Where did my bears go?

[broadfork]

I have been baiting in Idaho, and have had several bears hitting the baits. Two weeks ago I had two baits with at least five different bears enjoying my buffet. This weekend I went back up and the bears haven't been back. What happened? The bait is still there in all it's stinky glory, and I had camera's on them all week.

Can the rainy weather hamper bear movement for a whole week? Did they find something better? I'm new to this and would love to here some experiences.

 

[elkantlers]

It's starting to warm up, Maybe they headed for higher, cooler ground.

 

[springbear]

yours was not the only one that that happened to.

several of my buddies noticed the same thing.

could have been hound hunters. but more than likely, they just shifted food sources.

 

[buglinbilly]

There are several factors, in most areas, that influence bears being at baits, at this time of year, from my experiences.

I have baited bears for just over 30 years, and here's what I have come to believe concerning bears, baits, location and time of year.

If you place bait at a low elevation it might come on early, but in many cases it will die off as the higher elevation snow melts and as things green up. The bear in many instances like this just move on to the higher country.

I used to bait bears in the Bookcliffs for many years, and some of our best early baits, just died off and we had other baits that would never get hit early, but come on strong around the 20th of May.

Most all our baits would taper off in late May and then come back on around June 10th or so. Those dates pretty well parallel the calving, and fawning season of deer, elk, and moose. Once that's over and the little one can run with their mothers, the baits seem to come back to life, unless it happened to be a low bait and in that case most of the bears have moved to higher country and don't return.

That has been my experience through the many years that I have baited bear.

Here's a photo of a bear taken in the Books many moons ago by a friend of mine just before Utah closed down baiting for a period of time.

Have a good one. BB

 

[knoxville471]

i've been dealing with the same scenario my bait is a little higher than most so i'm keepin my hopes up and so should you. i've noticed once they start gettin hungry again they will revisit the site but may take ten to twenty days

 

[Gator]

If the bugs are bad they might of moved up closer to the snow line and the newer grass.


"I have found if you go the extra mile it's Never crowded".

 

[BCBOY]

LAST EDITED ON Jun-07-10 AT 09:26PM (MST)[p]What else is happening the last week of May to the first week of June? Hmmm, the does are dropping their fawns ain't they? Many people don't realize how much of a predator black bears really are. Many mature bears hit the trees and start hunting fawns. Pay attention to the bigger bear scat. You'll see little hoofs in it this time of year. Seems the boars eat meat for a week or so and then, with their bellies full of meat, they go on the prowl looking for sows. The rut is starting and this is the best time to find the big boys. They cover a lot of ground in search of sex. They ain't like deer, it ain't wham, bam, thank ya mam. Bears actually are one critter that loves sex. Lets just say they can screw one sow for days. Quite common to see sows with no hair on their ass end in June.