Bait Stations/feeding Stations: Best Food To Use?

[Guest]

I actually meant more of getting your hands on a dead deer and dragging it out into the woods for use as bait.

[Branco]

Thank you sir, I always appreciate your advice!!! I will try this here in Mark Twain Forest. Honeysuckle is native to this part of the country. And peanut butter always seems to do great when baiting all types of wild life. Especialy deer, from my experiences. Thanks again.

Mizzou: Some National Forests prohibit baiting. I luckily discovered that myself after baiting in the Ouachita NF and before Rangers notified me by a summons. (LOL) I checked some of Mark Twain's R & R's and didn't find anything. They say the State sets the hunting regs. Checked their's and did'nt find anything specific, but you might want to check that yourself. (I'm glad I did. We've got a tiny female Ranger down here that is bad to the bone! (LOL)

Regards.

[Guest]

Most of the time in Oklahoma, deer kill goes untouched and will rot alongside the road. I don't think Bigfoot, unless its one that is sick or old, will venture close enough to a road to grab one. Too many other food sources to feed off. JMHO

Deer kill dissappears along highway 9 pretty fast DW.Maybe humans pick them up.

[Guest Bob]

Hey Mizzousquatchn

I have tried several different kinds of bait. I like the word offering better though. I have left apples, melons, nuts (salted and unsalted), sweet corn and chocolate. The apples and chocolate are taken frequently. I have has some success with sweet corn too. At first the chocolate would sit untouched but I then I unwrapped some. It disappeared that night.

These pictures are from my research site where I leave the goodies. I have found several apples with large bites taken out of them.

[Huntster]

I've baited bears for years. Just the other day we dropped a caribou a couple hundred yards from camp, and were excited about the possibility of a brown bear coming in to the gutpile, but all we got were a family of foxes. And they were smart enough to only come under the cover of a thick morning fog. They are cautious of eagles, anyway..........

Rotten meat is not what one wants to use to bait black bears. It will attract brown bears, instead, and they will keep the blackies away (brown bears are not legal to shoot over bait). It is best to use sweets to bait black bears. Cheapest is an oat/grain livestock feed mixture soaked in molassas or imitation maple syrup.

"Bait balls" are becoming popular up here for bear. Those are balls of vegetable grease/fat almost the size of a basketball that are scented with various scents: bacon, anise (excellent for black bears), fruit, etc. The grease balls are either in a "net" that is hung from a tree or line, or has a metal rod through the middle of it with a hanging hook. Rain or direct sunlight melts the ball, it drips onto the ground, and the melting releases more scent. They work well.

Years ago, long before the current crop of commercial baits and scents, we'd use scent candles we made ourselves. These were mostly honey burns. It worked like the bait balls, but leaving a lit candle in a big coffee can full of honey/wax can be a fire hazard.

Many believe baiting is so effective that it's an unfair hunting tactic. This rationale is often used by anti-hunters who don't know what they're talking about, and if used by Bigfoot researchers, the skeptics will pooh-pooh as if it should guarantee a herd of sasquatches posing for their photos at a bait site.

Nothing can be further from the truth.

If anybody out there thinks that baiting (or calling, for that matter, either electronically or with mouth blown calls) is a guarantee of anything, they clearly don't know what they're talking about. That's why they call it "hunting". There are no guarantees of anything, especially when discussing a very rare creature.

[Will]

Original and crispy KFC.... Trust me

The best bait I have ever used

I'll go and get a 10 piece buckett and save the skin and bones for my traps. I'm hungry again

Edited September 22, 2010 by will

[Guest]

To go along with the mention of bait balls and KFC fried chicken. What about used fryolator grease?

[indiefoot]

Has anyone tried non food items?

[Guest mizzousquatchn]

Hey Mizzousquatchn

I have tried several different kinds of bait. I like the word offering better though. I have left apples, melons, nuts (salted and unsalted), sweet corn and chocolate. The apples and chocolate are taken frequently. I have has some success with sweet corn too. At first the chocolate would sit untouched but I then I unwrapped some. It disappeared that night.

These pictures are from my research site where I leave the goodies. I have found several apples with large bites taken out of them.

Hey Bob, thanks for your input! And yes, i agree, i should refer to it as offerings. Baiting just doesnt sound right with the intelegence that we may be dealing with. I will try and offer some of the items you suggested. Thanks again. Brian

[Guest TooRisky]

Hey Mizzousquatchn

I have tried several different kinds of bait. I like the word offering better though. I have left apples, melons, nuts (salted and unsalted), sweet corn and chocolate. The apples and chocolate are taken frequently. I have has some success with sweet corn too. At first the chocolate would sit untouched but I then I unwrapped some. It disappeared that night.

These pictures are from my research site where I leave the goodies. I have found several apples with large bites taken out of them.

The apples with only 1 bite may be an indicator that you are not completely washing them... I know that I can taste some chemicals on fresh fruit and veggies so Ol' Biggie must taste it to... Also after washing the apples and veggies for Biggie be sure not to touch them or get any human scent on them... We go as far as to spray down the bait area with Salmon/water mix to cover our tracks...

This all may be a waste of time, but one never knows...

[Guest]

I didn't use food. I have a game trail running along a river bank below my condo. I used old chipped chandelier prisms I got from an antique store and got a ladder and strung them up high in a tree along this trail. They were gone, string and all,in a couple of days and there wasn't any foot prints left in the flour I put under the branches where I hung them up. I don't know what took them but something liked the way the moonlight from the full moon reflected off of them. I haven't tried it again because I was kind of surprised they went missing. I didn't think it would really work. I doubt it was a raccoon since it was about 30 prisms knotted like a string of Christmas tree garland. I think it would have had a hard time untrimming that fishing line from the tree branches. I guess a human could have done it but there wasn't any prints in the flour. It remains a mystery to me and I haven't had the nerve to repeat the experiment again.

[Guest UPs]

I just helped a friend recover a black bear he shot. He hunts over bait and there are quite a few rules to follow for bear hunting, depending on the specific season. He hunted the 1st season and was not allowed to use bait that attracts deer. To draw them in, he uses a mixture of fish guts and water. He puts them in sealed containers and lets them sun bake and rot. This mixture is just to get them in the area. I am not sure what he used for feeding bait this year, but many have success with doughnuts. About 4 years ago, I went over to their cabin to make sure everything was okay (I keep an eye on it when they are not there) and there were 4 50-gallon drums on a trailer. One was completely smashed and all the bait was gone. Another had dents and scratch marks on it and was also tipped over. I called him and told him about it and also asked what he had in them. It was spoiled cookie dough that he had bought from an auction. I imagine that drum weighed at least 300 lbs and I bet the bears bellies were full. If you are looking for this type of bait to try out, contact a bakery and see if you can get their out of date goods.

The stench from that fish guts stuff was the most disgusting thing I have ever smelled and it was very hard to gut out the bear because of this odor. I cannot even describe the odor, but it smelled nothing at all like fish. UPs

[Guest mizzousquatchn]

I just helped a friend recover a black bear he shot. He hunts over bait and there are quite a few rules to follow for bear hunting, depending on the specific season. He hunted the 1st season and was not allowed to use bait that attracts deer. To draw them in, he uses a mixture of fish guts and water. He puts them in sealed containers and lets them sun bake and rot. This mixture is just to get them in the area. I am not sure what he used for feeding bait this year, but many have success with doughnuts. About 4 years ago, I went over to their cabin to make sure everything was okay (I keep an eye on it when they are not there) and there were 4 50-gallon drums on a trailer. One was completely smashed and all the bait was gone. Another had dents and scratch marks on it and was also tipped over. I called him and told him about it and also asked what he had in them. It was spoiled cookie dough that he had bought from an auction. I imagine that drum weighed at least 300 lbs and I bet the bears bellies were full. If you are looking for this type of bait to try out, contact a bakery and see if you can get their out of date goods.

The stench from that fish guts stuff was the most disgusting thing I have ever smelled and it was very hard to gut out the bear because of this odor. I cannot even describe the odor, but it smelled nothing at all like fish. UPs

Thats great UPs!!! thanks for sharing!!!!!!!

[Huntster]

I didn't use food. I have a game trail running along a river bank below my condo. I used old chipped chandelier prisms I got from an antique store and got a ladder and strung them up high in a tree along this trail. They were gone, string and all,in a couple of days and there wasn't any foot prints left in the flour I put under the branches where I hung them up. I don't know what took them but something liked the way the moonlight from the full moon reflected off of them.

This type of lure (bait is food; non-food attractants are lures) works well on lynx/bobcats, but I've never heard of the cats actually taking it away. We use grouse wings dangling in the tree, which flutter in the breeze, over our trap sets to attract lynx.

[Guest]

This type of lure (bait is food; non-food attractants are lures) works well on lynx/bobcats, but I've never heard of the cats actually taking it away. We use grouse wings dangling in the tree, which flutter in the breeze, over our trap sets to attract lynx.

Ahhh I see, thanks, I was wondering what could unwind it from the limbs. I know raccoons have hands that might be able to do it but not the sense to trace the line wrapped and woven around the branches.