I have a lot of people that are like, well, tell me how often should I go and how much should have put out? And I'm like, well, it matters how many

bears you're feeding. If you're feeding two bears, then maybe you don't have to go that much, and maybe you don't need to put out that much because you don't want your bait to spoil. You don't want your bait to get reined on and get more oldie and they're not gonna eat it. So you have to regulate. If you're feeding eight bears and two of them are five pounders, you better put out three full barrels and you better come back after about three days. I mean absolutely, Okay,

talk to me Ryan about like you're starting sequence. So we can start thirty days before season. You'll put out bait when and how often and just like walk me right to opening day. Well for me, you know, I'm sure it's different scenarios for different people. Say, if you're got an established bait, says Jason or yourself, that there's already bears living in the area, you know there's bears visiting it before you even get there, So you could probably go in the first time and not bait it

super heavy. I mean, but if you know you're there, why not. But somebody that's finally going out for the first time and gonna try it and say, I want to sit for something here, don't load that barrel, don't put out because more than likely it's gonna ruin or go steale or get rain on it and just go sloppy.

But for me, say my main bait down uh South, you know, I will feel three barrels pump full and uh a big pipe feeder probably hold fifty sixty pounds of corn, but you know, and sling the grease with the additive to open up the bait. So you do that, and then when do you come back, Well, that's something else. Now you've got the seal cameras. It will let you

know when that bait is empty. You know. Yeah, you can tell by looking at the bait barrels in the pictures if they're empty or what's left on the ground. So that is a good tool versus having to go back and pull cards and see. So you know, say, if you know I have run my own company, work for myself. If I say I baited on a Saturday and I see it's empty by Tuesday, I will take the time away from work to go down Tuesday to

put bait in that. Some guys can't do that. They're punching the clock, so I may just have to do it on a Saturday and go to the next Saturday. Yeah, so uh break it down even simpler. Well, let me let me let me say. What I typically tell people is that put out bait thirty days before season, come back in five days and check it, Assess how much they ate. And I'm just trying to break it down real simple. Come back five days later, assess what they ate.

If they ate it to the ground and there's nothing left there, then put out more bait than you did and come back in three days and more than there's gonna be new bears picking up all the time, all the time, all the time. And basically usually what I do is the closer I get to season, the more I come back, and I get to where I'm coming back about every three days, but I'm putting out a

lot of bait. You gotta put out a lot of bait if you're feeding ten bears for three days, and the closer I get to opening day, I might get to where I'm coming in every two days. Uh, it means that how how would you do it? Jason? The same way what I typically do is I go in there and I'll fill the bait as full as I can get it. On the established bait it was a brand new bait, I just I might do half of

the roller barrel and fill the main barrel up. And you know, because typically bait that's not established, it's gonna take till about midway through the month of baiting to really get a good number of bears on there. But the established bait, I fill it up max capacity. The way I run my baits is I'll start on a Saturday, the closest Saturday to the first day that I can bait, and then I will fill it up completely full, and I'll go back every Wednesday and every Saturday, white clockwork

until seasons. Yeah, that's how I do it, And that's just logistically wise. That gives me the most even type days I can get in a seven week period or a seven day period, and uh, you know, fill the bait up as full as possible. One thing I did want to touch on. I don't know if you guys have tried this is uh used to on the fryar oil. I would throw it out everywhere, throw it up in trees and stuff. Well, sometimes you know, it can get

hard to get ahold of firewall. And what I started doing this last year is I've I've got a pump sprayer now, and the clear the cleanest oil, or I can saint it out and screen it out and I'll pump spray and I can make a gallon or two gallon pump sprayer last several baitings and it will miss such a fine mist and coat. Everything is so good. It really is efficient. So I've started doing that too. I'll open that bait with full barrels of everything. I'll

miss the gold rush friar oil all over everything. I can even if as high as it'll spray, because that's you're calling you know, so cool, that's that's a good tip. Mix. Then have you've done that before? Okay somebody I've heard that, but well maybe it was you that told me. Yeah, okay, okay. So the idea is that you just need to keep that bait full depending on how many bears are coming in a lot of guys are traveling. A lot of guys like here are coming from the delta. They're coming

from some place two or three hours away. So they're really trying to They're like trying to pry information, like, well, how often do you have to go? And so I try to break it down and you know, just kind of give him a system and uh what I okay. So if somebody has questions, maybe they could, uh they could just message us somehow if we've missed something. My third question was what was my third question? What do you bait with? When do you bait um? Location? Location?

Let's talk about location. To me, location is probably the most important part of the equation because not all bear sites are located. Are are are are created equal, I mean massively. You could be in a great Bear county and have a location that was not very good you could, uh, you know, people ask these kind of questions about you know, well, I'm in such and such county. That's a good Bear county.

That means I got a good spot, right, And I'm like, well it may, I mean, it's a good start, but it but there's there are different locations that are that are going to be better. Describe to me not where it's at, but just kind of like the features of some of your better bait. It's like, like what's around them? What what what makes it good or why do you

think it's good. Well, I'm gonna tell a little story of how I've got my first the really good bait that I ran for fifteen years back in two thousand three. When I started making shoot a guy to get it. It was very close. It came very close to possibly because that's where Al Ryan got his good bait. I'll have to hear this. I'm just kidding, you know. You know, it could be hard to find locations to get permission

on if you don't own property or no something. We can only bait on private land and right correct, it's so uh, I just happened to be I was just out looking for places I can bait. And I saw an old guy sitting on a porch out in the mountains, and uh, stop and talk to him, and he's like, you know, I saw a bear the other day. He's like, I don't think there's very many bears here, but you're welcome to try to bait. And he has a hundred and twenty three acres. It's a small place. It's split

by a county dirt road. As a matter of fact, and at the time, I wasn't really thinking about strategic location, but this property taught me the what to look for because of the amount of bears and big bears I have routinely. It just it just gave me the knowledge of no one where to put it. So anyway, start baiting that year and I mean he's like, he's just like, well,

there's probably not many bears here. The first year I had several large bears and so I started bringing in photos and he's, man, I can't believe all these bears that are here, and you know, you never see them. Their secretive animals. So the way what it is is you've got this big valley with the road run the center and then it runs up to two large ridges and they're running north and south. Both those ridges are and uh, it had been logged probably twenty years earlier.

And so it is the thickest, steepest, brieriest stuff BlackBerry brambles. I mean you can you're crawling on hands and knees to get through it if you're walking, and uh, if you're trying to get off the hillsides, and it's steep and rough, and it runs down to a lot of creek bottoms with locusts, thorns and a lot of saplings. Just the thickest, darkest, nastiest stuff you can be in. And uh, that's where those bears live. They like thick cover where they can be secretive and hide. That has

lots of food. There's lots of hickories and acorns on this It was all blackberries. So those bears live there. They were just there. It's close to national forest. It's very it's surrounded by national forests, so it's you know, there's not a lot of pressure just directly around it. And so but these bears are living basically in this big bowl that is just plum full of nasty briars and blackberries, and its steep and nasty getting down to it. And uh so I try to set up my bait

when I'm looking. I want to know, I want to be able to place that bait where the prevailing wind will carry the lure and the scent to where the bears are. And generally there's probably bears all around that particular bait, but the majority of them almost always come from the northwest to that bait, and that's down in that nasty bottom. That's where they live. And so I try to set it up and it can be really I have a lot of trouble with the wind, the

swirling winds. It's really really difficult there. But you get a red neck blind. I hunted out ridden at Gilly Blind last year and it helped quite a bit, it did. And now that it's a real one, I know, I don't kill everybody in the woods. It's it's on the it's on the agenda. But yeah, the prevailing winds is, you know, predominantly here. We have what south southwest winds, you know. And what's tough the last few years is we've been getting a lot of easterly winds about the

time it's been bumping. It's like the fall is coming a little sooner now according to win our our hunt actually begins. But that's a good description of where it's at. And I think the key thing, at least for here is close to National Forest and that in other parts of the world that may translate just into it's it's in bear territory and these bears want to be and unfragmented wilderness is a phrase that we use a lot,

which technically wouldn't be a human intrusion. You know, wheeler trails, and see, our bears aren't in agg country, but there's parts of the world or the continent where they are that you know, bears are feeding in places where there's our human activity, but here we're not. But and so we're trying to get into the most remote places that

we can. And then like on a hundred and twenty acre farm, like you're trying to find a bait site that you can drive a truck to, I would imagine, but you're also trying to get as far I bet you're trying to get as far away from the county road as you can, am I right, yeah, because that bear is not gonna want to come up within seventy five yards main County road with people coming up and down on over the season. I mean you're probably trying to get as far away from it as a quarter

a mile minimum, if possible. You know, I like to be in there, and that's straight up the mountain, on the very top of the ridge, because and then you can carry that scent and you'd rather be up higher than lower. I prefer to be as high as possible, just for more stable winds. You know that. That's that's the key, I think, I mean down low unless you've got a red neck blind. We can have a and and red neck blind didn't pay me a dime, they

should And uh, good scent containment. Absolutely you can put it. You could put a bear bad wherever you wanted. But because you said the bears are living down low, but you're hunting up high, and there comes key, because yeah, absolutely, I've watched him. Just I put my stand as close to the break of the hill as I can because it drops off so steep. That keeps my scent traveling

way up above, up high. And I don't I mean most to every bear that has come to that bait or that I've taken it, that they have come up from that bottom. I think a high bait too, is better for scent distribution of of because see you're not hunting there twenty four hours a day. Because if you think about scent distribution, it's also distributing your human scent. But think about the thermals coming and going off the

top of a mountain. You know, in the evening time at night, that scent is going down in that valley, and then in the morning time it's going up and the winds are carrying it to who knows where, a long ways away. One thing that Jason said that I'll bring up is that it's best to place a bait in a place where the prevailing winds are gonna be blowing the wind towards where bears are. That statement works

in some places. In the example that I had was one time I had a piece of private land that was like on the border of big National forest and so on. You know, to the let's just say, to the north of this property was all civilization. I mean it was cattle of farms and roads, and behind it was big National forest. But there was a ton of

bear in the Big National Forest. But the prevailing wind was blowing My bait sent into civilization and I could hardly ever get bears to come in there, even though it was right on the lip of this huge nasty canyon that I would look down in, and I mean there was like big national forest, and I was like, there are bears within a half mile here that I don't even know this baits here because you know, and I was waiting for a north wind which never came.

You know, I baited that spot for five years and never could draw bears there. And I should have been able to. And if that bait had been on the other side of that National forest, where the a southerly wind or southwestern wind would have been blowing into that, I think I'd have drawn every bear out of there. That makes sense. So describe your good bait, Ryan, or where what you look for in a good bait. Well, you know, I just looked into the place I'm at.

Oh gosh, it's been early two thousand's and it just happened. It's pretty much landlocked in the middle a national forest, but it has a valley on the back end. It's just got old beaver slews. It's thick, you know, briars, per simmons, you know, all kinds of brambles, but just a dark, dank area where bears love to live bed, you know, especially during the summer, late summer. But anyway,

there's just bears there year round. So I actually didn't realize how good of a hot spot it was right off the bat and after the first year or two, and you know, I had somebodies that baited on the other side of that, and they were killing monster bears too. But it just you know, I call it the Valley of the Kings, you know, because yeah, it's just it.

It's got monster bears in it. You know. Uh beastons have killed three or four plus pounds, yeah out of there, and I've taken you know, five hundred and I don't know how many fours out of it. So but you know, it ain't nothing on a good year to have you know, a dozen to eighteen bears on this one day. But you know, I just try to get as close as

I can to the National Forest. Just happened to find a location that was suitable for a stand and where I felt like the bears, you know, I would want to travel, not have to think twice, you know, feel comfortable coming into it. But you know, it's just like Jason said, you know, it's the seasons are changing. You're gonna have south winds, north winds. It's it's just but you know, more or less on a west wind for me is going to take that scent into where the

bears are living. But I've also got food plots on this property up on the top that I plant lots and lots of buck for joats. So all these acres of oats go to seed, and all summer long, these bears are living there eating seed tops off this So usually when I go into bait that you know, they're they're just pretty lickety split. Yeah, but you know it's it's got no human intrusion. Uh no roads close. But you know it's hard for the average joe to find, you know, a piece of ground like that. We all

know that. So you know, guy might find a delta glease that's eighty or hundred acres that's pure pine timber. And you know how hard it is for bears to stay in pine timber a lot of the time. But you know it has to have you know, some big hardwoods, close water crevices, shade, you know, just nasty tangles. You hear a lot of people talk about water like, you know, if you're gonna have a good bait, water's got to

be close. Um, that's true. If bears are eating that much food, they've got to be drinking a ton of water. But I don't find water to be the This is the one thing I don't understand about that argument, because any bear baiting article you're ever gonna read, they're gonna say water is a must. And I mean they make it sound like there's gotta be water within a hundred yards of your bait. I mean, it's great if there's

water within a hundred yards of your bait. But I don't find that to be necessarily true because water is not the limiting factor. Well, most people think, well, it's got a pond on it, Well that'll work. Well, bears really don't utilize ponds that much. It's got to be a seep, you know, see yeah, and you might not know it's there, you know. And and animals will use that. Around here there's water and a whole lot more places than you would realize now what you're saying that, I mean,

bears do. They will use a pond as a water source hunter per cent. And now I had the last podcast, James Brandenburg was on here and he asked me what kind of water sources spars were looking for, and I told him, I said, I don't think a bear cares whether he's drinking out of a mud hole. Remember one time when I was hunting with my grandpa, bird hunting quail dogs, and I watched a bird dog run up to a water hole and drink just some muddiest, nastiest water.

And uh, I said, does that dog not mine drinking muddy water? And he said he could care less, he's just thirsty. I mean, now, they but I think they probably find themselves utilizing more of the smaller water sources and more secluded places. But point being, water is good, but there's at least around here, water is not a limiting resource most of the time. Um, okay, as we're closing down here, what would you say to somebody that was and and and even take it out of Arkansas

because around here, you know the limiting factors. Find the private land that you can hunt, and we ain't giving nobody any tips about how to do that. That's a joke, It's sort of no. It's just the same way you'd find private land for deer hunting. I mean, get out and knock on doors, use your apps. I mean, these new apps are almost cheating for finding landowners. And if you want to find a place to bathe barry, you

can find it. It's hard, I mean, they're all I mean, like there's we've been doing this now in this part of the world for almost twenty years, and so I mean like a lot of the good spots are taken, but there's good spots still out there that just are waiting for the right relationship to be built. And uh, and there's leases and different things that people can get on. So I'm joking about that about not telling people how to find private land. But let's say they're in Idaho

and you can bat on public land there. Um, Like, give me like a one minute, like what would you what would you do to start a brand new bait? One minute, Jason, And I'm gonna ask you the same thing I would look for, not not necessarily location, Like okay, like just say, if I just want to slam a bait in real quick, just like what would you put out?

You know, you'd say, I'd say I'd take a fifty five gallon drum and seasons open, I can hunt as soon as Yeah, what would you do pastries, bacon ends, dog food in maple syrup and fryar will and you put it in a fifty gallon drum trail camera. I put up trail camera to put up your tree stamp before a bear got there. Absolutely, I'd go ahead and just make that bait site hunt ready. Maybe how far would you put your stand from the bait? Twenty yards max?

Probably for yards okay, okay, or as close as I could get to that particular bait and still have a good wind. For what I thought, Yeah, okay, what would you do Ryan, same scenario? I mean, like you say you want to open it up some food, you know, pastries, dog food, corn, but definitely the friar grease additive something to get the baits started. Use the air to your advantage to do that. But like say, go ahead and put that stand up and have that location turn key

for not have to tinker around anymore. You know, this is kind of going backwards, But let's talk real quick about starting a bait, because that's a critical component is getting barrassed your bait. And I'll give one think of a tip for for starting a bait, you get one tip, Okay, I'll give mine. First tip for starting a bait is

to do a drag. I once had a bait that I put out that was in a good spot and that actually baited it before and had a couple of bears coming there the year before put out a bait, expected bears to be right on it, but they didn't show up. A week later, I went back and nothing had touched it. And if this bait was down low, it's the only place I could hunt on. This place was down low, which I didn't want to be down low because the low is bad for scent distribution. And

that's exactly what I found. Bait was low, no bears. And so I came to the bait and I wasn't prepared for this, but I had oil, and I cut the back of my shirt off about a fourteen inch strip about four inches tall, and had a piece of rope and I dipped that dip that piece of the

shirt into my Northwoods, my my gold rush oil. Took a bottle of the gold rush, you know, I like poured the oil into like a twenty pepsi bottle or something, you know, and I just took off down the creek, walking walking, walking, just dragging that scent drag down the creek, and I drug it all the way until this valley opened up and where two other valleys met, and I made a big loop and I probably went half a mile one direction, but I got the scent out of

that valley, right. I poured the scent out, you know, poor slung the oil around and then I came back. So I left to spig drag within a day. Absolutely. So there's my tip. Uh for starting a bait is Greece, but you could do a drag tip. I mean you basically covering point. Hey, I mean it's all about sent dispersal that has to happen. So I mean, like you say, um, you know, I had a buddy a couple of years ago, said hey, I'm in a prime spot over here in Oklahoma,

and I've had it for two weeks and nothing. I said, get you some gold rush and just walk out all the private parts that you can, just like you said, with the rag or sling it here and there. And within three days he had multiple bears on the bait. So get out away from your bait. Yeah. Yeah, Sometimes I think sent a bait site can kind of depend up on where it's at, and you may be limited on where you can put it, so you may not build put it on top of a mountain. You may

have to put it down the lower or something. And it kind of kind of holds in until there's a weather change. Sometimes a weather change we'll bring in bears. Remember a real good bear hunter down where I'm from. He he always said, Man, I'm waiting for a north wind. He said, as soon as I get a north wind, half of my baits will just turn on. I mean, but it's about scent distribution. But you can cheat that. You can cheat that with a drag because you can

take your scent to another place. I want to come back and say another we'll do it. Go ahead, now you're gonna take Yeah, if you're gonna open up new place and you do have bears coming in, don't go in and put together a ladder stand. You know, not

there now. I mean, if you feel like that there's a good chance there's gonna be bears there, go ahead and have your set up ready, and don't come back in there and tinker around setting up staying and scrinned tree steps, doing this, this and this, that's the most unnatural thing you could do, right, low pressure? Low pressure. Ye, well we're gonna talk. I want to talk about that. I want to talk about one one more thing after this, and that'll be hunting strategy. But what's your tip for

starting a bait? You don't want to preach the choir, same thing, the scent, the fryer oil is key. I think I don't think you can have a successful bait period if you don't have the call leuer there. Have you ever done a burn? I have done, like a bacon burn, honey burn, stuff like that. You think it did much? You know it probably did, but it's just a lot of hassle. It's something I don't like to hassle with. It's just like he was talking about what

the rhyme was talking about with the stands. I don't want to go in there ten days before season, after bear has been coming, and spend two hours there assemble and stand trying to figure out what tree you put in. I want it all figured out. Here's a tip when you put your bait out, when you're picking a location, make sure that you can get everything done initially that you want done to be ready to hunt. All you

gotta do is go back in there in bait. Yes, And I know that there's times where like last year, last minute, I had to throw the red Nick Gilly blind in there because the wind was it was terrible east wind, and uh, I had to do something to build hunks. My stand wouldn't work. I was out of options at the point. So it worked. It worked. You kill the good bear last year and it worked. Yep, my Candice did. Actually you know, uh, we had that bad cold front coming and all that rain. It just

kind of shut the bait down. But yes, she took a nice twounds. You took a pretty good one the year before though, Oh yeah, very yeah yeah. Color Chocolate Bear nineteen and four sixteen. Yeah, um, real quick, let's talk about let's talk about hunt strategy and tell I'll tell mine first. The way that I handle a bait is I want that bait to be a safe placed for that bear, and I want to be predictable. If

you are predictable, the bears will be predictable. I will. Now, this is best case scenario and and you guys may do different stuff than this, but I don't ever go into a bait in the evening time, like during peak feeding hours, like I will rather. I would rather let a bait go dry then drive into a bait at seven o'clock at night and bump bears off of it. That's just the way I do it, um. And so I want to if if I'm predictable, the bears are predictable.

If the bears are always thinking, is that guy you're not? The bears know that there's a human coming in here. We drive our trucks trap to the bait, We leave our scent like they know, even big bears. You know, last year I kill a five pound bear in Oklahoma. He absolutely knew I was there. He was out there listening to me, you know, when I was unloading my truck.

I mean, I don't think he was eighty yards out there, but I mean he was probably across the valley over on the ridge where he knew what was going on very much so. And he I wanted him to trust me like clockwork, And if I broke that trust, then his trust breaks, and all of a sudden he is wary. So I want him to feel totally comfortable coming in there in the evening, in the daytime and not be afraid that I'm gonna drive in, or I'm gonna sneak in, or I'm gonna slip in. What what I like to do.

And I think this has been key for my success over bait has been because a lot of people ask what do you do on the day you hunt? Because a lot of guys bait on the day they hunt, like drive into the bait and then leave a hunter and then leap go out keep it. That's not a bad thing. I wouldn't say it's best practice though, to me, best practice what I've seen is I've also well two things. I find that the day after you bait is when a lot of those big bears come in in the daytime.

If I'm in there at one o'clock in the afternoon putting out bait, they show up after dark. A lot of times the big ones show up after dark. Now I'm not talking about two pound bears. He may be licking the barrel while you're still in sight driving away. I'm talking about the big ones. I find that the day after you bait is when they are happiest can be because there's a ton of good bait, a lot of variety, and you've been gone for a long time.

So I baited the day before season. In the day of season, I slip in like a ninja, and I don't want him to think I'm there. That's exactly how I do it. You know. Uh, some of these guys want to get in on the bait before daylight. It's it's tough. Yeah, I don't. You don't want to go on evenings. That's the probably the biggest thing that people And well, I want you to finish your To go walking in with a flashlight knowing there's bears in the areas,

one of the most unnatural things you could do. If you're gonna the mornings, why not wait until daylight, ease down to it. And if there was a shooter bear on the bait, I mean you could put you can potentially get a shot, or you could just back off, but you know and slip in the stand quiet. But you know, and you hunt the evening or the afternoon. You know, according to what your cameras are telling you. When I get out of the tree, I shimmy down quiet. I do not turn on a tough flashlight till I'm

a long ways from the bait. People say, well, it's unnerving, maybe a little bit. But you know, if you've done it for a while, you know how it is. Yeah, you know so that I knew you felt that way. Now what you just said. I talked a guy this week, Lee Walt. He I'm gonna have lead listening to this. He'll do it. He got a he got a spot up here that he can bait. And he was just like, what do I do? And uh? And I gave him a speed old about what to do. And he said,

should we hunt mornings? And because he's hunting with me before and we only hunted eat, well, now we hunted mornings. He knows I don't like hunting mornings. And I said, it all matters what your goals are. I said, if you've got a five pound bear coming in there every evening,

don't hunt the morning because you're gonna bump him. Because if if the thing about this trust thing is that if you're slip, if there's a human slipping in there on the opening day at an unnatural time and you inadvertently bumped that five hundred pound bear, you've broke that trust big time, even worse than driving in on him. And more than likely it's not a mature bears first rodeo, you know, yeah, in these parts because they visit lots

of different baits up. So I told him, I said, if you just want to kill a bear, you could probably kill one in the morning, to slip in after daylight with a good wind if you can, and uh, you know, call, call and trying probably kill one. But I said, if you had a five pounder coming in there, don't just don't even hunt. Just sleep in and get in there at two o'clock in the afternoon when no bears are there for sure, and you can get in clean. So what do you think, Jason, You know I've got

mixed for that, and that's good. Tell me how you've got Is my experience on the old faithful bait is I drive right to the bait, and I'm only able to bait Saturdays and Wednesdays. Well, on Wednesdays, I'm driving long ways from work. So I roll in there probably ten o'clock on Saturday's midday and I'll put out a lot of bait. And uh. And like you guys said that, the day after a baiting is usually the hot day. That's usually when most of the bears are gonna pound

the baits. There's fresh bait there. A lot of times they've been out for a day and they're coming to check and they've fresh sitting there, but in the evening, I'm not getting there until six or six thirty afternoon. That I'm glad you said that, because I don't want to create a doctrine. I know there's other ways to do it than the way, and Ryan and I have talked so much, like and I've learned a ton from Ryan. We kind of have this ideal doctrine of baiting bears.

That's part of the reason I wanted you to come, because I knew. I mean, like you're you're you're having to work and then go bait after work, so you're getting in there at six o'clock. I'm driving up there at six o'clock bumping a giant bear off the bait and leaving, and on the camera forty five minutes later, there's either that bear back or another giant. I mean, it's just it's and so it's working for you, it

works for me. I would prefer I'm the same way as use guys before the day of the opening of the season. I want to have it bait it up the day before though, I mean that's what I prefer. I don't want to go in there and bait it that day and then go hunt it. I want to be in there. If it opens on a Saturday, I'm going Friday. I'm loading the heck out of it Friday evening.

Some of those bears will come at night, but the majority of them are gonna come during the day or that next day because that's when it's prime and all

the fresh scents gotten out there. And uh, you know, I used to hunt mornings quite a bit, and I kill two of my biggest bears in the morning, did you really My very first bear right after daylight, drove the truck up there, we got out, got in the stands, my buddy drove it down and at daylight I killed a nineteen and a half inch four pounder, first bear

I ever killed. Yeah, giant. And uh, but I will tell another story, is I had a friend dropped me off at that bait at five forty five in the morning, cause I want to get in there early because a lot of times there are a lot of my bears are hitting my bait in the morning time, and you know, just like seven o'clock, eight thirty to ten, right in there. I get a lot of all day action, but it could have to do with where your baits at right

if somebody else may not be getting that right. It's a good location and they're there and they're just visiting it all day and there's multiple bears there. I had a friend dropped me off at five forty five in the morning. I had my little led headlight on my head and as he's driving the a t V off, I'm in the stand and I can still see his headlights going off the hill and I turned my light hits that bait site and there is a giant standing

in the bait. Wow, literally ten minutes after he dropped me off, and I had to sit there with that bear in the bait until it got daylight. And he left before it was shooting light. So but that and at that point I was like, you know, I feel like after that because see he he came right in stood there for a few minutes. Well, I mean like, did were you able to kill that bear? No? No,

he he left. I was down to uh there there was a hill, There's a big hill to my east and the sun was coming up in the stage really dark even on top of the mount. I guess my question is more what did he do after that? Like in terms of what did he keep coming in the daytime? Because I mean what you just described is what we're saying. Don't do you know, I don't know because they end up killing a nice chocolate bear that evening. Okay, Well

that's a good answer. Yeah, So you don't know. You don't know if he if he if you're returned and that evening, okay. You know, everybody has their trial and there in their certain ways to to do, you know, but you know his baits side, the bears are gonna act different than mine. You know what I baited up in this area. You know, these bears were totally different the way they acted down in the South. So it

was strange. But a guy's just gotta a guy's gotta find a way to have success and just stick with a plan. And I think that's what we've all done, is you just gotta stick with a plan, and you gotta work hard, and you gotta think it through and

you gotta you just gotta think about these things. If nothing else, this is gonna get people thinking and everybody's working with a different scenario like you're working with a deal where you don't you know, Ryan and I work for ourselves, so we can do kind of what we want, and that's a big factor. Um. But most people are having to you know, might have to go in the evening time. Well if you go in the evening time to be consistent, you know, um. And anyway, there's a

lot of variables. And ultimately, I think what I'd like to say is that it's harder than most people think to kill a bear over bait, especially a big one. I mean, you gotta do a lot of things right to kill a big bear overbait. Um. And you've you know, like here in Arkansas. I've actually never killed a big bear overbait in Arkansas. It's really tough and and and part of that's not that's kind of cheat and not

totally fair. Didn't tell the whole story. I mean, I've baited all these years, and I've helped a lot of people kill bears a lot of times. My kids are the priority of what I'm trying to do. Um. And then I've focused my other attention and now in Oklahoma I have and it's a different story. It's just a different story. I got better places over there. Than I do here. Um, And anyway, I say that to say, it's not easy. We're talking and like it's just it's

just easy. My my places in Arkansas have gotten worse actually over the last five years. Yeah. We just five years ago when there was a time when I was I wasn't guiding, but we were auctioning a hunt off for the association. We put people on big bears for several years in a row that they should have killed big ones on open day and they didn't. Um. But I just say it's hard, That's what I say. I mean a lot of some people don't understand. And I

think I'll do a preamble intro to this here. I'm gonna talk about the fair chase aspects of baiting hunting over bait, because it's a it's a ton of work. It's you know, the dream is free, the hustle is sold separately. As they say, well, um, closing thoughts going once, If you're gonna have hunt bear mature bears, it's it's like a marriage. You've gotta have desire and effort, you know, and that combined you'll be more successful. Also, a lot

of sweat equity involved with baiting Bears hardcore. Absolutely don't get out there and get good locations, get good basic and absolutely put the work in. You want good results, you gotta put in the work. Otherwise, you know, you can't just take shortcuts. Full effort, full effort, all right, Well, keep the wild places wild, because that's where the bears will